Once Ophelia had finished toying with us and was on her way to give Carnarvon a good soaking, we headed back to the search box to resume operations. I chose to search track-line 6 next as I wanted to complete the centre of the box before shifting over to the eastern side, where I thought we had a better chance of finding the wrecks. We also needed to see whether Carter’s efforts to fix the sonar had been successful. I was prepared to have to rerun the two centre track-lines because the image quality had been so poor and the coverage suspect. Even if these two lines were written off, it was more important in the long run to give Carter the time he needed to get the SM-30 working at optimum performance. There were thirty-one people on board the Geosounder, but he was the only one with the ability to get the sonar working, and thus the full weight of everyone’s expectations was riding on his shoulders. All eyes would be on the sonar imagery to see if he managed to improve it.
By the time the SM-30 had reached the start of track-line 6, we already knew that the imagery hadn’t improved. In fact, it was now worse than before. No data was being created at the outer ranges of both channels and the imagery elsewhere was badly obscured by acoustic noise and dropouts. These were symptoms of yet more electronic faults inside the towfish that Carter was unable to find and repair. I believed we had taken a step backwards, but now the pressure was on me to make the right decision. I could get Art to recover the towfish immediately and put Carter back to work to find the source of these new problems. However, I also needed to take into account that morale on the ship was spiralling downwards and that Carter had had very little sleep over the past few days. The sonar imagery was far from perfect, but we were covering some ground and I needed him to be rested before he returned to the job of finding these elusive faults. I decided to keep the search going at least through the end of track-line 6.
Twenty-one hours later, my next decision was an easy one. Towards the end of track-line 6, the sonar imagery deteriorated further, so I made the call to bring the towfish back on deck and the troubleshooting regime kicked into gear once more. Carter brought the two electronic racks back into the ship’s survey lab while the other Williamson technicians remade the electrical termination for the steel tow cable, which they suspected was the source of the ground fault. There is only so much testing you can do with a side-scan sonar on the surface to see if it is working properly. The truest test is what the imagery of the seabed actually looks like, which means you have to deploy the sonar all the way to its working depth without knowing whether it is fixed or not. It can be a frustrating process if repeated once. Repeated multiple times, it is downright maddening.
I came down to the survey lab early next morning knowing that the SM-30 would have been searching along track-line 8 for more than an hour with enough imagery produced to judge whether it was fixed. One look was all it took to see that it wasn’t. Although the port channel looked OK, the starboard channel was so badly obscured by a combination of extreme noise and dropouts that to continue in this way would be like searching for the wrecks with one eye closed. Art didn’t like what I had to say, but I found the situation totally unacceptable. He was worried about Carter after another marathon day and night session, as was I, but I explained it would be six hours before the towfish was on deck again and he’d be needed, and in that time he could continue to sleep.
The situation was now becoming critical and I felt the project was in real jeopardy. I had been keeping Patrick Flynn up to date with periodic phone calls, and he in turn was briefing Ted, who was understandably very nervous. So nervous, in fact, that over the past few days he had started another fund-raising campaign, aimed at finding $1 million to pay for an additional ten days of search time. His case to the federal and state governments was that if Kormoran was located late in the search, we’d need the extra funds to find the Sydney. He was also completely bewildered by the fact that the success or failure of the project seemed to be riding on just one person, and that Williamson didn’t have a backup engineer on board to work opposite Carter. Throughout the day, as Carter and the other technicians made their fourth attempt to produce a working sonar, pressure was also put on Williamson to urgently fly out another more experienced engineer to help.
My last discussion with Patrick very late in the evening of 10 March centred on whether we should suspend the search and bring Geosounder back to Geraldton to pick up a relief engineer. Apparently Ted had lost confidence in Art and Carter and wanted to see some form of action from us to rectify the current position. I recognized this as a typical reaction from someone sitting in an office, on land, with no feel for what was actually happening at sea. At any rate, it was my call and I told Patrick I still had confidence in Carter. While lesser individuals would have wilted from the prolonged pressure he was under, he never gave up. And when he got wind that a relief engineer was being lined up to fly out, he made it clear to me that he didn’t need the help and was determined to solve the problems himself.
Sometimes, even in situations as seemingly dire as ours, the best thing to do is not to act. I believed this was one of those situations and told Patrick I wanted to let Carter, and the Williamson team, continue to work on the problem. The improvements I saw in the port channel of the SM-30 imagery indicated that Carter was closer to getting us a fully functional sonar. Besides, I knew that returning to port now would be seen by the press, and others, as the drastic step of a failing mission, which would only serve to wind up the pressure on the team one more notch. As I turned in that night, I suspected that the next launch could either make or break the project.
It was 12 March, twelve full days after we’d left Geraldton to look for Sydney, and I had very little to show for our time at sea. Our search had been plagued by one problem after another, and the entire project was in serious jeopardy of ending in abject failure and humiliation for everyone involved. We all knew this was the only opportunity we’d ever get to find the wreck, but I feared our chance was slipping away from us.
