Well I hope Richie goes after them and gets them shutdown.
Richie Kohler accused of looting
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cdiver2
Contributor
It would seem the gentleman making the initial complaint Rob Rondeau (according to (CDNN) has a reputation/experience in wreck preservation Benthic Canada
Our first crew were from New Jersey - used to diving cold water and strong currents so Thailand was going be easy for them.
We started with a wreck we knew, the Nanmei No5 Maru and then moved on to a mark we hoped was going to be the Araosan Maru. We found a large freighter sitting upright but she was a bit too new to be a WW2 maru.
Dan Bartone, skipper of Independence II, an Atlantic wreck diving boat, lifted the telegraph which after cleaning revealed it was made in a Dutch yard in the 1950’s. Evan , Deep Sea Detective cameraman,found the bell marked ‘Akela’ - his first. According to the NJ divers it’s tradition to kiss the captain’s arse if you want to keep a bell - a tradition which MV Trident will try and preserve- see above.
After 4 dives on the Akela ,pictured above, we moved on to one of our favourite wrecks , the Tottori Maru for 4 more dives and one more telegraph, and then back overnight to Samui.
Two days later we picked up our second charter, a group of divers mostly from the Great Lakes, and Alberto- all the way from Mexico.
After an overnight steam we arrived at our newly found Seacrest wreck, and tied into the moon pool at 50m an easy entry in to the wreck. After only one dive on a ‘nearly virgin ‘ wreck, the group decided to gamble and try a new mark 50nm futher east - a ‘real virgin’, but a good chance of missing a lot of dives if it turned out to be nothing.
This mark was nearer to the Hardhead’s position of Araosan Maru, the farthest we’ve been east and the first time into Cambodian waters.
We arrived at 8pm and after a brief search hit a large target on the sounder. First thing in the morning we tied onto a huge upright freighter, wheelhouse amidships, five levels of accommodation, telegraph, helm all in place - but again, post war, very post war, less than 20 years in the water- hardly an historical find.
We have no ID for this one so we’re going to call her SS Carrie, after Carrie Kohler . Yet another telegraph told us this was an Asian vessel, I think made in Japan, operated by Taiwan or Hong Kong.
After two days here we dropped into see the Tottori Maru again and had some great dives. Richie and Evan made a positive ID of the Tottori by finding the name on the bow.On the last day we were visited by a very friendly whale shark to help break up the deco - a first for the Great Lakes lads.
In total we completed 260 deco dives, all 70m plus, mostly CCR. We steamed 560nmiles, breathed 90,000L of Helium, 120,000L of Oxygen, used 200K of sorb and drank 40 cases of Heineken.
On the last day we picked up two new marks for the Araosan, one of them only a few miles from Hardhead’s mark, next time we’ll get her, I’m sure.
Tech Thailand
I would think if he did not make a complaint naming RK then it could cost CDNN big dollars
Our first crew were from New Jersey - used to diving cold water and strong currents so Thailand was going be easy for them.
We started with a wreck we knew, the Nanmei No5 Maru and then moved on to a mark we hoped was going to be the Araosan Maru. We found a large freighter sitting upright but she was a bit too new to be a WW2 maru.
Dan Bartone, skipper of Independence II, an Atlantic wreck diving boat, lifted the telegraph which after cleaning revealed it was made in a Dutch yard in the 1950’s. Evan , Deep Sea Detective cameraman,found the bell marked ‘Akela’ - his first. According to the NJ divers it’s tradition to kiss the captain’s arse if you want to keep a bell - a tradition which MV Trident will try and preserve- see above.
After 4 dives on the Akela ,pictured above, we moved on to one of our favourite wrecks , the Tottori Maru for 4 more dives and one more telegraph, and then back overnight to Samui.
Two days later we picked up our second charter, a group of divers mostly from the Great Lakes, and Alberto- all the way from Mexico.
After an overnight steam we arrived at our newly found Seacrest wreck, and tied into the moon pool at 50m an easy entry in to the wreck. After only one dive on a ‘nearly virgin ‘ wreck, the group decided to gamble and try a new mark 50nm futher east - a ‘real virgin’, but a good chance of missing a lot of dives if it turned out to be nothing.
This mark was nearer to the Hardhead’s position of Araosan Maru, the farthest we’ve been east and the first time into Cambodian waters.
We arrived at 8pm and after a brief search hit a large target on the sounder. First thing in the morning we tied onto a huge upright freighter, wheelhouse amidships, five levels of accommodation, telegraph, helm all in place - but again, post war, very post war, less than 20 years in the water- hardly an historical find.
We have no ID for this one so we’re going to call her SS Carrie, after Carrie Kohler . Yet another telegraph told us this was an Asian vessel, I think made in Japan, operated by Taiwan or Hong Kong.
After two days here we dropped into see the Tottori Maru again and had some great dives. Richie and Evan made a positive ID of the Tottori by finding the name on the bow.On the last day we were visited by a very friendly whale shark to help break up the deco - a first for the Great Lakes lads.
In total we completed 260 deco dives, all 70m plus, mostly CCR. We steamed 560nmiles, breathed 90,000L of Helium, 120,000L of Oxygen, used 200K of sorb and drank 40 cases of Heineken.
On the last day we picked up two new marks for the Araosan, one of them only a few miles from Hardhead’s mark, next time we’ll get her, I’m sure.
Tech Thailand
I would think if he did not make a complaint naming RK then it could cost CDNN big dollars
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It's a nice thought, but the reality is a little different as our wreck diving community's record in this regard sucks.
