Diving the wreck of SMS Konig - battleship, Scapa Flow
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
- SMS Konig, was the lead dreadnought of the Konig-class of 4 battleships constructed by Germany in the lead up to WWI. As the latest evolution of the battleship concept, they were the newest and toughest dreadnoughts, and as such were placed in the vanguard of the Imperial German Navy High Seas Fleet at engagements such as the Battle of Jutland in 1916 where they traded heavy blows with the battleships of the British Grand Fleet.
At the end of WWI, as a condition of the November 1918 Armistice , 74 of the finest German ships were to be interned at Scapa Flow. Seven months later, as it appeared that the Armistice was in danger of breaking down and the hostilities recommence, with its guns disarmed and manned only by skeleton crews, the entire fleet was scuttled on a pre-arranged coded order on 21 June 1919 in the greatest single act of maritime suicide the world has eve seen.
Today, three Konig's lie on the bottom of Scapa Flow in 38-45msw. This video shows some of the Konig, a massive 25,000-ton dreadnought that is 575 feet long.
Rod, I really like and appreciate the way you respond to comments and answer the questions of your viewers. It's all good info. and the way things should be.
Cheers - I appreciate the feedback. The channel came about because I had all this video of important historic wrecks just sitting around. Wrecks decay and fall apart naturally over time so I thought it would be useful for posterity to get the footage out into the public domain, a snapshot in time of the life of a wreck. I just wish I’d had a video in the 80’s & 90s to record the Scapa wrecks, the cruisers are a pale shadow now of what they were. All the best from Scotland
Excellent Scapa piece....I need to return to Stromness for a week.....
Thanks, good overview and video. Andrew
My Grandfather served aboard this ship. I still have photos of him with crew mates.
Are any of the photos taken during internment at Scapa Flow? That would be part of the Orkney story of the German ships that hasn’t been seen before.
This is amazing. I love wrecks! Whats the best way to contact you?
It seems that nearly all of the wrecks at Scapa Flow capsized and hit the sea floor upside down. I wonder why this is.
Hi - it’s only the 3 battleships that are upside down. All the others in the Flow sit on their keel or on their beam ends. Battleships are so top heavy that they invariably capsize when they sink in deep enough water. Check out Dive Scapa Flow!
Is there a SENSIBLE reason why these ships were sunk rather than scrapped? Just sending them to the bottom seems a terrible waste of material.
There are endless books on this - but in a nutshell, the war was still on, just temporarily halted by the Armistice of November 1918. The Imperial German Navy was interned at Scapa Flow, the heart of British naval power, pending peace treaty terms being worked out. When it looked like the negotiations were about to break down, the entire interned 74 German Navy warships scuttled to avoid being seized by the British.
So what is stopping the brits from recovering the scrap. No war grave excuse here.
There's a lot of fascinating background here you're maybe not aware of. In the 1920's-1930's, 67 of the 74 scuttled warships were salvaged, lifted to the surface and scrapped in the greatest feat of maritime salvage ever. If you want to learn about this, get yourself a copy of The Man who bought a Navy - amazing to read of these guys in boiler suits working back then inside pressurised wrecks on the seabed, 150 feet underwater - they were essentially decompression diving, but dry. Of the remaining 7 warships left on the bottom of the Flow, the valuable bits, the armour belt, torpedo tubes, condensers etc were all blown off them in the 1960's & 1970's. Their historical importance was belatedly recognised and in 2002 they were scheduled as Protected Monuments - they will be a draw for divers to visit Orkney for many decades.
Depth?
42msw to seabed- least depth about 24msw
Rod Macdonald is that meters? Sorry, still on imperial here in the states.
@@16sondra Hi, yes, sorry - MSW is a tech diving term that means 'metres of sea water'. Thats about 140ft in old money to the seabed. All the best from Scotland
24 fathoms in the old sailor talk
Yes .