Scientists are using submersibles to explore a German U-boat sunk 11km off Rhode Island the day before Nazi Germany surrendered in World War II, and they are streaming the attempts online as they work to learn more about shipwrecks and how they affect the environment.
The submarine, U-853, was sunk in the Battle of Point Judith by US Coast Guard and US Navy ships on May 6, 1945, the day after it took down the SS Black Point, the last US merchant ship sunk in the Atlantic during the war.
The scientists from the University of Rhode Island’s Inner Space Center, Connecticut’s Ocean Exploration Trust and the US Coast Guard Academy hope to explore both wrecks during the five-day trip that is scheduled to conclude today. By Friday, they had made several attempts that were hampered by the conditions and technical challenges, but they planned to keep trying this weekend.
Photo: AP
They are using the National Science Foundation’s research vessel Endeavor as a base and working 24 hours a day to get access. In addition to streaming online, the scientists are broadcasting three times a day on local TV station PBS.
“It’s really a big experiment,” Inner Space Center director Dwight Coleman said from the boat on Thursday. “We’re trying out a lot of things. There’s some technical challenges, which is expected when you’re doing ocean research.”
The scientists first tried to get to SS Black Point, which is closer to shore and in shallower water than U-853, which is 40m below the surface.
“It was very challenging. We thought it was going to be an easier dive,” Coleman said. “It wasn’t.”
He said they were constantly fighting winds and currents to stay in the same place because the ship does not have dynamic positioning.
At U-853, they had technical problems with the submersible, then a change in the wind speed and direction made exploring the site unworkable on Friday.
Instead, they decided on Friday to try diving a different wreck: the schooner barge Montana, which was carrying coal when it sank just off Block Island in 1907.
Coleman said that while most ocean research cruises last several weeks, this one is only five days as part of a state-funded effort to provide local researchers and teachers access to Endeavor.
Scuba divers have been visiting the U-Boat and SS Black Point for decades. The U-boat is considered a war grave and is the property of Germany.
The team notified the German embassy of the expedition and said that it would not actually touch the boat, Ocean Exploration Trust archeological oceanographer Michael Brennan said.
There are also hazards nearby, an unexploded depth charge among them.
Coleman said they were inspired by undersea explorer Bob Ballard, a University of Rhode Island scientist who founded the Ocean Exploration Trust and who recently investigated a U-166 submarine off the coast of Mexico with National Geographic and the PBS program NOVA.
Live footage from the research vessel Endeavor can be seen at: www.innerspacecenter.org/riwrecks, with a map showing the current location of the Endeavor at: http://techserv.gso.uri.edu/EndeavorNow.
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