Diving the wreck of RFA Prudentia - Scapa Flow

Описание: The 2,781grt tanker Prudentia was launched in 1889. She was 312 feet long with a beam of 40.2 feet and was powered by a triple expansion steam engine with two boilers and a single screw.

The Prudentia had a long and varied career, sailing the world and carrying oil cargoes across the Atlantic, around Europe and South Africa - and out around Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 - and tankers and oilers were suddenly particularly important. On 31 October 1914, just three months after war was declared, Prudentia was requisitioned for service as a Royal Fleet Auxiliary oiler. Tankers carry oil cargo from one port to another - oilers are equipped for at sea refuelling of other vessels.

On 12 January 1916, Prudentia was anchored in Scapa Flow, where she had been heavily engaged in refuelling Royal Navy Grand Fleet units. She was lying with her port side alongside the oil storage vessel Hermione, no doubt loading fuel, when in a severe gale, with winds reportedly gusting to 80mph, she dragged her anchor. Her port side shell plating was opened up by Hermione's propellor - and she began to take on water. She started to list to port - and eventually slipped beneath the waves, coming to rest on her port beam ends. There was no loss of life.

Her forward tanks were filled with oil when she sank and the wreck leaked oil for many years afterwards. Records show she was still leaking oil in 1975. As a result, in 1977, Orkney Islands Council issued Notice to Mariners 1/77, which made Prudentia off limits to divers. The wreck has thus been offlimits since I first started diving Scapa Flow in 1981. There has always been great concern about corroded pipes, valves and tanks being damaged by divers and oil being released.

In 2017 whilst involved in the survey of the British battleships HMS Vanguard, which blew up at anchor in Scapa Flow during WWI, the survey team was granted permission to inspect the wreck.

There has been little solid information about the wreck over the years - so here is the video I shot that day, which I hope will be of assistance to the authorities in understanding the wreck.