A Tale of two Shipwrecks

Many dive clubs have a story, or a project that they are involved in.

Chester Sub-Aqua Club has, over the 30+ years since its formation, many such stories. But when we first dived a wreck on the North Coast of Anglesey, none of us knew the story that was about to unfold...

The first time we dived the "Lady Windsor" it was a miserable wet day off the North Coast of Anglesey. The visibility was less than one metre due to the annual plankton bloom in Liverpool Bay, not ideal conditions when you're 30m beneath the surface of the Irish Sea.

It wasn't a good dive, and we didn't think about the wreck again for many months, until one weekend of fine weather, when we decided to give the site another try. What a difference, we decended onto the wreck in stunning visibility and found the wreck swarming with fish and other marine life. This time we could swim over the whole wreck and get an idea of its size, shape and dimensions.

At that point the only thing we knew about the wreck was that it wasn't the Lady Windsor! The Lady Windsor was a wooden hulled vessel that was burnt on Cemaes beach to recover the copper fastenings. So we nicknamed our wreck 'Not' The Lady Windsor, or, NTLW. We continued to dive the wreck during the summer, and surveyed the site, taking measurements, photo's and videos of the wreck. Using information from the Hydrographic office we discovered the bow of the ship was 'blown off' from the main part of the wreck, and this was located some 50m away from the stern section. We began to look at records of lost vessels in the area including newspaper reports and Lloyds Register that records ships details and losses.

During this research, we put a name to our first shipwreck - The Kincorth, a steam trawler built in Aberdeen. The nature of the sinking fitted, as she was mined roughly where our wreck was situated, and the dimensions of the wreck fitted. We also uncovered photographs of the Kincorth, and these matched the general layout of our wreck. It was more and more likely our wreck was the Kincorth. There was only one problem, one major problem. The Kincorth was a well known shipwreck off the coast of Anglesey that was situated about 4 miles from the position of our wreck.

The only thing left for us to to was began reasearching the wreck that was known as the "Kincorth". The wreck was well known, and a bell marked TR4 was recovered from the wreck in the 1980's. The name of the Kincorth was put to the wreck, and so it remained for over 20 years. Once again, we started to look at ship losses in the area, and research newspaper reports. The TR4 designation from the bell led us to a series of minsweeping steam powered trawlers built in Canada for the Royal Navy. One of these vessels, TR4, was sold to the Boston Deep Sea Fishing and Ice Company in Fleetwood after the war. She was renamed the Cartagena and subsequently sold to the Brazilian Government. A local crew was tasked to deliver the Cartagena to Brazil, and she left Fleetwood in January of 1928 - and was never seen again.

Could the wreck that was known as the Kincorth actually be the Cartagena? We had photo's and blueprints of the TR series of trawlers, so there was only one thing to do. Dive the wreck and match up this information with what we found on the bottom of the Irish Sea. Unfortunately, we had to wait over six months before we could get to the wreck due to the winter weather conditions. Finally, in 2007, a weekend of settled weather meant we could visit the wreck site.

We had studied the blueprints and photo's in some detail - and as soon as we descended onto the decks of the wreck - we knew she was the Cartagena. All the features of the wreck matched what we had studied on the surface, and we found the wreck in remarkable condition. Even as we were underwater at 35 metres, we were buzzing with excitement!

Back on the surface we were now able to piece together the story of the Cartagena. A ship that had been lost for almost 80 years, and misidentified for over 20 years. We documented all the information and released it to the public. The story was first documented in the local and diving press, before it was picked up by the Fleetwood newspapers, and the CanWest news agency in Canada where the Cartagena was built. The story was then picked up by Granada Reports who visited the Branch at Chester and interviewed two of our members. The story was then aired in the Granada region and across North Wales.

Unknown to us, the Cartagena story aired on Granada Reports was seen by Kaj and June Petterson from Fleetwood. Kaj's' Grandfather, also Kaj Petterson, was the Chief Officer of the Cartagena. We visited Fleetwood later in the year and met with the Petterson's to discuss the story of the Cartagena. We have kept in touch since the discovery of the wreck, and continued to swap information, stories and photographs.

It has been a fantastic story to be involved in - and during 2009 we plan to carry out additional survey's of the two wrecks and monitor their condition over the coming years.

The full history of both the Kincorth and the Cartagena can be found in Chris Holden's' "The Essential Underwater Guide to North Wales Volume 2" which is available from Calgo Publications. As well as the history of each wreck, it contains GPS positions and slack water information to enable you to fully appreciate each of these stunning wreck dives. For further information click the link below;