Divers visit mysterious 1904 shipwreck more than 500 feet underwater
The Sydney Project Dive Team, a group of trained divers who work to discover and document shipwrecks, conducted the first-ever dive to the SS Nemesis, a craft that sank in 1904 while carrying coal. All 32 people aboard the ship people died in the sinking, the dive team said. The ship sank on a stormy night, according to Australia's New South Wales Environment and Heritage agency. The sinking happened too quickly for lifeboats to be launched, the agency said.
The shipwreck site was only discovered in 2022, the agency said. The wreck lies on the seafloor about 16 miles off the coast of Sydney. A remotely-operated vessel identified the ship as the Nemesis in 2023. But the depth of the wreck made learning more about it difficult. The Nemesis is about 525 feet underwater, the dive team and heritage agency said.
The trip to the wreck was also chronicled in a detailed post by a dive team member.
The mission to the site faced some obstacles. On June 7, the group gathered at 4 a.m. local time to try to dive to the site, but were hindered by stormy weather conditions. On June 18, weather conditions were clearer and allowed for divers to "attempt one of the deepest technical wreck dives off the Australian coast," the dive team said.
There is no light once divers get about 390 feet underwater, the dive team said. That meant the divers traveling to the Nemesis were working in complete blackness, following a line that had been dropped to the wreck. It took two tries to get the line in place and ensure the divers could safely follow it to the wreck.
The divers were able to use lights to illuminate their work. There was crystal-clear visibility, the dive team said. The divers worked in two teams of two to survey the wreck, starting at its "crushed and crumbled" bow and traveling to the bridge, filming smoke stacks and other distinctive features. The team had just nine minutes to survey the shipwreck.
There was coal scattered across the wreck site, the dive team said, but no artifacts like plates, cutlery or personal articles were visible. Photos also show fish and other sea life in the area.
The most time-consuming part of the trip was the ascent to the surface, the dive team said. It took the divers six hours to slowly work their way to the surface and decompress safely.
Another mission to the shipwreck site is being planned, the dive team said. That mission will involve completing a scan of the wreck to build on the information gathered by the remote vessel in 2023.
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