At least the SM-30 sonar was back in the water. The imagery wasn’t up to my very high standards, but it was much improved thanks to Carter’s tireless efforts. With a functional sonar I was satisfied the search could continue, and any suggestions about returning to port were rejected. We had completed track-line 8 and even detected a possible target at the southern start of the line. It was unlikely to be a wreck, but at least our eyes were now focused on possible targets rather than poor, noisy imagery. Still, $2.3 million, which represented a big chunk of the expedition’s funds, had been spent with only a fraction of the search box covered. We could suffer no further downtime, of any type, if we were to complete the box before running out of money.
As if this wasn’t already a precarious situation, I was constantly reminded of the enormity of our challenge by the photo of Sydney’s crew I’d taped above the chart table where I worked. We expected to find Kormoran first, and in light of our very poor start, that would be a significant achievement in itself. But Kormoran was only a means to an end; a pointer to where I needed to search for the Sydney. If we found Kormoran but ran out of time and money to find Sydney, I knew the relatives would view our expedition as a failure. Sydney was the prize, pure and simple.
Track-line 9 was next on my list. My plan from this point forward was to search the entire eastern side of the search box in geographic order from west to east. Having run track-line 8 from south to north, we were now starting no. 9 from the north. This meant we were finally in a position to search the favoured north-eastern quadrant with a working sonar and reasonable weather conditions. It had taken twelve, mostly painful days, but we had reached a point where I could start to feel encouraged. How long the weather would hold was a worry, however, as Captain Blair had told us that gales were forecast for the following day. As the only luck we had had so far was bad, I prayed for a reversal of our fortunes.
And then, in an instant measured literally in the seconds it took to recognize the distinctive colours and patterns on a computer screen, our
gloom was transformed into the type of elation reserved for Olympic gold medal winners. Nearly 2,600 metres beneath the deck plates of the Geosounder, the transducers of Williamson’s troublesome SM-30 sonar began to reverberate from the returning energy of an acoustic pressure wave that could only have been produced by a large steel-hulled shipwreck. John Perryman was nearest to the sonar display and saw the large target first. He called over to me by the chart table four metres away. ‘Hey, David, what’s that?’ I knew immediately it was ship wreckage and shouted, ‘That’s it!’ At the same time, I could hear one of Williamson’s technicians commenting from the next room about the target, albeit at a far lower decibel level.
John and I were now seated side by side as I began to explain the scene of utter destruction below us. I recognized the first target as outermost debris by the simple fact that it was by itself with no other targets nearby. A few minutes passed and then smaller targets began to appear across the screen. I believed this was the start of the main debris field, and as the density of objects increased I was proved correct. Someone had found Glenys and she was now sitting behind me and John. I could sense the adrenalin coursing through her as she patted my back and said, ‘Well done, David, well done.’ The main debris field was contained within a large oval typical of a ship that had experienced a catastrophic explosion. I already suspected that this was the remains of Kormoran, but needed to see more. I told John that we hadn’t seen a large section of hull yet, but it was surely coming. He couldn’t believe I was able to predict these things, but I had seen it before with Lucona, HMS Hood and plenty of other wrecks destroyed by explosions.
The whole ship was buzzing with excitement and people poured into the survey lab to witness history in the making. The documentary film team had missed that instantaneous moment of discovery, but their cameras were now in position, pointed directly at me and John. There was a brief period when the targets petered out as the sonar glided past the main debris field, but I was sure we hadn’t seen all of this wreck. And then, as I’d predicted, a large rectangular shape slowly scrolled down the screen. It was the remains of the hull and appeared to be upright. I hoped to see one more sign that proved we were looking at a shipwreck, and for all the anguish it had given us the SM-30 sonar didn’t disappoint. ‘A shadow!’ I yelled as a classic angular acoustic shadow appeared behind the section of hull. It was one of the most dramatic and satisfying shipwreck discoveries I had ever experienced. Glenys, who like Ted and the other HMA3S directors had dedicated a major portion of her life to this quest, started to feel the magnitude of the moment and began to sob.
We had found the Kormoran in the location and condition expected, and despite the intense frustration of numerous days lost to Ophelia and myriad equipment failures, we had done so on just the fourth track-line after sixty-four hours of active searching. Against any standard this was a remarkably fast result, but for a shipwreck that many had predicted would never be found it was stunning to the point of disbelief. Most importantly, it meant that the testimony of Captain Detmers, upon which I had based my entire search plan, had proved to be truthful and accurate, leaving us with a proper chance to find the Sydney.
In my career as a shipwreck hunter I have experienced just about every emotion imaginable for a person in charge of such costly and technically complex adventures conducted on the high seas. Searching for shipwrecks is basically an all-or-nothing proposition, where you either find what you are looking for or go home empty-handed. The risks and rewards are great and so are the emotions that you go through as a result. I have experienced the feeling of searing disappointment when a search ends in failure and there is nothing to show for your efforts. If I am honest, this fear of failure is a driving force in the meticulous approach I adopt for every search, although I’d rather think it’s all about being professionally motivated. Fortunately, I have also known the feeling of unbridled joy that success brings.
