Hell or high water

The seabed around Guernsey is strewn with wrecks, an inevitable result of our seafaring heritage and potentially hazardous coastline. Some have been thoroughly investigated, others less so. Chris Morvan spoke to Paul Carre, a diver with a particular interest in the little-known wreck of the St Malo, which was sunk by mountainous seas 90 years ago

IT WAS 21 August 2003 and we were finally on our way, the skipper of the boat, Capriole, Stuart Tucker, only occasionally muttering about the quantity of gear we had deposited on his afterdeck.

'One minor hiccup: one of the team (OK, it was me) had left his drysuit in the back of a car in St Peter Port.

'Much fun was made of it, but we all knew that returning to collect it had taken all the spare time that we had built into the schedule and the clock was now against us.

'Our aim that day was to dive a wreck, a bit of an unusual one, in that at 70m (230ft) from the surface, it was deeper than conventional scuba equipment and dive techniques would allow and therefore required a bit more planning.

'As keen fishermen we had known of the wreck for some time. After cautiously asking around, we were fairly convinced that she had never been dived. The exact position seemed known only by professional Guernsey fishermen (who are a notoriously tight-lipped lot) and had never appeared on any chart.

'We also had a tentative idea of the identity of the wreck - the St Malo. What we had no idea of was the way that this small steamship was about to captivate us, taking years of research and multiple dives to unravel the story. It is still an ongoing project.'

The St Malo had left Bordeaux on 3 November 1915, arriving in London on the 10th. She departed there for her home port, St Nazaire, carrying a crew of 24 and a cargo of 800 tons of potatoes and other goods.

The weather on 12 and 13 November was atrocious. Records indicate that much damage was caused and many small craft were lost in Guernsey, with a similar story in France. This was a widespread and violent storm.

In St Peter Port, the yacht, Maria, owned by Mr A. H. Zabiela, dragged her mooring and became entangled with the lifeboat, the Arthur Lionel. This was to become critical in the unfolding tragedy.

Saturday 13 November 1915 found the St Malo to the north of Guernsey. Chief petty officer of the Fort Le Marchant coastguard Thomas Arnell sighted the vessel at 1000 hours heading NNE. At 1030 she veered right around with a heavy list to port, showing two flags between the masts. At 1200 an ensign was seen at half-mast, indicating distress, and by 1230 she had sunk.

The Bordeaux pilot, Emile Noyon, put to sea at midday to render assistance, but on his return reported that the vessel had 'turned turtle' and sunk. He saw no lifeboats. Mr Noyon was later to testify to the inquest that this was the heaviest sea he had seen in his 37 years as pilot.

At the request of the St Peter Port harbour master, Captain Langlois, the Sayonara, a steamer in St Peter Port, put to sea, but returned to harbour as the weather was too rough.

The St Peter Port lifeboat was asked to attend the scene but was unable to due to the damage sustained during the night. Later there would be considerable debate as to whether the Arthur Lionel could have been of much help anyway. Unmotorised, she would have had to be rowed by the crew or towed to the scene by another vessel.

All the crew of the St Malo perished. On 14 November a lifeboat bearing the inscription 'St Malo, St Nazaire' was found on the shore at the north end of Herm.

A second lifeboat was found drifting by James Le Page and Hedley Bewey and towed into Grand Havre.

Over the next few days, 15 bodies were recovered in Herm and all down the west coast of Guernsey. Two weeks after the sinking, a final one was recovered in Jersey.

With the bare details of the St Malo story in their minds, Paul and his fellow divers descended to the wreck.

On the surface, with five tanks strapped to them, movement was at best difficult, as he reveals.

'You enter the water looking much like a Christmas tree. Thankfully, once in the water, movement does become more manageable.

'With the bare details of the St Malo story in our minds, we descended to the wreck. At 70m deep there is little surface light penetration, just a twilight effect. Our torches cut through the gloom to reveal a quite well-preserved wreck. The central section lay exposed, with steel ribs enclosing the now-empty bridge area. With strict time pressures, we got to work.

'Our aim was to positively identify this wreck as the St Malo. It became pretty obvious to us that we were the first to have dived the site. To most divers the chance to recover, say, a bronze porthole from a wreck is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - and all of these were there, just lying amid the wreckage.

'As usual, the bottom phase of the dive seemed to be over in a far shorter period of time than the clock would suggest. We all made our long return to the world on the surface thinking about the sights that had not been seen since 1915.

'To be honest, our return to St Peter Port was much quieter that the outward run.'

A public debate began during the days that followed the tragedy of the St Malo, with a Guernsey Evening Press editorial calling the failure of the Arthur Lionel to attend 'a disgrace to the island' and stating that 'obviously there is something radically wrong with either the management, the crew or the boat itself'.

Readers' letters to the editor showed similar sentiment.

The inquest under the then bailiff, Edward Chepmell Ozanne, came to the conclusion that: 'The only lifeboat which belongs to the RNLI cannot, because of its construction, stand the strain of being towed in heavy seas and is consequently practically useless.' This statement alone led to ill-tempered private exchanges between all the authorities involved.

Today, the wreck is a wonderful place. Sitting on a sandy bottom on a NNE heading with a 30-degree list to port, she is complete. The fine woodwork has gone and the steel hull is collapsing somewhat under the onslaught of the tides that rip across her bows twice a day. Her decks are again alive, this time with lobster and conger eels.

For the diving team, positive identification has always been a main aim. In this, they have failed, but what they do have is circumstantial evidence including:

* It is in approximately the correct place and is the correct age.

* The size and number of boilers and screws etc. are correct.

* They have recovered crockery with the CGT monograph.

* The general layout of the wreck matches the pictures, with mast placement and winch positions being correct.

If it is not St Malo, then they have no other possible candidate.

As Paul points out: 'There are still many unanswered questions in relation to the St Malo. Bear in mind that we have not yet positively identified this wreck and may never do so. If she sank during a great storm, why have the majority of the portholes found been wide open?'

Standing orders in wartime were to sail with all portholes closed. Common sense would also expect them to be shut with the steel storm plates tightened down during a violent storm.

Speculation at the time was that St Malo hit a mine or was torpedoed, as there was a U-boat, UC18, active in the area.

During the team's dives on the site it has not seen any damage consistent with the mine or torpedo theory.

At the time, the St Malo tragedy caused a major political debate in Guernsey.

It was, however, wartime and tragedy of every sort was all too common. Also, compared to the sinking of, say, the Stella in 1899, the loss of life was relatively small and as the crew was French, the impact on island life was not so direct.

All of the bodies were collected by another CGT ship and returned to St Nazaire, so there are no memorial stones in Guernsey to remind us.

Ultimately the legacy of the St Malo sinking should be that it was pivotal in the decision by the States of Guernsey and the RNLI to finally station and provision a motorised boat in the island in 1929.