The Kalamitsi wreck
Executive Summary
The purpose of this article is to present the work carried out by UST (the Underwater Survey Team) on the Kalamitsi shipwreck. The reader is offered a complete picture by way of ship measurements and the identification of various ship features. Hypotheses are proposed and conclusions drawn based on the study of relevant historical literature and evidence found in situ. The age of the wreck does not permit first-hand eyewitness testimony. However, reference is made to the verbal reports made by relatives. Finally, the results captured by 3D imaging techniques are presented, as too is a video recording.
Presentation
In...
Map of coastal wrekcs in Greece
Recenlty, a great number of wrecks have became touristic attractions. Nevertheless, recreational diving in many cases is not allowed when a wreck lies on the bottom of a port, military practice areas and nearby army force's settlements, environmentally protected designated or declared underwater archaeological sites.
Despite those restrictions, there is the option of visiting many wrecks washed up or within close distance to the shore, without the need of scuba diving.
The digital maps of coastal wrecks in Greece resulted on the chance of reaching a coastal wreck during a hiking tour of Zoe Dimou at Skyros island. With an exploratory...
Myrmix and Lefteris – the VERA shipwreck
In 480 BC, a fleet assembled by Persian King Xerxes headed south on a revengeful second attempt at conquest of the Greek mainland. However, in the strait between Skiathos and Pelion, at least three invading ships were dashed on a mostly submerged reef known then as Myrmix. Xerxes ordered the construction of a beacon to mark the dangerous obstacle and avoid further loss. At the beginning of the 20th century, due to the coastal traffic on the Thessaloniki-Volos-Piraeus route, a manned lighthouse was built in Pontikonisi, located on the edge of North Evia. It emitted three beams, one...
Three months aboard a Flat iron collier
Ο σύγχρονος τρόπος ζωής με την αφθονία σε υλικά αγαθά ξεκίνησε με την βιομηχανική επανάσταση στα μέσα του 18ου αιώνα και η μετάβαση αυτή ολοκληρώθηκε στα μέσα του 19ου αιώνα. Κινητήριος δύναμη στην διαδικασία αυτή υπήρξε ο ατμός ο οποίος παράγονταν με την καύση του άνθρακα. Η Βρετανία όντας η υπερδύναμη της εποχής ήταν η πρωτοπόρος των εξελίξεων και αν και νησί με ότι αυτό συνεπάγεται στην διαθεσιμότητα των απαραίτητων πρώτων υλών, είχε την τύχη να διαθέτει τεράστιες ποσότητες άνθρακα στο υπέδαφος της. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι η παραγωγή άνθρακα στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο ήταν διπλάσια στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα...
The sinking of SS NORSEMAN at Megalo Karabourno
Translation by Ross J. Robertson
The Birth Of The Ocean Liner In Its Modern Form
During the 19th century, major developments took place in shipbuilding technology which led to the construction of larger and more efficient ships. Compared to wooden sailing ships, these better served the needs of mass migration to the new continents, particularly America and Australia.
Among these technological improvements was the universal adoption of iron and then steel as ship construction materials. This finally overcame the problem of excessive hull oscillation, a shortcoming of wooden vessels which limited their length to less than 100 meters. The adoption of the...
The end of the FRINTON
The Loss and Restoration of the S/S BRATTDAL
“80 Years Ago Today…”
Three months aboard a Flat iron collier
Ο σύγχρονος τρόπος ζωής με την αφθονία σε υλικά αγαθά ξεκίνησε με την βιομηχανική επανάσταση στα μέσα του 18ου αιώνα και η μετάβαση αυτή ολοκληρώθηκε στα μέσα του 19ου αιώνα. Κινητήριος δύναμη στην διαδικασία αυτή υπήρξε ο ατμός ο οποίος παράγονταν με την καύση του άνθρακα. Η Βρετανία όντας η υπερδύναμη της εποχής ήταν η πρωτοπόρος των εξελίξεων και αν και νησί με ότι αυτό συνεπάγεται στην διαθεσιμότητα των απαραίτητων πρώτων υλών, είχε την τύχη να διαθέτει τεράστιες ποσότητες άνθρακα στο υπέδαφος της. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι η παραγωγή άνθρακα στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο ήταν διπλάσια στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα...
SOLFERINO
By Aris Bilalis and Nikolas Sidiropoulos
In the late 19th century, Robert Whitehead invented the torpedo, the weapon that would forever change the way navies waged wars. With the advent of the submarine, it was to have a dramatic impact during both world wars. Indeed, the lethal combination almost turned the tides of war in favor of the Axis powers as it threatened the UK's Atlantic supply lines and threatened submission through the starvation of raw materials and vital supplies. Before its invention, the only viable way of sinking a large ship in battle was with an even larger ship...
Personal testimonies from the sinking of P.L.M. 24
Italian WWI Wrecks in the Greek Seas
By 1914, Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina Italiana) was ranked seventh in the world. When Italy entered into the First World War, against Austria-Hungary on the 24th of May 1915, the Regia Marina was already operating in the eastern Mediterranean. From the beginning of 1912, Italian ships were deployed towards the elimination of the Turkish fleet at the Middle East and the Red Sea and then towards the Aegean in coordination with the Greeks, and occupied the Dodecanese islands. Italy agreed to return the Dodecanese to the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912. However, the vagueness...
The action and sinking of the German submarine U-133 as seen through historical records, war diaries and field research
During the Second World War, one of the main weapons of maritime warfare was the submarine. Its contribution was so significant that it became instrumental in determining the development and final outcome of the war. Of all the navies involved in the conflict, it was only the German Kriegsmarine which assigned particular importance to the technical development and high production rate of this fearsome weapon. This can be attributed to the efforts of just one man, Admiral Karl Dönitz. During WWI, Dönitz had served on the light cruiser S.M.S. BRESLAU and then on the submarines U-39 and UC-25. From...