So finding Kormoran was simply brilliant: another chance to experience that elation and watch a dedicated team celebrate a great result. There was huge relief that we had overcome all the problems thrown at us, but for me personally, there was a greater sense of satisfaction that I had been right to trust the German accounts in deciding where to search for the wrecks. The best feeling was yet to come, however, for I now knew that we would find Sydney; that it was just a matter of time. What I didn’t know was the extent to which the incredible highs and lows of the first two weeks would be repeated several times over the next month until the project was complete, nor the extent to which many people’s lives — including my own — would be changed forever by what we were about to achieve.
The mood on board the Geosounder was instantly transformed by the finding of Kormoran. There were beaming smiles and high-fives all around, especially for Carter, who was most pleased that the wreck had been picked up on the troublesome starboard channel that he had worked so hard to fix. Word spread like wildfire around the ship, and crew who would not normally take an interest in the survey functions of the vessel flooded down to the lab to share in the excitement and take pictures of the magnificent sonar images. For a brief period we were the only people in the world who were aware of what all Australia had been waiting to hear for so long. It was time to share the news. However, the timing of the public announcement had to be carefully choreographed between the navy and HMA3S. In the meantime, I switched my focus to finding the Sydney.
The first and most important conclusion I was able to draw from the position in which we found Kormoran was that it proved that Detmers’ account was credible and he was telling the truth about where the action had taken place. Kormoran’s wreck was located in the north-eastern quadrant of my search box, less than seven nautical miles from the nominal 26° south, 111° east position. The vexing question over whether Detmers’ 26° 34’ south, 111° east was the noon position or the action position was solved. It was indeed the noon position, but that was now a matter for the history books and no longer a concern for me in the search for Sydney. The important thing was that I could use Detmers’ last sighting of the burning Sydney to create a new search box using the navigation clues in his written account of ordering a halt to the shelling of Sydney;
1825 – Cease fire! Last range 9,000 metres. Last shot range 10,400 metres, last ship’s bearing 225. Ammunition expenditure 500 Bdz 50 Cz. Decision: prepare to scuttle ship. All officers to the bridge. Order to XO: turn out all boats and life-saving equipment. Lensch and Noll inform impossible to get through to the engine-room. Check this myself. No. 2 generator is still ready but useless. Mine-deck continuously under watch. Outline of the enemy lost in twilight. At around 16,000 metres out of sight. Enemy course about 150 true. Large fire seen until about 22 hours.
The simplest navigation calculation taught to children in schools is how to determine a position from a fixed point, knowing the distance and course from that point. Using the position of Kormoran’s wreck as the fixed point, it follows therefore, that Sydney should be found very close to the distance and course last seen by Detmers. The rationale where to look for Sydney was as simple as that, and it is why our chance of finding her was predicated on finding the Kormoran first.
Of course, it can’t really be that simple when looking for a ship that no one saw sink. As with the hunt for Kormoran, I would be searching an area that conservatively covered all possibilities, not a single point on a chart. There were risks and uncertainties I had to factor in to the calculation of my search box. For example, where was Sydney heading when she broke off the action with Kormoran and was seen heading to the southeast? Detmers estimated that the last course was about 150° true, whereas the final gun bearing at 18.25 was 225° relative to Kormoran’s heading. This would have made Sydney’s course 120° true. Was her crew steering the ship towards Fremantle (160° true) or Geraldton (130° true)? It seemed that both were a possibility and would need to be factored into my calculations.
The biggest unknown, however, the one that could truly make fin
ding Sydney difficult, even impossible, was the question of when the ship actually sank. Did Sydney go down after Detmers stated he saw a large fire, ‘about 22 hours’, but before midnight, when he abandoned Kormoran and, having ‘looked for Sydney’, could see nothing but blackness, and that ‘she was gone’? Or – and this was the really worrying possibility – did she limp away, over the horizon and out of Detmers’ sight, and sink at some time and place that was impossible to determine? The problem always came back to the fact that no one actually saw her go down, and there were no other physical clues to her whereabouts.
With everyone still celebrating the finding of Kormoran, I stole away to the chart table, where I studied the Quarter Million Plotting Sheet I had used to define the final search box for Kormoran. A repeat performance was called for, and as I looked at that photo of Sydney I’d taped to the wall a fortnight before, I took inspiration from the smiling faces of the 645 men in gleaming white uniform gazing down at me. Taking every documented clue, navigational analysis and my gut instinct into account, I outlined an area in red pencil where I thought, hoped and prayed their resting place would be found. At 360 square nautical miles, the box was five times smaller than that for Kormoran, which was a direct reflection of my greater confidence. The key question was how far Sydney would be found from Kormoran’s position. It depended in part on the speed she was still making after she disengaged from Kormoran. Having plotted various German observations, it was apparent that she slowed drastically, to the point where she was probably making little headway at the very end. I believed the distance between the two wrecks would be ten to fifteen nautical miles, but I set the southern boundary of my search box at twenty-five nautical miles just to be sure.
The Shipwreck Hunter Page 28