Divers visit the SS Tahoe

I'm not sure if this has been posted here yet, but here's a trip report from this last weekends dives.

--Scott

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Divers visit the SS Tahoe, September 13, 2009
Press Release – New Millennium Dive Expeditions (NMDE) – Reno, Nevada

It was a perfect weather weekend, or so it was predicted, for NMDE to implement a two day project with the ultimate goal of visiting the SS Tahoe, some 400’ below the surface of Tahoe, for 8 minutes and capture some HD video of the dive.

On Saturday September 12th, 2009, 6 members of the NMDE team, Martin McClellan, James Novaes, Merlin Rhoda, Scott Ekkelboom, Marc Briseno and Mike Soldwisch went to Glenbrook bay to set-up and prepare for a major SS Tahoe expedition dive to follow the next day. Team assignments would be Rhoda and Ekkelboom traveling to 240’ setting up decompression bottles along the bottom to be used the next day by the expedition video team of McClellan and Novaes, the latter two would be operating the dive boat on this “Set-up” day and acting as surface support. Briseno and Soldwisch would be shallow support divers assisting Rhoda and Ekkelboom in the 70’ to surface zone along with setting up some of the shallow portion of the dive site in preparation of Sunday’s video expedition.

The Saturday dives went exceptionally well and the weather was fully cooperating. The deep team successfully staged decompression breathing gas at 120 feet, 190 feet and 240 feet in preparation for Sunday’s dives while the shallow team did navigational management and positioned additional breathing gas in the 30’ zone. All dives went off with professional execution and the NMDE team was off the lake by 2pm with all the preparations ready for a long day Sunday.

Sunday, September 13, boat preparations and loading began at 8am in the Cave Rock parking lot and by 9:15am both NMDE support boats a (24 foot Seaswirl and a 24’ pontoon boat) were loaded into the lake and motoring out toward Glenbrook Bay. By 10am, all boats were anchored and after a few technical adjustments the video expedition divers McClellan and Novaes descended around 11am, hit the triggers on their underwater scooters and began the 12 minute underwater journey to the SS Tahoe along the sandy bottom of Glenbrook Bay taking them all the way to the wrecksite at 360 – 470 feet. After this 12 minute journey, the divers would spend 8 minutes on the SS Tahoe and then begin their return to the surface. This dive would run a total of 180 to 210 minutes underwater; 20 minutes of time on the bottom followed by 160 – 190 minutes of decompression on 6 different breathing gasses. The video expedition divers were supported by the deep support team of Rhoda and Ekkelboom and were met some 30 minutes into the dive at 200’. The deep support team would then mirror the video expedition divers all the way to 20’. At some 70 minutes after the beginning of the dive, the shallow support team of Briseno and Soldwisch met both teams at 70 feet and monitored each team along with dive clean up (surfacing some 20 empty SCUBA tanks that were being used during the dive) throughout the next 2 hours of decompression by both teams. On the surface were 4 of NMDE team members monitoring and coordinating all diving activities below, retrieving all used gear from the water as it was sent up from the divers below, managing the boating operations and communicating with our beach station at the Cave Rock boat launch. On the surface were Jimi Quinn, Wendy Wangberg, Dana Durgin and Mikee Revty.

The Tahoe was visited for the 7th time today (5 times in 2002, once on August 29th, 2009 by the NMDE Team) and approximately 5-7 minutes of HD video was filmed by the team moving from the bow of the SS Tahoe resting in 350 feet of water all the way back to the collapsed rear superstructure in over 410’ of water just behind the standing stoic smokestack. The stern, resting in 470 feet of water has not yet been visited. All dives went off as planned emphasizing safety, archaeological sound diving practices, professionalism and efficiency. Unfortunately the surface conditions deteriorated from glass flat to small craft warnings during the 3 hour dive and the predicted late afternoon winds hit much earlier and with much more force, however the seasoned NMDE surface support team maintained calm, got all equipment secured and all divers back to shore without any damage to person or loss of property. It was a hugely successful day for the NMDE Team.

New Millennium Dive Expeditions [ www.nmde.org ] is a Nevada non-profit corporation that is IRS recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization formed in 2001 solely to study the 4 remaining shipwrecks lying upon Tahoe’s bottom. In 2002, NMDE led the first expedition dives of its kind in Tahoe to visit the site with conventional open-circuit SCUBA equipment and in 2004/2005, NMDE was instrumental in helping the State of Nevada in getting the SS Tahoe listed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks and as such, the SS Tahoe is now a nationally protected historic site. However, it can not be seen by the public and thus, NMDE endeavors to complete a documentary film along with providing documentation on the site, its surroundings and its condition to the State Historic Preservation Office of Nevada..

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Permalink Reply by Michael Soldwisch on September 18, 2009 at 9:14pm

Here are some photos from our dive:

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Permalink Reply by Chris Johnson on September 18, 2009 at 9:34pm

Where are the photos?

Michael Soldwisch said:

Here are some photos from our dive:

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Permalink Reply by Michael Soldwisch on September 18, 2009 at 11:12pm

Try this link:

Photos

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Permalink Reply by Michael Soldwisch on September 20, 2009 at 11:41am

And Here is a video:

Video

Chris Johnson said:

Where are the photos?

Michael Soldwisch said:
Here are some photos from our dive:

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Permalink Reply by Maciej Arkuszewski on September 21, 2009 at 9:21am

This is really impressive thing to put together. Thanks guys for report. It is a good read.

How did you guys set up the deco bottles the previous day? Were all of them on a bottom or did you actually hang them mid water?
I'm assuming bottom push divers dropped on your 240 deposit and followed heading from there to find the wreck and obviously they also run the line. Is that correct? if that was the case , how did you maximize your chances of finding the wreck?

