RMS Lusitania

I was lucky to be part of Project 17. Project 17 did expeditions on RMS Lusitania. That was an amazing experience. We dived on the wreck of a ship like RMS Titanic at -93m depth.

This was to be the crowning glory of my work. Diving on the Lusitania, a four-fennel Ocean Liner. She looked just like the Titanic but had one more propeller. Lusitania had four propellers, Titanic three. Lusitania was, after Titanic, the most famous wreck in that class. In those golden years of passenger shipping, it was a battle to have the longest, most luxurious and especially the fastest ship. There was of course the Titanic, the most famous of the Ocean Liners with four funnels, but there were others. White Star Lines had three, the Titanic, the Olympic and the Brittanic. And Cunard Lines also had three, the Lusitania, the Mauretania and the Aquitania. There were others but these took the crown in those great years of passenger shipping. All Royal Mail Ships, which stood for the RMS. Where the Titanic was built in Liverpool, the Lusitania was built in Clydebank in Scotland, situated on the northern banks of the River Clyde, not far from Glasgow. In 1902 the plans were made and in 1903 the construction of the Lusitania was started. The ship was supposed to reach a speed of 24.5 knots. At that time there was a competition between the companies who could make the crossing to America the fastest. The fastest one got the Blue Ribbon, the blue pennant. In 1913 Cunard Lines was commissioned to modify the Lusitania. Six of her boilers were taken out of use and part of her steering accommodation was removed to create more cargo space. In September 1914 the shipping company learned that the Lusitania was to provide the transport of “admiralty goods” between Great Britain and the United States, i.e. the transport of weapons, ammunition and goods of the army. On May 7, 1915, during the 202nd crossing from New York to Liverpool, the ship was sunk by the Germans off the coast of Kinsale, during the U-boat war. The German submarine U-20 had fired a torpedo and hit the Lusitania in the starboard side. Shortly afterwards, another violent explosion followed. The ship sank in just 18 minutes. Because it was listing heavily to starboard, only a limited number of lifeboats could be launched in time, which was fatal for most passengers and crew. 1,198 of the 1,962 passengers died, including 128 American citizens. 94 children lost their lives. 885 victims were never found. 764 people survived the sinking of the Lusitania. As well as Dowie, a black cat who was the mascot of the stokers on the ship. She jumped from the ship the night before it left New York and thus survived the disaster. From Kinsale, the first rescue ships arrived at the site where the Lusitania had sunk. The rescue operation was the work of the local fishermen of Kinsale. Later, the larger ships from the area also arrived. U-20 had quietly disappeared in the meantime. Afterwards, it became a game of yes-no between the United States and Germany about responsibility for the attack. Woodrow Wilson, the then President of America, rejected the German accusation that the ship had had ammunition on board. It would later turn out that the Lusitania did indeed have ammunition among its cargo. More than 4 million bullets were found when the wreck gave up its cargo. Empty bomb casings and ammunition wadding were also part of the cargo. Between 1960 and 1962, John Light dived to the wreck of the Lusitania 42 times. With only ordinary air tanks and primitive gas mixing technology, he could only stay down for a few minutes and could not really get a good idea of ​​what the wreck looked like. He suffered from severe nitrogen narcosis, deep intoxication, during these dives. It was believed at the time that there was ammunition on board and that this had caused the second explosion. He bought the wreck in 1967 for £1,000. He also needed financing for the salvage. He entered into a contract with businessman George Macomber, who in turn hired Gregg Bemis. Bemis received a third of the Lusitania as collateral. Macomber and Bemis took over the ship when John Light's venture failed. In 1993, Dr Robert Ballard, the discoverer of the Titanic and the Bismarck, used a submarine to investigate the wreck further. He noticed coal dust on the bottom and assumed that the torpedo had pierced the coal bunkers, which were in the sides. This would have caused the coal dust in the empty coal bunkers to explode and cause the Lusitania to sink rapidly. Much later, the possibility emerged that there was much more explosive aluminium powder in the lower holds and that this could have caused the explosion. Diver Paddy O’Sullivan himself dived the wreck and was convinced that the aluminium powder was the cause of the second explosion. Gregg Bemis died in May 2020. He left the wreck to the Lusitania Museum in Kinsale. The wreck of the Lusitania lies at a depth of -92 metres. Eleven nautical miles from the Old Head of Kinsale. From the dive site you could see the Irish coast very well. The shotline was dropped from the diving ship Sea Hunter, a line of more than a hundred metres long with a heavy piece of chain at the bottom which kept the line perfectly in place. Because no anchor was used, the line could easily be retrieved afterwards without a lifting balloon, simply on the winch of the Sea Hunter. The deco station consisted of three bars that hung at three, six and nine metres depth respectively. Everything was kept afloat by four large buoys. The line of the deco station was approximately 50 metres long and was attached to the shotline with a clamp. This clamp was therefore hanging at approximately half depth. During the descent along the shotline, a name tag was attached to the clamp by the diver. After the dive, during the cancellation, the tag was removed again and when the last diver reached the clamp and the last tag was removed, the clamp was released from the shotline and the entire deco station drifted with the current. The boat on the surface followed the deco station and picked up the divers as they came up. At the bottom of the wreck, a reel was used. This made it easy for the divers to find the shotline. When no reel was used, the diver could miss the shotline. Then he had to ascend along his own deco buoy. This meant that he hung alone in the water for about two and a half hours to decompress. At the bottom, each diver hung his strobe light about ten meters above the wreck. Missing the shotline was not a good idea. Then your name tag would get stuck on the clamp of the deco station and the clamp would not be released. This caused the deco station to hang in the current, which is not as comfortable as when it drifts with the current. Diving on such wrecks is like diving in a time capsule, you go back to 1915. You see the remains of utensils that are still lying en masse on the wreck. Especially things that do not decay such as leather shoes, bronze windows, chandeliers and so on. But also remains of the railings, elevators, showers and the mosaic floor of the first class bathrooms. You rarely come across human remains but personal objects such as shoes and such things do remind you of the drama that took place here on that seventh of May.

