Tyrannosaurus
wrecks
Every wreck diver worth his salt should buy the vast, comprehensive Shipwreck Index of the British Isles, even if it means digging deeper than usual into pockets.
Eventually this series will embrace all the UK and Ireland but for now the first two volumes are out, number one covering the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, volume two dealing with Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Sussex, Kent, Goodwin Sands and Thames. Both areas are rich in shipwrecks, and these books will save the serious wreck diver weeks of trawling in libraries and archives, and probably avoid many mistaken identifications.
The authors and editors are no strangers to divers. Richard Lam has been involved in professional diving in the Navy, later running Pro-Dive, and throughout his 47 years in the field has been an avid researcher and collector of information about shipwrecks.
He started by building up a commendable card index from the printed State Papers Domestic, a rich storehouse of information, and went on to other primary sources and the substantial (and not always accurate) library of writers on shipwrecks and compilers of lists and catalogues. His wife Bridget came in as assistant and is now joint editor.
The listings are grouped by area and, within each group, chronologically, from the 14th century to the 1990s. From humble fishing boats to great liners, the detail in each entry is impressive. Not only are type of vessel, tonnage, cargo, place of origin and destination, crew and passengers, losses and constructional details included, but there are pithy accounts of the wreck and rescue and, of interest to the wreck investigator, details of salvage and contemporary and modern diving.
Each area is described with a brief maritime history, maps and a number of photographs and illustrations of ships, wrecks and salvage. The publishers might have reduced the number of illustrations and improved the quality by using duotone reproduction. Some of the photographs are grey and dull, and the text could have been broken up more to relieve the eye.
The authors have condensed the story of each wreck where accounts are available and succeeded in telling some rattling good stories of exciting or horrendous catastrophes. Prospective wreck-hunters can tank themselves up with overnight reading of appetising quarries, such as the John, wrecked on the Goodwin Sands in 1669: "...her company left her except for two children (one Irish boy and a negro lad) after which she fired and drove four or five miles northwar It is said there were two chests of gold dust, and much other gold as well as elephants' teeth and other rich commodities on board..."
And who could fail to be intrigued by the story of the wreck of a little-known warship, Crocodile, near Salcombe in 14: "...AII her spare booms were heaved overboard and her water casks emptied. Finally her masts were cut down, but she refused to budge and with seven feet of water in the hold and the tide ebbing, the ship looking as if she would fall over, she was abandoned. Once ashore one of the seaman, Patrick Crawley, got very drunk at the grog shop in East Prawle and struck Midshipman John Burn, for which the seaman received 100 lashes..."
These are volumes to browse through for amusement but also for clues to fther research, because the authors make it clear that this index is to be used to launch a serious reader into more intensive study. All their sources are included after each listing.
At the risk of sounding niggardly, the publishers could have improved the work. The index to volumes 1 and 2 is published separately and should be the key to looking up references quickly. The wrecks are listed alphabetically but hundreds are listed as "unidentified". They are grouped geographically but listed not chronologically but apparently at random.
Also, surprisingly, the pages in the volumes are not numbered. This wastes time and increases frustration in locating entries.
The number of shipwrecks around our shores is inestimable. The Larns will have gathered tens of thousands by the time the Index is complete. Many ships vanished with no record, others foundered in remote places and their end was never known. Some broke up swiftly and only floating wreckage remained to add to the abundance of unidentified but observed wrecks. This series will stimulate wreck researchers to bring out their lists for comparison.
The Larns know that even the most meticulously researched lists will never include all shipwrecks but hope to publish supplements from time to time. With luck they will be inundated with gratuituous information from other researchers and scholars to make their work even more imposing than it is already. The index is published by Lloyds Register of Shipping, 71 Fenchurch St. London EC3M4BS, at £49 each volume.
Rex Cowan
Bodily functions
Why do divers so often want to urinate in their suits during a dive? The answer to this all-important question can be found in Chapter 2 of Diving Physiology in Plain English by Jolie Bookspan PhD.
At 230 pages it may look like a dry medical tome, but the contents will interest anyone who wonders what happens to their bodies under water. The author's aim is to present diving physiology in an understandable and enjoyable way.
The list of contributing reviewers is comprehensive, and includes a comment from the BSAC's own Dr Peter Wilmshurst (on the unlikely risks to women of pressure damage to silicone breast implants).
Chapter 1 delves into the mysteries of decompression tables and computers, explaining things like M-values, half-times, and non-Haldanean decompression models like the Slab, Varying Permeability and Reduced Gradient Bubble.