I understand if you prefer not to share those details to protect the site, but doesn't hurt to ask :).

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Permalink Reply by Scott Ekkelboom on September 21, 2009 at 9:52am

Hey Maciej,

Thanks for the question. We actually have a line running from the wreck to 65' of water. We staged our 70' & 20' bottles and then scootered out the line dropping bottles at 120' 190' and 240'. If you watch the video, you can actually see the line hooked into bow of the boat on the starboard side. The bottom falls away quite quick at this part of the lake so it's only about a 12 minute run from 70' to the bow of the wreck at 370'. The second day was a bit easier as we only had to run out the line to about 200' to meet the deep divers as they ascended back up the line. We mirrored their deco up to 70' and at 100' we relieved them of their stages and dropped them at 70' for shallow support divers. When we hit 70', we did a "hand-off" if you will of equipment and divers and went on our own sceduled deco and met everyone back at 20' for the O2 portion of our deco. I hope that helps, but if you have anymore questions, please feel free to ask. :)

Scott

Maciej Arkuszewski said:

This is really impressive thing to put together. Thanks guys for report. It is a good read.

How did you guys set up the deco bottles the previous day? Were all of them on a bottom or did you actually hang them mid water?
I'm assuming bottom push divers dropped on your 240 deposit and followed heading from there to find the wreck and obviously they also run the line. Is that correct? if that was the case , how did you maximize your chances of finding the wreck?

I understand if you prefer not to share those details to protect the site, but doesn't hurt to ask :).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Maciej Arkuszewski on September 21, 2009 at 10:06am

Scott Ekkelboom said:

Hey Maciej,

Thanks for the question. We actually have a line running from the wreck to 65' of water.

Oh that sure makes it way easier. I guess I'm asking how did it get there in a first place :).

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Permalink Reply by Scott Ekkelboom on September 21, 2009 at 10:10am

The line was actually laid back in 2002 I think. They hooked the wreck and then dropped the line in shallow water.

Maciej Arkuszewski said:

Scott Ekkelboom said:
Hey Maciej,

Thanks for the question. We actually have a line running from the wreck to 65' of water.

Oh that sure makes it way easier. I guess I'm asking how did it get there in a first place :).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Richard on September 21, 2009 at 1:49pm

Nice job guys. Cool pics, surprised you had suitable housings. How much time did you do on 50% and what was its shape? How long were you on the high ppo2 50% bottle at 70 and 60ft? Did you require any backgas breaks at those stops?

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Permalink Reply by Scott Ekkelboom on September 21, 2009 at 2:22pm

On Sunday, for us deeper suport divers, we did a 72 minute runtime from 70' to 210' and back to 70'. We used standard ratio deco with an S-Curve and did 100 minutes of deco. Our gasses were 120' bottle, a 70' botle and an O2 bottle. On the O2, we did a couple of backgas breaks with a 6 min ascent on O2. I'm not sure the exact profile of the deep divers...but I'll try to get James or Martin to jump in. I hope that helps. :)

Richard said:

Nice job guys. Cool pics, surprised you had suitable housings. How much time did you do on 50% and what was its shape? How long were you on the high ppo2 50% bottle at 70 and 60ft? Did you require any backgas breaks at those stops?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Scott Ekkelboom on September 22, 2009 at 1:52pm

I just want to clarify that the main line sits much deeper and can not be found without GPS coordinates. We had run a temporary line off of the main line to 65' using GPS during previous setup dives. That line has since been removed. The main line is in much deeper water due to the protected nature of the wreck being on the United States National Register of Historic Landmarks. Here's a quick excerpt from Martin.

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As a follow-up to all this, in 2002, NMDE established this line to the SS Tahoe with the permission from the State of Nevada's Historical Preservation office at incredible cost to NMDE. The site in 2005 was listed on the United States National Register of Historic Landmarks resulting from the work of NMDE and as a result the site and any debris on the Glenbrook Wall is protected. Any planned diving on the site must first be registered with the State of Nevada and out of courtesy, NMDE should be notified as well. Protecting that line is critical to the future work that NMDE has planned for the benefit of the State. Please further realize that due to lake conditions, there are only specific times when diving on this site should be attempted and a full knowledge of the site and its hazzards should be in the possession of any team planning such an attempt. NMDE has spent over 10 years endeavoring to visit this site safely and their infrastructure as here in revealed has cost this organization a considerable amount so respect of these accomplishments is appreciated.

Scott Ekkelboom said:

The line was actually laid back in 2002 I think. They hooked the wreck and then dropped the line in shallow water.

Maciej Arkuszewski said:
Scott Ekkelboom said:
Hey Maciej,

Thanks for the question. We actually have a line running from the wreck to 65' of water.

Oh that sure makes it way easier. I guess I'm asking how did it get there in a first place :).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by James Novaes on September 22, 2009 at 6:56pm

Richard,

We used Ratio Deco and cascaded the times. We add a bit more time on the oxygen to cover for the altitude issue. Over the past nine months Martin and I have been doing much diving in the 250'-300' range experimenting with deco profiles and all the available software. We decided that the Ratio Deco over terrain works best due to it's flexibility of moving times around to suit the terrain being covered with the scooters.

We used the GATES housing matted to a DiveXtras CUDA 550. The camera set up worked great and the Cuda ran at depth like it does in 20' of water.

Richard said:

Nice job guys. Cool pics, surprised you had suitable housings. How much time did you do on 50% and what was its shape? How long were you on the high ppo2 50% bottle at 70 and 60ft? Did you require any backgas breaks at those stops?