On the bow of the ship we also found thousands of bullets, according to the cargo registers there were more than four million on board. The anchor chain led me to the starboard anchor that was still hanging in the anchor house. For this we had to dive under the wreck because the wreck lies on its starboard side. Based on the number of bollards we could orient ourselves well. The more bollards, the closer to the bow. Two bollards on the side indicated that we were just under the bridge. That is also where the first class cabins were located. Unfortunately, time flies by quickly and the reel was reeled back in. About 30 minutes at a depth of 92 meters resulted in a decompression time of about two and a half hours. The 2022 expedition was my first on the Lusitania and was a great success, we were able to do six out of ten dives which was usually much less due to the weather conditions. The 2023 expedition only became four dives out of ten. And I dropped out of the 2024 edition. I was 66 years old by then and my physical condition was no longer good enough to do those heavy decompression dives. With regret in my heart I informed Peter McCamley, the organizer of Project 17, that I was dropping out. I wanted to end my deep diving in style. Of course I remained active on the North Sea and on Ephyra. I was satisfied that I had been able to complete these expeditions without any problems. In the meantime Vic Verlinden had finished his book about the Lusitania and the story of my wife's grandfather was also included in the book. A story that I definitely have to tell.

Georges Lesaffre left, after the death of his parents, his birthplace Heyst aan Zee, to his aunt in America. She lived in the Chicago area. He took the Ocean liner RMS Lusitania from Liverpool on 18 February 1911 and arrived at Ellis Island on 24 February 1911. In 1914 he returned to Belgium to serve his country during the First World War. He was stationed in Le Havre in France and worked in the ammunition factory that had exploded a few years earlier. In Le Havre he met Martha Michiels, who had fled from Belgium because of the war violence. They married on 24 November 1917 in Graville, a hamlet of Le Havre. After the war he returned to America. Martha later followed her husband with a child in hand and pregnant with the second. The child in hand was my future mother-in-law, Madeleine Lesaffre. Georges worked for years as an “ajusteur” on machines. He suddenly became ill and died in 1924 of his illness. His wife Martha returned to Belgium with her two daughters. One of these daughters went back to America at the age of 21 with the Red Star Line in Antwerp. She married there and had four daughters. So much for the Lusitania family story.