Not tempted? How about the next chapter, which deals with immersion effects like the "dive reflex" and the aforementioned "P-phenomenon"?
In Britain we have to take some interest in what happens when we dive in the cold. The next chapter explains the why and how of diving in chilly waters. The problems of diving in the heat are also covered.
Gender facts and folklore deserve their own chapter. This includes a section on issues specific to men, including penile implants (surely rare among BSAC members!).
Of more common appeal, I suspect, is the subject of hair restoration. Unfortunately, this section deals with hair-growth stimulators, surgical hair restoration and their relationship to diving health, rather than a promise that time spent under water will stimulate balding pates to resprout.
Issues specific to women are touched on: what is known medically about diving while pregnant, and oral contraception. The shortness of the chapter higlights the lack of medical knowledge on the subject.
More comprehensive are areas such as cardiovascular health, diver's acne, joint structure and injury, eating disorders, air consumption and obesity.
Chapter 5 considers diving injuries and the more real dangers of poisonous stings from marine animals, decompression illnesses, lung injuries, oxygen toxicity, headaches (more than four pages on this subject) and swimmer's ear.
"Fat's Not All Bad" leads off the exercise chapter, which takes in nutrition, losing weight without diets, bone health and fluid replacement.
The book is published by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society Inc, 10531 Metropolitan Avenue, Kensington, MD 20895, USA (tel. 001 301 942 2980; fax. 001 301 942 7804). It costs US$30.
John Bantin
Southern scrapyard
Knowing the how, why and when of a shipwreck provides the scrapyard on the seabed with a fascination which far outweighs the mere look of debris, and is essential for those who want to get the most from a wreck dive.
Which is why Steve Shovlar's Dorset Shipwrecks should be welcomed. There is no quarrel with its sub-title, "A comprehensive guide to the shipwrecks of Purbeck and Poole Bay", because it is one of the most thorough books about wrecks on a section of the British coast that I have come across.
It tells the stories of more than 100 wrecks between the western side of the Isle of Purbeck and the eastern edge of Poole Bay. The author has adopted the well-tried formula of relating how and why the ship sank, what happened to the crew, the aftermath, her position and, if she has been dived, a short guide to what she looks like now.
The pictures might have been larger but there are plenty of them. Where they are not available, the superb paintings of the marine artist Barry Mason have been used.
One slight drawback in this 244-page book is that ships have been grouped chapter by chapter in date order, not geographically, which entails much flipping about if you are interested in a single area. But there is a good name index.
Dorset Shipwrecks comes from Freestyle Publications, Alexander House, Ling Road, Tower Park, Poole, Dorset BH12 4NZ (tel. 01202 735090); price £14.95 (1p&p).
Kendall McDonald
Diesel mysteries
Boats rarely break down near a marine engineer's workshop and, apart from those with outboards, they all seem to be equipped with those mysteriously clonking engines which vibrate a lot and start up using a glowplug. I mean diesels.
My knowledge of the workings of compression ignition engines was always scanty. I would either take an engineer with me or keep well within rescuing distance. Until now.
The Diesel Troubleshooter by Don Seddon is a handy book. Inspired by the RYA Diesel Engine Course, it is published by Fernhurst Books and aimed at those who need to know the basics - me!
It starts out by explaining how a diesel engine works, dealing with fuel, air, air filters, turbochargers, cooling systems, lubrication, the electrical system, installation procedures (including alignment of the propeller shaft) and gearboxes.
The important subjects of how to treat your engine well and how to avoid disasters follow. Probably the most referred-to sections of this handy guide will be the problem-solving flowchart and one of the most comprehensive chapters, "Troubleshooting in more detail".
The Diesel Troubleshooter is illustrated with simple line drawings and clear black and white photographs. It is available from bookshops at £11.95.
John Eastman
Tropical ID
Dieter Eichler's Tropical Marinelife is a handy 200-page reference book for marine animal-spotters diving in waters with life common to the Indian Ocean.
The German-language version has already sold more than 50,000 copies and this is an exceedingly well-organised and workmanlike book. Listed phylum by phylum, each animal is described by physical characteristics, location, way of life, food, and reproduction. This information is comprehensive and accompanied by colour photographs which are obviously chosen for their clarity and the information they contain rather than for their artistic merit.
It is not a volume intended to fire you with enthusiasm for the underwater world but a functional tool, and comes with a removable water-resistant cover.
Tropical Marinelife (Immel Publishing) costs £17.95 and is available from bookshops.
Appeared in DIVER - September 1996
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