To Study what we have Dived and Dive what we have Studied
Greece is undoubtedly known for its crystalline waters and stunning beaches, but we seldom remember that in the early decades of the twentieth century, those same seas and coastlines served as a backdrops episodes of heated movement and battle of the First World War. Break past the waves on the surface and you’ll find an expansive graveyard of ships wrecked during this brutal moment in history. World War I wrecks are particularly spectacular, as many more remain whole and in-situ than those from World War II; yet until recently, they had not been fully recorded or focused on. Luckily...
The WWII Bombing of Volos
This article appeared in Taxydromos newspaper on 13.10.2019 to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Greece. October 1944 – October 2019
Friday the 13th, October 1944 began in the city of Volos much like any other. Starved and subjugated, its citizens managed as best they could under a merciless Nazi regime. The 'Kítrino Apothíki' on the corner of Vassani and Gazi Streets still stands as testimony to those dark days. Countless were incarcerated and tortured within its imposing grey walls. Far too many did not survive. After the abortive 1940 invasion by Italian fascists, it had taken just...
Lost planes from World War II. Whispering Death
It is October 20th, 1943. The war rages on. A small boat approaches in the thick darkness and disembarks a small group of seven hand-picked men on the Greek island of Naxos. Lieutenant Aitken, the head of a Long Range Desert Group patrol, and his men have the audacity to be on the remote Greek island under the nose of a German garrison numbering about 650 men. Cautiously and quietly, they march toward the interior of the island. Aided, as always, by the local inhabitants, they hide and spy on the movements of the Germans. A few days later,...
Up in the Eye of the North. A Ju-88 near the Psathoura lighthouse
I am holding a fork in my hands. I look at it carefully while my mind drifts back into the past. The tainted metal is testimony to its age. I invert it to inspect the underside of the handle, just where it widens at the end. I see what I was expecting; an engraved Nazi eagle with the German swastika firmly caught in its claws….
The Fetich Boulen: A Lost Victory.
P.L.M. 24
During World War II the P.L.M. 24, after hitting a mine near cape Sepia, was stranded by his captain to save her on the Paltsi beach. After the war it was contracted to Mr. Marakis, a wreck salvager, and as a result most of the ship's hull was cut as scrap, leaving only the lower part. Underwater Survey Team (UST) surveyed the remains of the ship and identified it through the archival sources available and with their own ship identification method called “geometric identification”.
The innovation of "cantilever" ships
Raylton Dixon shipyards were established in 1863 in Middlesbrough, England. In the...
Conference: “Scuba Diving and Citizen Science”
On Saturday, March 7, 2020, a workshop on “Scuba Diving and Citizen Science” was held in the Hall of Events of the Hellenic Maritime Museum. The event was organized on the occasion of the two years of activities by the Underwater Surveying Team (UST) of the Laboratory of Topography, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Faculty of Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh)….
WWI Shipwrecks in the Greek Seas
The loss of the salvage tugboat MIMIS
On the nights of 28th and 29th of March 1941, the Navy lost a salvage tugboat, the MIMIS when it was hit by a mine. However, the loss was overshadowed by the German invasion just two days later.
The vessel was built in 1888 at the John Readhead & Co. shipyards in South Shields, England on behalf of the British company, William & Thomas Jolliffe, which had operated in the tugboat industry for 36 years. Following the corporate tradition, it was named the JANE JOLLIFFE to honour one of the female members of the Joliffe family. It had a...
The Croquis
Croquis (French): a rough draft, sketch or drawing, before any precise dimensions are taken, which helps to indicate each point of measurement and what feature it corresponds to.
After a year of intensive research entailing countless hours in front of a computer, the time has come for yet another dive of the wreck at Kalamitsi* in the hope of gleaning some clue to its identity. Many equate SCUBA diving with recreation. This is undoubtedly true, but in the world of shipwreck hunting and investigation, sustained effort is also required. Everything must be examined – from its most obvious features to...
The Submarine of Kaiafa Beach
In the shallow waters of Kaiafa beach , local children had been jumping into the water from the conning tower of a submarine for decades. This strange childhood ‘plaything’ was once the Italian submarine AXUM. It participated in one of the most decisive operations in the Mediterranean of World War II.
In the 1930s, the Italian Navy embarked on an extensive program of submarine construction. This was part of a massive expansion of the Italy's surface fleet. The fascist regime in Rome intended to relive past glories by dominating the Mediterranean, thereby turning it into “Mare Nostrum” (the so-called “Italian...
KATHLEEN
In the spring of 1960, the freighter ALEXANDROS struck the southern coast of Cape Poseidi, also known as the Kassandra headland, due to poor visibility. It had started plying the Greek seas at the beginning of the century, not very far from where it came to grief. But having survived both World Wars and even the process of scrapping, 91 years of seafaring were finally to come to an end. Interestingly, the ship and the nearby lighthouse which signals the entrance to the Thermaikos Gulf were built around the same time.
In April 1869, at the Laird Brothers Shipyards in...
The Views of the S.S. Volos
WAR CHARGER – NAVARCHOS KOUNTOURIOTIS
The torpedo attack by PAPANIKOLIS in Alimia
The four “Rivers”
Diving in Modern Maritime History
The Underwater Survey Team of Laboratory of Topography (LabTop), School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle Univeristiy of Thessaloniki, organized a conference, entitled "Diving in Modern Maritime History", on Thursday the 14th of February 2019.