An uncharted North Sea wreck thought to be a British ship captured by Russia in peacetime in 1904 has been discovered near the site of an innovative wind-farm project 75km off the north-east Scottish coast.
If confirmed, the site is the last resting place of the Tobol, torpedoed by a German U-boat during WW1.
This story has been updated to include more history of the Tobol, provided by MarramWind.
The MarramWind project being developed by Scottish Power and Shell is designed to result in one of the world’s first floating offshore wind-farms, creating enough renewable electricity to power the equivalent of more than 3.5 million homes.
During geophysical and environmental sonar-scanning of the seabed from the survey ship Fugro Galaxy, data of what appeared to be several shipwrecks was picked up. The mark believed to be the Tobol was 100m long, 22.5m wide and 10.5m high and the wreck appeared to be in good condition.
The ship found had the distinctive “turret-deck” hull design of a type built in the late 19th or early 20th century, according to Edinburgh-based MarramWind. The hull was rounded or stepped inward above the waterline, and a continuous deck running the length of the ship rose above its ‘shoulders’ to give a distinctive silhouette.
Doxford of Sunderland built 176 of the 180 or so known turret-deck ships built between 1892 and 1910. The last-known was scrapped in 1960. The example found was built in 1901 as the Cheltenham.
Records suggest she cost £44,200 and was bought by Galbraith, Pembroke & Co of London to form part of a tramp fleet of cargo steamers that could be used on any route. But on 19 June, 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, she was confiscated by three Russian Imperial Navy cruisers in the Sea of Japan.
Cheltenham was brought to Vladivostok and the railway sleepers and beer she was carrying for Japanese brewer Sapporo were classed as contraband and enemy property respectively, making the seizure legal.
Cheltenham became part of a new Russian flotilla and was likely renamed the Tobol, after a river, in 1905. When the Russo-Japanese War ended she worked with a trawler fleet out of Vladivostok.
In April 1916 during WW1 Tobol was bought by the Russian Voluntary Fleet to carry military cargo between Allied ports in Russia and western Europe – including the UK.
Tobol is thought to have been carrying more than 5,000 tonnes of coal from Blyth to Arkhangelsk when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-52 on 11 September, 1917. She was the last of 44 ships sunk by U-boat Captain Hans Walther during the war.
‘Extraordinary find’
MarramWind development manager Colin Anderson described the discovery as “an extraordinary find”, especially given that the seabed surveys had covered a distance of around 6,000 miles. “We always expect to come across wrecks when carrying out works like this, but these tend to be smaller vessels and known to the authorities.
“While the Tobol was known to have been torpedoed in the war, its location was unclear, so to discover it after more than a century and uncover its history is something special.”
Similar turret-deck vessels carried a crew of 35-65, so numbers are likely to have been within this range, but there are no records of how many people went down with the ship.
There had been unconfirmed indications of crew surviving the sinking, said Anderson. “However, we also need to be mindful that the wreck could be the final resting place for crew-members, so hopefully our find will provide closure and comfort for their families and descendants.”
A 250m exclusion zone has now been placed around the wreck to protect it as the survey continues. The UK Hydrographic Office and Historic Environment Scotland have been notified, with discussions underway to establish a long-term archaeological exclusion zone to protect the wreck.
“While there is a high likelihood – and a high level of confidence – that the wreck is that of ss Tobol based on location and hull form, this has not yet been verified or confirmed,” MarramWind has stated. Divernet has requested information on the depth range in which the wreck lies.
Also on Divernet: 100 BEST UK WRECK DIVES, LIST OF SHIPWRECKS IN 1917 WORLD WAR 1, HOW WE DISCOVERED THE WRECK OF A TORPEDOED WW1 BRITISH SHIP
