Two divers dead in Scharendejke NLD

[Rechno]

Two divers died on the 26th in the Netherlands while diving on/at a wreck that was sunken as an artificial reef. The last victim was found today.

Twee duikers vermist bij Scharendijke, zoekactie levert nog niets op

Remains second Dutch diver found in wreck Le Serpent

 

[Jack Hammer]

Odd to lose 2 divers. Any word if penetration or gas were factors?

 

[Remy B.]

I don't understand why it took them so long to find them, that wreck if simple and small, visibility is one arm distance or less sometimes but inside the wreck is not that bad.

The wreck is shallow, normally you do it with Nitrox 32 if you want to do penetration, most likely visibility was very bad as usual and they make it worse inside the wreck and they were not using a line and using singles.

Even as simple as the wreck is, they overestimated

 

[Miyaru]

Both divers have been recovered by navy divers.

This wreck was built during the first worldwar out of reinforced concrete. It was supposed to be sunk at a shallow depth of around 10m/30ft, but the wreck glided down to a deeper part. There's some background information on this webpage (in Dutch).

The water around the wreck is most of the time pitch black and cold, visibility is minimal. Two years ago, another deceased diver was recovered from inside the wreck. There's many accounts of divers who didn't realize they swam inside the wreck, caused by minimal visibility. Even on top of the wreck, you won't see any daylight above. In this case, again, these guys didn't manage to get out.

The wreck is basically very simple, but when you descend into a cargo hold, assuming you're on the outside of the wreck, you're up for a surprise.

 

[Diver0001]

I don't understand why it took them so long to find them, that wreck if simple and small, visibility is one arm distance or less sometimes but inside the wreck is not that bad.

The wreck is shallow, normally you do it with Nitrox 32 if you want to do penetration, most likely visibility was very bad as usual and they make it worse inside the wreck and they were not using a line and using singles.

Even as simple as the wreck is, they overestimated

Remy, it's a big dive site. What I understand is that once the navy was on scene they first scanned a large area of the divesite around the wreck before searching inside the wreck. I assume this is a protocol to first disqualify the obvious "low risk" scenario's before moving on to scenario's that pose higher risks to recovery. What I believe is that by the time they started searching they were already treating it as a recovery operation. This would seem to stand to reason since it took about 9 hours for someone to raise the alarm, from the way it reads.

The way I read it, I think they found the divers yesterday but the Navy protocol in the Netherlands is to first locate and mark the bodies for recovery and to recover them under more controlled circumstances after the recovery divers have been briefed about what to expect.

There is next to no information available on the internet yet. What I did read that I think can be taken as fact is that one of the bodies was found inside the wreck. (edit: police have confirmed that both bodies were found inside the wreck).

[SPECULATION]
You would think it would be hard to get lost inside that wreck but suppose they unintentionally went down the aft opening and THOUGHT that it was the opening on the fore-deck. They would have encountered the wall separating the fore and aft cargo holds and could have thought they were in the front cargo hold and swam the wrong way (with the wall to their rear). If (I know... it's a lot of "ifs" -- they did this and swam the wrong way in the aft cargo hold then there is an opening where you go that gets you under the steer-hut. That space is small and a little cramped and the steel guide line doesn't go inside. It would be exceedingly easy to cause a silt-out in there and you would have to find the exit with your hands unless you had laid your own guide line, which not everyone does on that wreck. The visibility on/in that wreck is normally quite limited on a good day (dark and silty) and the Grevelingen has been suffering from algae blooms that could potentially reduce visibility to next to nothing and create just the kind of conditions that could cause a diver to get disoriented before and after entering inside. To me this is a plausible scenario even though I have nothing to go on except knowing that one of the divers was inside the wreck and my knowledge of the wreck
[/SPECULATION]

R..

 

[Diver0001]

Just to give people an idea of the wreck in question, here are two videos. The first shows a scale model of the wreck that is fairly accurate by memory. In reality the space under the steer hut (visible at 1:20 on the video is more cramped than it looks because it's full of silt and debris (shells, iirc). At 2:01 you get a view of the hole that gets you under the steer hut.


The second video shows what it looks like to actually dive on this wreck during a typical day. (1:00 - 2:45). This is what makes a fairly benign wreck actually come across as a bit of a challenge. I would qualify visibility on this video as average. It gets much worse than this some days.

 

[Remy B.]

That is more than two arms distance visibility that was a great day for those guys.

If the diseased divers navigated underwater to the Wreck they probably could get a little confused if that was their first time in the wreck, but once you dive the wreck one time is hard to make a mistake, but who knows what really happen, one of the divers was a instructor supposedly with years of experience.

The Aft of the ship is a tricky place, last time I dive it, I was thinking that it was a good death box with no visibility and no line, maybe the diver was found there.

The whole situation is sad and unfortunate, their families have to be going thru a rough time.

 

[Diver0001]

one of the divers was a instructor supposedly with years of experience.

I couldn't find much on the internet about that except that he was recently certified as OWSI. I didn't know him and I don't think it's appropriate to dig too much ... especially now when everyone around him must be grieving.

What I did find was his name is on a list of people receiving a rescue certification from the club he was with along with the name of a diver I had for advanced .... I THINK 3 years ago, maybe 4. I can't draw any conclusions about how long he had been diving before his name was the "rescue" list or how much he dived at all, what kind of a diver he was etc. etc. The problem with words like "highly experienced" in the press is that it depends on the reader's frame of reference so it's really meaningless because it means something different to everyone who reads it.

In any case I think if it was a case of becoming disoriented in bad conditions that it is something that could happen to just about anybody.

What I'm curious to know is if they laid their own guide line or not.

The Aft of the ship is a tricky place, last time I dive it, I was thinking that it was a good death box with no visibility and no line, maybe the diver was found there.

Exactly what I thought.

The whole situation is sad and unfortunate, their families have to be going thru a rough time.

word!

 

[Kay Dee]

When I first read the initial post and accompany news 'releases' before any other posts here had been made, my very first thoughts were "lost in wreck, run out of air/gas" but then I would have been speculating, or accused of, but seems that may have been the case after all.

Sad.

I had a friend once lost for an hour, yes a whole hour (which happened / initiated right at the end of his predetermined already long bottom time) at approximately 66m / 216ft in a complete blacked-out-couldn't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face silt-out in a wreck in the South China Sea, and if it hadn't had been for him being on a CCR and keeping a cool head, he would be just another statistic today.(Needless to say he certainly incurred a substantial amount of extra deco!)

Anyway, condolences to the two deceased divers families!

 

[Diver0001]

Well... it's still not clear what actually happened.

The facts are that the divers were found inside the wreck. At this point that's all the information available.

There are potentially multiple reasons why they could have failed to exit the wreck. One of those reasons could be that they got lost/disoriented and ran out of air. Something else could have happened as well. The police in the Netherlands usually take 2-3 weeks to investigate these kinds of cases and with a little luck their findings will be released and we'll know for sure in a few weeks time.

R..