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TANTALISING WRECK PROSPECT
STEVE WEINMAN, EDITOR
IT'S NOT UNUSUAL FOR PEOPLE with big ideas to start out by enlisting the support of the press. If we enthuse in print, it helps them show potential sponsors that the world is gagging for their product.
So we're understandably cagey when people start telling us their as-yet-unrealised idea for an inland underwater leisure centre, an automatic drysuit deodoriser or whatever. We want to see it first.
However, we have just watched a demonstration of a product that does exist but that can never be finished. It's one I reckon most UK divers would like to get their hands on - only we can't, not yet.
Wreck experts Richard & Bridget Larn and system developer Alan Jones have produced a powerful vector graphics-driven website. Into it they have poured the contents of the Shipwreck Index of the British Isles, six mighty tomes produced for Lloyd's Register of Shipping by the Larns and for which they hold the copyright.
Imagine - a website that could eventually chart the position of every known shipwreck in British waters. Call up the concentrations of wreck that interest you; zoom into individual vessels to produce a mountain of facts, stats and images.
You can interrogate the system in many ways. Ask it how many U-boats lie in an area you plan to visit, what sank where on 17 July 1943, or whether the wreck you just stumbled on is already known about.
It's a powerful system that relies on broadband. You can glimpse its potential by visiting www.shipwrecks.uk.com, but the full site is not yet live. The team need sponsorship so that they can afford to provide free access. They hope officialdom will appreciate the site's value, for examples for schools and other seats of learning. If support is not forthcoming, users will have to pay a subscription.
Even Richard (who has the distinction of being the first man ever to jump out of a helicopter wearing scuba gear, exactly 50 years ago!) was surprised at some of the findings when he started interrogating the site - the number of Norwegian-flagged wrecks, for instance, or those carrying coal. "It's mind-blowing when you see all those little dots," he says. "The pictures tell a thousand words."
There is still a lot of work to do. A mere 41,000 wrecks are logged so far, with at least 20,000 to go! And only over time will all the positions be made GPS-friendly. One reason for needing sound funding before going live is to cope with all the fresh data sure to be fed in by divers.
But this is a big idea that deserves a place in our lives.
Talking of big ideas, this special Dive Show issue of diver is as big as they come. Its UK wreck content can't compete in volume with Shipwrecks.uk.com (though we do cover Deep Sea Detectives visiting the UK and a fair amount of wreckage in Devon and Northern Ireland), but we also have a lot of very large marine animals, a big computer test, the Big Question of course, and a colossal new TV series.
As Donald Trump says: "If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big."
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