Exploration Report. Virgin wreck no more... diving the wreck of the Famous

Over the past two and half years we've been trying to organize an expedition to dive this wreck. The Famous was build in England in 1890 after which she was used all over the world. She sailed in Australia, China and later was used as a passenger ship carrying people to Alaska during the Gold rush. She found her resting place in Indian Arm near Vancouver in 1936. It wasn't till 2007 when she was found again by accident during unrelated sea floor mapping by an ROV. UASBC (Underwater Archeological Society of BC) was able to determine from the coordinates that it was the wreck of the Famous. She lies in 240' of water on a flat and very silty bottom.

In the past there were multiple unsuccessful attempts to dive this wreck. It wasn't till six months ago when we were contacted by the UASBC with the proper coordinates and the task to dive the wreck and gather as much archeological data as possible.

We have spent six months organizing all the logistical details. We have created SOP specific to this project including SOP for Support Divers, Surface Manager and emergency protocols. We have practiced on shallower wrecks gathering archeological measurements.

On March 13th we left Victoria at 4:00 am to catch the ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver. We met with couple of other divers from Vancouver and by 9:30 the team was assembled: Gas Divers: Mark Gottfried, Guy Shockey, Chris Fenton, Kim Anderson and Alan Johnson. Support Divers: Dave Healy and Richard Parker. Surface Manager: Jeremy Hoey and Captain Shay of the MV Cheers.

Captain Shay has placed an upline in the location provided by the UASBC few days earlier. Double and triple checking the location and watching the blip on the screen we were convinced that we had the right location.

The first Gas Team (Mark Gottfried and Guy Shockey) got geared up and started the descent in pretty much zero viz. By 40' the viz opened up to about 15'. I got excited thinking that we could get lucky in the area that is well known for crapy viz. Well not so, by 120' the viz was maybe 10'. Didn't matter, all of sudden we saw the wreck. The depth was 230', the viz was nice 7'. We tied off from the upline and followed the wrecks railing to what we thought was the bow. The wreck was absolutely covered with life. The plumose anemonies were covering everything. Finding an exposed piece of metal was not easy. Shortly thereafter we were at the bow...50% chance :-). We tied off our reel and deployed the second reel with length marked thicker line that we were going to use as a permanent line running the length of the wreck. After that we hit the trigger and spooled out approximately 220' of line. Tied off on the stern. Looked around in mixture of excitement that we were the very first divers ever on this wreck. We expected a pile of rubble after almost 80 years on the bottom. But to our astonishment this thing was nicely intact covered with life and huge rock fish and lingcods. Even in that lousy viz we were able to clearly see the hull, superstructure, collapsed stack and huge amount of riggings. Before we knew the 20 min was up and we were on our way for long deco. It was great to see the support divers at 70', taking our 120' bottles, watching us brining the O2 bottles forward and getting settled for the next deco phase. There was a lot of elation when we surfaced. It was truly an awesome feeling.

We briefed the second Gas Team of Chris Fenton, Alan Johnson and Kim Anderson on the conditions and the location of the permanent line. Their dive went without a glitch except for loosing the reel with measuring tape. Small price to pay for this experience.

Day two. Guy came down with a nasty cold and had to sit this one out. The first Gas Team of Mark Gottfried and Alan Johnson descended into pretty much 5' viz all the way down to the bottom. We found the line and reel connecting the upline with the wreck in place. It was amazing to see how much silt was already on it. Alan and I then scootered the lenght of the ship following the line we laid down on Saturday. We re-tied the stern end and cut the reel. From there we scootered to the last length mark on our permanent line. We used little "woody" knot that allowed us to clip our tape measure reel to the line and take two offset measurements. We surveyed as much as we could within the 25 min of bottom time and headed up for another long, dark deco.

The second Gas Team of Chris Fenton and Kim Anderson head down for some video footage. They gathered surprisingly decent footage given the viz. They also managed to clearly established that the upline was closer to the bow. That was the place where we started the permanent line from. The footage captured a lot of details on the surprisingly intact wreck that is laying on the port side with the starboard hull collapsing in.

Overall a great success when a difficult diving went without a glitch. We gathered a great deal of useful archeological data. Big thanks to a great team work and special thanks to the support divers and the surface manager making everything go smoothly but most importantly safely. Our endeavor already made the local newspaper on Sunday, even before the expedition was completed. The UASBC was very excited and promised future cooperation on diving more undived wrecks in BC waters.

Mark Gottfried, UTD Instructor