A team of volunteer divers are said to have given the 18th-century HMS Colossus dive-trail a new lease of life, improving access for licensed visitors wishing to explore the Protected Wreck site.
Marine growth has been cleared from the exposed archaeological features, including cannon, rudder fittings and hull timbers, and extra numbered dive-trail stations have been added.
New photography and video footage has also been assembled to showcase the wreck and its marine life, and Historic England (HE), which oversees the country’s 57 Protected Wrecks, says that an improved waterproof guide has been produced.
HE commissioned divers from the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Maritime Archaeology Society (CISMAS) to refurbish the dive-trail and produce imagery to enhance the virtual trail that is available online to non- and unlicensed divers.
The society was formed in 2004 to promote maritime archaeology in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and in that time has undertaken more than 20 projects at 16 sites.
HMS Colossus was a 74-gun warship built at Gravesend in Kent in 1787. During its 11-year service, it saw action at Toulon, Groix, Cape St Vincent and Cadiz.
In December 1798, while sheltering from a storm in the Isles of Scilly, the ship’s anchor-cable gave way and it was driven onto shallow ground off Samson, the largest uninhabited island.
All but one of the 595 people on board were rescued and Colossus later broke apart. It had been carrying part of diplomat Sir William Hamilton’s ancient Greek pottery collection, and some 30,000 fragments recovered from the site are still held by the British Museum.
Two trails for divers
Two circular dive-trail routes take in all the major features of the wreck, which lies around 10m deep. Divers can see the remains of muskets scattered across the seabed, while cannon that crashed through the gun-port when the ship turned on its side stand almost upright. Some are as long as 2.75m and weigh almost 2 tonnes.
“If you only dive on one historic wreck site, make it this one,” suggests CISMAS maritime archaeologist Kevin Camidge. “To swim along the line of cannon standing upright on the seabed with their muzzles buried in the sand, still within their gunports, is a unique experience.”
“Thanks to the efforts of the team, the dive-trail has never looked better,” adds Izzy Allsop of Isles of Scilly Dive Charters. “It’s a fascinating site to dive from both marine, archaeological and ecological perspectives. I always enjoy taking divers to visit the site.”
HE says it welcomes applications from divers for licences to visit the Colossus site, which is one of six Protected Wrecks to have an approved dive-trail. Simpler to arrange is to take the interactive virtual tour of Colossus, which combines detailed 3D models with dive-footage and photography.
