Scotland Loch salvage?

[fishoutawater]

I originally posted this on the Europe section on the dive vaction forum.
I think this forum would be more appropriate.


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Back in the early 80's I worked on a US Navy submarine drydock in Scotland. I never had the opportunity to dive there though.
I did drink a few pints with some navy divers there, and we were speaking dive. At one point I asked them what kind of stuff is on the bed below the drydock. They said there was all manor of trash and stuff, but they also said it would be a salvagers dream because at one point there was some kind of high brass audit, and they had a bunch of equipment they weren't supposed to have, so they deep sixed all of it.
Stuff like mothballed supercharged aluminum block v-12 diesels etc. Can't really say if what they said is true or not.
The US Navy is no longer there, and I'm wondering if there were any efforts to retrieve said booty, and/or clean the place up. I would imagine that since the US Navy isn't there anymore, anything of value down there either belongs to Scotland, or whoever wants it (don't know anything about salvage laws).
The loch is called Holy Loch, close to Dunoon in Argyl. About ninety ft deep I think.
So, do any of you fellows know anything about it?

 

[Hickdive]

Hello there,

As I recall, when the depot ship (USS Simon Lake, I think) finally left there was a major clear up operation of the seabed, basically to stop anyone finding anything interesting (i.e. explosive or radioactive, our politicians are paranoid) so by all accounts there's little left. Besides which, the Holy Loch has notoriously poor vis.

However, tomorrow I should be diving with someone who works in Faslane, the RN sub base around the corner from the Holy Loch. He'll almost certainly no more that me so I'll quiz him for you.

 

[fishoutawater]

Thanks for the reply Hickdive.
I'm glad they had a major cleanup of the area. I saw a few things tossed over myself, and it did make me angry, but being the lowly tech rep that I was, I didn't have a lot of say so on the matter. You have such a beautiful country there! I'd personally like to keep it that way.
Although I seriously doubt there were ever any explosives or nuke stuff dumped overboard, I don't think your politicians concerns are totally paranoid. I'd certainly want verification if it were me.
Someday I'd like to return for a visit, but right now I'm dealing with a serious addiction to the Carribean.

 

[Hickdive]

Well, according to what I've found out three years were spent using a barge and grab doing a metre by metre recovery.

The company that did the work swears there's nothing left but locals with boats complain of continually snagging and losing anchors on the debris left behind. Unfortunately, with visibility like cold coffee no-one is in a hurry to dive there and find out.

Personally, I would stick to the caribean

 

[fishoutawater]

Well, that's a shame. Simply using a grab to try and pick everything up would be an exercise in futility. It would take actual divers to hook things up, and would be very dangerous, especially for surface supplied divers. It would be very easy for them to get tangled. Of course I never saw anything really bad, or toxic being thrown over. Mostly stuff like brass, aluminum and steel items, which wouldn't hurt the environment, and would even provide cover for fish.
While I was there, I did catch a lot of Flounder.
I just remember thinking how ugly our ships and dry dock were, sitting in that beautiful loch.
Cheerio!