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8th March 2008 report
David Mearns - Search Director, The Finding
Sydney Foundation
With Ophelia out of the way we were able to resume the search today
and start to make a dent in the search box. However you compare it,
our search box is extremely large. In marine terms it measures
roughly 1,800 square nautical miles ( a nautical mile is 15 percent
longer than a statute mile), or about 2.5 times larger than the ACT.
It is by far the largest area I have ever set out to cover in a
shipwreck search project.
Another way to think about this search is to place yourself in a
location on land, and imagine a box that extends 39 kilometres in
every direction (i.e. to the north, south, east and west). The land
will have areas that are flat and sandy, but also areas that are
rocky and hilly. Within that enormous area the lost object to be
found can be the size of HMAS Sydney (171.4 metres long and 17.3
metres wide), but in the case of Kormoran it is probably broken into
a number of smaller pieces scattered about. Finally, imagine the
land you are searching is flooded with several thousands of metres
of water and this will give you an idea of the challenge we face.
It
was very good to be back on the hunt. John Perryman and I have set
up our workspace in a room immediately adjacent to the survey lab.
Here we can monitor the incoming SM30 sonar imagery on our own
computer and be in direct contact with the Williamson & Associates
operators and the ship's bridge by telephone. Our space also doubles
as a library for research documents and includes a chart table for
navigation plotting.
John Perryman - Senior Navy Historian (Observer)
With the weather having improved considerably throughout the day we
are now back in our search box, with our sonar deployed and our
spirits rising following the challenges of the last few days.
News of the discovery of another World War II shipwreck by the
Norwegian mine-hunter HNOMS Tyr, was also seen as a very good omen.
Tyr was taking part in a multi-national training exercise when she
discovered the wreck of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Hunter in 1000
feet of water. Hunter was sunk by German naval forces during the
Narvik campaign of 1940. Of her crew of 145, 110 lost their lives.
As if to reinforce the purpose of our own search, one of Hunter’s
survivors, Fred Ward, spoke of his great sense of relief at knowing
the final resting place of so many of his comrades. With this in
mind the search team continues to monitor the numerous displays and
monitors in the survey room for the first indications of a debris
field that will lead us to Kormoran and Sydney.
For additional information concerning the discovery of HMS Hunter go
to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7283100.stm |
