British wreck-diver and mixed-gas pioneer Jamie Powell, described by contemporaries as a “technical-diving legend”, has died following a rebreather dive on the WW1 G42 torpedo-boat wreck in the Dover Strait.
Powell had surfaced from the dive, which had been to a depth of around 50m at the remote site, on Wednesday, 18 June. His dive-computer indicated an uneventful profile, with full decompression carried out as normal, according to other divers onboard. However, soon after de-kitting he had reported shoulder pain, and oxygen was administered.
Because his condition appeared to be deteriorating, the skipper issued a Mayday request for an immediate evacuation. A Coastguard helicopter flew Powell to the Royal London Hospital to be stabilised, prior to being transferred to the hyperbaric chamber at nearby Whipps Cross Hospital for treatment for a skin bend, but he failed to recover and was declared dead.
A full post mortem examination has yet to be carried out and an investigation is underway, the Coastguard having retained the diver’s equipment, including his closed-circuit rebreather.
Powell had stuck to using open-circuit throughout his illustrious diving career until this year, when he converted to using a rebreather.
Kindest of souls
“All of the advanced / tech-diving community knew him as one of the legends of the sport,” said long-time dive-team-mate and buddy Leigh Bishop, who describes Powell as having been his best friend. “Everyone knew him as a real gentleman, one of the kindest of souls, a mentor and a friend, with many admiring him not only as a diver but as a human being.”
In his mid-50s when he died, Powell had been diving since he was 14. A member of the UK’s Starfish Enterprise, which in the 1990s had been one of the world’s first mixed-gas wreck-diving teams, he and the others in the group had “taught themselves how to use mixed gas because there were literally no courses when they set out to do what they did”, says Bishop.
In 1994 Powell was a member of Polly & Simon Tapson’s ground-breaking Lusitania mixed-gas expedition off Ireland. He also dived the 120m-deep Britannic during the early open-circuit years of exploring the Titanic’s sister-ship, with both his mother and his wife acting as support divers on the Nick Hope-led expedition to Greece in 1998.
He also took part in early exploration of deep wrecks such as HMS Affray, HMS King Edward VII, HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy during the 1990s. “He had dived hundreds of virgin wrecks that no-one else had seen before in the English Channel,” says Bishop. “There weren’t many skippers that didn’t know and respect him.
“Plymouth commercial diver and instructor Tony Hillgrove regarded him as perhaps the best diver he had ever known, and American wreck-divers like Gary Gentile, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler had all dived with him and respected him greatly as a wreck-diver and friend.”
“Jamie had been a legend through my entire diving life,” commented instructor Kieran Hatton, while Rick Ayrton added: “Such sad news – Jamie was one of life’s stars in the diving world.”
‘Quiet mouse’
Bishop describes Jamie Powell as having been “a quiet mouse” when it came to media exposure of his underwater achievements: “You would have had to drag it out of him. He’d book on a dive-charter and no one would ever have guessed the vast diving experience that the ‘other diver on the boat’ carried.
“He loved the history of shipwrecks and restoring the artefacts that he so often came across.
“In recent years he had found a love of exploring shipwrecks in the Dover Strait with new friends, with the shallower dives better suiting his desire for longer bottom times. In fact, he perhaps loved his diving in later life more than he ever had.”
Powell had lived in west London and worked for British Airways cargo services at Heathrow Airport for more than 30 years. As well as diving he had enjoyed angling, Scandinavian thrash-metal music and Belgian beer, and was known for the signature moustache that went with his habit of dressing as an English country gentleman.
Jamie Powell leaves his wife Becky and two daughters – all of whom had enjoyed diving together as a family.
Also on Divernet: Q&A: TECHNICAL DIVER & DEEP-WRECK PHOTOGRAPHER LEIGH BISHOP, THE MILLION-DOLLAR DIVE, THE SHOCK OF THE LUSITANIA
We was the first ones to re-introduce Jamie to Dover Street diving he was a nice guy fantastic Diver and a pleasure to be around I’ll be surely missed by all