Wreck Tour 32: The Chris Christensen

This Danish steamship is one of the treasures of the North-east, says JOHN LIDDIARD – with seal sightings a bonus. Illustration by MAX ELLIS

Many ships have come to grief on the Farne Islands, a few miles off the Northumberland coast, and it’s about time we featured one of them, so this month’s Wreck Tour is the Chris Christensen. Admittedly the Somali (Wreck Tour 13, March 2000) is in the general area, but that vessel was a war casualty and did not in fact come to grief on the Farnes.

The Danish steamship Chris Christensen was typical of many merchant ships through the first half of the last century, with its two boilers and triple-expansion steam engine beneath an amidships superstructure and wheelhouse, two holds forward and two holds aft.

It ran aground at the southern end of the Longstone in 1915. After that it must have pulled at least partly free of the rocks before sinking, because the bows point away from the reef and the debris from the stern is higher on the slope towards the reef.

When I asked skipper Ian Douglas to help with some details on how to find this wreck, he commented that he had never even looked for GPS numbers. He just lined up the transit and judged the approximate distance offshore to drop the shot.

Trouble is, the mast that once formed part of the transit is no longer there, so only those who really knew it could still use it.

I can’t fault Ian’s method, because each time I have dived the Chris Christensen the shot has been reliably close to the starboard boiler (1), depth here being about 32m.

The starboard boiler has rolled 90° towards the centre of the wreck, with the two fire-holes at the front of the boiler now one above the other. Forward of the boiler, many of the rocks on the seabed are actually coal (2).

Continuing forward along the starboard side, the general line of the wreckage twists about 20° to port (3), which indicates that the hull of the Chris Christensen broke just forward of the wheelhouse.

All that remains now is debris on the seabed. It’s easy to follow the line of the wreck further forward to the lower part of the bow, standing upright from the seabed (4). The upper parts of the bow and forecastle can be found spread to starboard and forward from this.

Just to starboard, a cargo-winch rests upright on its mounting-plate (5). Immediately in front of this, the anchor-winch is upside-down and hidden partly beneath its mounting-plate (6). These two winches would have been separated by the length of the forward hold. I suspect that the damage to the bows and movement of the cargo-winch is a result of commercial salvage work when the wreck was in a more intact state.

A little further forward, one of the anchor hawse-pipes (7) rests almost against the upside-down remains of the upper part of the bow (8). This is the deepest point on the wreck, at about 33m.

Exposed to the current, the wreckage is covered with white and yellow dead men’s fingers, with an army of sea urchins munching their way around.

A large anchor is tight in against the starboard side of the bow or, strictly speaking, the port side of the bow, as this section is upside-down. Just behind this section of bow rests a tightly wound drum of cable (9), followed by a much smaller anchor (10).

This begs the obvious question: which anchor belonged to the Chris Christensen? The large anchor is certainly of the right type and plenty large enough for a ship of this size, but the smaller one is much too small and looks more like the type that would have been found on a trawler. Perhaps it was carried by the Chris Christensen, or perhaps it was lost at a later date.

Following the port side of the wreck forwards and the starboard side back, just inside from the edge of the wreckage, will bring you across an area of black-and-white-tiled floor (11). It always amazes me that features like this have survived where nothing remains of the rest of the superstructure.

The port boiler (12) rests upright and slightly forward of the starboard boiler. A hole towards the top provides a view in among the boiler tubes. Conger eels seem to enjoy hiding in this kind of hole, so have a good look and you might be lucky.

Crossing back towards the line of the keel, behind the starboard boiler the three-cylinder steam engine (13) has collapsed to starboard. Other than that it is remarkably intact and it’s easy to pick out details of the inner workings of the engine.

Just aft of the engine and a little to port, the spare propeller is wedged up above the seabed (14). Back at the engine, the propshaft provides a line towards the stern (15), with another cargo-winch just to starboard (16).

The last piece of wreckage before ascending the slope is the remains of the emergency steering wheel (17). It is now well decayed, but in a more intact state it featured in one of my favourite underwater photographs, one of those pictures I look at time and again and think: I wish I’d taken that. It can be seen on the cover of Dive North-east, with a diver dressed in a seaman’s jacket and not much else, holding the wheel and braving the weather. The photographer was Mike Brett.

Heading up the slope, the propeller and rudder can be found at about 27m, with the propeller wedged upright among small rocks and gravel (18).

At 20m the slope ends with a vertical wall most of the way to the surface (19), an ideal location to fizz off in the shallows and make the most of any remaining gas while admiring the soft corals.

As with any dive you might do in the Farne Islands, it’s well worth keeping a look-out for seals.

Thanks to Ian Douglas.

Appeared in Diver, October 2001