For example, there are U-boats up and down the Atlantic coast that are war graves that get dove on a regular basis. Other than the U-1105, which was scuttled by the US navy after WWII, all the WWII U-boats in America waters are war graves.
The U-352 and U-701 are text book examples of war graves that were "looted" and defaced despite very public requests by the German government. Both continue to be defaced by artifact hunting divers to this day.
And it is just not a matter of it being limited to the asinine argument that it is ok to "loot" wrecks owned by former evil empires like WWII Japan or the Nazi's, US Navy vessels and merchant marine vessels that suffered loss of life in WWII get looted just as often.
In regard to identifying a wreck I'd be willing to give a diver a pass on removing artefacts from a war grave to make an identification of an unknown wreck - if the item may possibly have identifying marks, but that pass expires once the wreck is positively identified and the need to remove more artefacts for identification purposes evaporates. Things like sawing off the DF loop and periscopes on the U-701 or removing other items from a u-boat that would lack any serial number or builders proof marks don't offer any valid excuse to be removed.
In the now distant past, where only a handful of divers ever ventured below 150-200 ft, there was some validity to the argument that if divers did not recover artifacts they would just be lost to the sea. But in an age of GPS where wrecks can easily be relocated and in an age when mixed gas technical diving is a sport with ever growing numbers of divers who have the equipment and training to dive well below 200', that argument no longer holds water as it is obvious that artefacts on wrecks can now be enjoyed by hundreds and even thousands of divers over the useful life of the wreck before it eventually collapses.
Despite out attempts to rationalize otherwise, our motivation to scavenge artefacts is not to preserve them but rather to grab them before someone else does. That philosophy, projected into the cave diving community where divers would start grabbing stalactites for their mantles before other divers could grab them would be absolutely devastating in a cave environment.
Wrecks are really no different, a WW III with another submarine campaign is unlikely and improved navigation and weather forecasting has greatly reduced the number of wrecks produced by natural causes, and of those advanced salvage techniques makes it far less likely that a wreck in diveable depths will stay there. Wrecks are a fragile and finite resource and when you consider how big the news is on each and every reefing project it becomes obvious that there are really very few artificial reefs being created to replace existing wrecks - and most of those lack true historical significance. Even the ones that are significant are not immune from looting. The Big O for example was only on the bottom for a matter of weeks before someone "saved" a phone on the bridge from being "lost" to the sea. I am going next month and won't see it, neither will my grandkids and all of us, including the thousands who will dive the Big O between now and then have been robbed of the opportunity to see it.
Times change and our attitudes need to change with it. We can suck it up as a community and begin adopting and enforcing values that promote the preservation of wrecks or we can continue doing what we are doing until various governments step in and manage the problem by prohibiting or greatly restricting our access to wrecks. (Consider what happened to the B-29 in Lake Meade.)
Call me a liberal and you'd be wrong, as what I am proposing is a very conservative idea of self regulation as a means to avoid liberals seeing the need to step in and manage our wrecks for us and force us to be responsible by their definition and by their rules.
Whether or not whether CDNN is a liberal rag or whether or not Richie Kohler is a nice guy are just side issues that detract from the bigger picture. We need to recognize our limited resources for what they are and we need start conducting ourselves in a responsible manner that will conserve them for a maximum number of divers and stop removing items to garages, dens, basement and back water museums that no one visits. Back in the day, having a stuffed sea turtle was pretty cool stuff, now most dive shops would not want to even try to explain how it came to be there as attitudes and times have changed. Wreck diving has reached that same point where the old paradigm no longer works and where we need to move forward to a better one. It will work but it only works if we do it as a group and self police to ensure that NOBODY robs the entire community by removing artefacts we could otherwise all enjoy.
JeffG
Contributor
Leadking
Contributor
I dive with a group of divers in Lake Superior who believe in taking nothing. We have shipwrecks that were found almost 15 years ago that still have their steam whistles and other treasured artifacts. I have been a wreck diver for over 30 years and have NEVER taken a thing. The enjoyment of diving a "virgin" wreck with its wheel, bell, builder's plate, and gauge panel intact is exhilarating. As one of my dive buddy's states, "It will always be a virgin wreck until somebody takes something".
That being said, I dis-like most archeologists who believe that everything is theirs. The thought that they have their own private playground to enjoy boils my blood. The idea that they want everything to be their domain is the equivalent of a wreck raper putting it in their basement. Most wrecks are NOT significantly important. To deny access to recent (less than 125 year old) wrecks is ridiculous. Modern record keeping and publications tell us 99.9% of what we want to know. There is no need to "protect" it but for the idea that if everyone loots the very resource that caused many of us to take up the sport, where will that leave us.
As to this thread, my sources (very reliable) tell me it's even worse than CDNN reports (and I think CDNN is a rag).
That being said, I dis-like most archeologists who believe that everything is theirs. The thought that they have their own private playground to enjoy boils my blood. The idea that they want everything to be their domain is the equivalent of a wreck raper putting it in their basement. Most wrecks are NOT significantly important. To deny access to recent (less than 125 year old) wrecks is ridiculous. Modern record keeping and publications tell us 99.9% of what we want to know. There is no need to "protect" it but for the idea that if everyone loots the very resource that caused many of us to take up the sport, where will that leave us.
As to this thread, my sources (very reliable) tell me it's even worse than CDNN reports (and I think CDNN is a rag).
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cdiver2
Contributor
JeffG
Contributor
Zieg
Contributor
SCUBAJENNIFER
Contributor
Did anyone just send him a PM and ask him?
JeffG
Contributor
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