Stefan Panis recounts his adventure revisiting the wreck of SS Toward, a victim of the WWI minefield at Foreland near Dover in the United Kingdom.
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Over the summer, I met up with my buddy Eddie Huzzey in Dover for a week of wreck exploration. I was super excited, as Eddie had marked some new sites that had not been dived before.
However, the day before I arrived, Eddie had some engine problems with his boat, so he decided to take the RIB out of the water to fix the problem. This did not go well at all, as a spark caused the fuel-filled engine to catch fire! There was only seawater nearby to put out the fire, but of course, by that time, the electrical wiring had already melted. Certainly not something that could be fixed by the next day, so it was a “big” problem.
Luckily, the local diving community was willing to help out. A few phone calls later, Chris Webb and Thomas Packman of Renegade Fishing and Dive Boat Charters (with the only two boats operating commercially out of Dover) hooked us up for a few dives, and my week was saved.
Revisiting the wreck
The first day, we boarded the charter boat Maverick and joined a nice group that had booked their dive with Chris. Of course, we had to follow the charter’s itinerary, which was to dive the SS Toward, owned by Tony Goodfellow and David Knight. It was not until 2022 that I finally had a chance to dive this wreck for the first time during an annual international expedition. As it was a wreck I had dived before, I was very keen to dive it again.
The Toward was a 1218 GRT single-propeller steel steamer built in Glasgow in 1899. It was sailing from London to Belfast with general cargo on 31 October 1915 when it struck a mine laid by the German submarine UC-6. Under the command of Matthias Graf von Schmettow, UC-6 was a very successful submarine that had sunk a total of 54 ships.
The mine that hit the Toward exploded under the ship’s No. 2 hatch, just forward of the bridge. The ship rapidly caught fire and started to settle in the water. The crew abandoned ship, and all were picked up, including five men who jumped into the sea off South Foreland, near Dover. Four ships had gone down in that minefield in the space of a few hours.
I had done some research on the Toward since my last dive on the wreck and even found the ship’s blueprints, which would be a great help in executing our dive plan. Our plan was to head straight for the stern end of the wreck, where we had found an old Ford Model T on our last dive. We would attempt to get some better pictures this time and then try to find our way to the first-class dining room, as we knew from the ship’s blueprints where it was located.
Time to dive!
It was a sunny day, and for a change, the Channel was flat calm, so we reached the wreck in no time. We geared up, and when the skipper blew the horn, we jumped in and started our descent towards the wreck.
On our descent, we could see that the visibility was very good. So, we made a slight change to the dive plan as we were hooked onto the downline, which was not far from the bow. We made a quick detour to take some photos of the bow. With an experienced buddy like Eddie, who knows where and how I want him to “pose” for underwater shots, this was done like clockwork.
Then we continued on our way to the stern, following the bottom where all sorts of cargo had spilt out of the collapsing wreck. We even spotted a few portholes that had rusted away from the hull.
Finally, we reached the rear hold and quickly ran a reel inside. I was shocked to see that within a year’s time, the old Ford Model T had collapsed. However, it was still recognisable by its typical wheels and engine.
Lucky again
We had considered ourselves lucky to be able to dive the wreck after the engine incident, but then, we got lucky again! As we swam towards the area where we thought the dining room was, we found that a deck had fallen down, giving us access straight into the dining room.
As I went in, I came across what was, for me, one of the highlights of all my dives in the Channel—there were two oak chairs still standing upright and intact. I thought that this could only happen in the brackish waters of the Baltic, so I kept staring at them for some time and took several photographs.
We found silverware scattered around the site and some fine china by Wedgwood, which still produces china today.
In the next compartment, the space was more tight. Here, I found wooden barrels everywhere, with bottles of pickled vegetables and other contents. A sneak peek revealed that after the “restriction”, the room opened up again. But exploring that area would have to be saved for another time when I could bring my sidemount rebreather to overcome the “problem” of the narrow space. To be continued… ■
Read more in Shipwrecks of the Dover Straits by Stefan Panis.
