S.S. Kilmaho
Today saw the second of the two planned dives out of Penzance on Fred Buckingham’s ‘Pamela P’. We left at the same sensible time of 11:30 and once again decided the dive on route. As our remit was a maximum depth of 60m we were presented with a few options, the favourite being the Kilmaho. So that’s where we headed. The Kilmaho was sunk by UB-20 in 1917 whilst on route to Dunkirk with its cargo of railway components including track and carriage wheels. As far as Fred knew it hadn’t been dived that often and sounded interesting to us.
When we arrived it took a while for the shot line to be placed on the wreck, but we were waiting for slack water so it didn’t matter too much. As soon as it was in we dropped down towards the 87m long wreck. Once again the shotline was right next to the boilers. I headed towards the stern section first, over the rear cargo hold still full of railway track and carriage wheels some of which were fitted onto axles. Beams of the ships structure were standing upright holding the cargo in, where the steel hull plates had fallen off or rotted away. There were probably more conger eels on the wreck than pieces of track, they lay in wait in every crevice possible, some were huge. At the stern there was a large quadrant, which was probably part of the steering gear. I then returned towards the boilers and headed to the bow. Past the boilers in the front cargo holds there were even more track, wheels and Congers. The front section was badly broken, winches and chain lie jumbled up. An anchor chain lie through a hawse pipe which was facing back down into the wreck rather than out to the front. There was no discernable bow section left. I then decided to have a look around the stern again, a long 87m swim along the starboard side, which was fairly broken until the engine room area, and I reached the stern at sea bed level. The rudder and propellor are still intact and in place and look impressive with 6 or 7 metres of intact hull above the 62m deep sea bed. I swam back along the port side which was also very intact until I reached a debris field at the side of the engine room, which was possibly the remains of the bridge. I then ascended up the hull side to find the shotline by the boilers. Once again my planned 30 minutes bottom time was up and I started my ascent. This time I didn’t have any Mackerel to keep me company, just Steve as his line crossed mine as we ended up too close. Steve managed to clear them and we drifted a little further apart.
Once on the boat we talked over the dive, Steve said he had spotted the boats helm, which was covered in wreckage, & railway track and impossible to reach. There was also a porthole by the side of it which was also out of reach, no doubt one day someone will arrive to find the steel rotted away and a nice helm, or maybe not if it’s iron, waiting for them. There are also a scattering of 12 pounder shell cases around the stern, lying between the rail track, I didn’t see any, I was looking for anything more interesting.
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