This was a small ship, I estimated 120ft, others thought differently. Easily circled in a bottom time just over 20 minutes. Upright iron or steel hull, decks gone but much cross bracing remaining, with engine boiler & many fittings still in place. Mostly very intact, except the bow, which is flattened.

It is a sense of history that makes wreck diving appeal to be me. I like to visit an old ship (particularly steam ships) and be able to imagine people walking the deck, whilst an element of mystery keeps the interest going. This wreck truly met my criteria. However I would like the mystery to be solved, and put a name (and any other information) to her.

My first impression was of a small steam ship built late 19th century, similar to pictures I have seen of ships serving the North Isles of Orkney prior to the First World War. Some in the group said it could be a steam fishing boat, I thought it a little too large for that, but others are more expert than I. Any other suggestions ?

Also whilst the ship seemed late 19th century, and many sinkings around here are from WW1. I have rarely seen a wreck from this period so intact. Could it be later ?

I definitely want to go back. Finding the bell would resolve questions (maybe). Even failing that, on a second dive I would be better prepared to look for details. Hence make a more accurate sketch than that above.

Whilst we were in the area on the 15th our Skipper took the opportunity to do a little more searching with the sounder. Finding a huge blip. Still on a high from our dive, plans were made to go "blip diving" again the next day.

It was not to be. The weather intervened. 16th May us gave a quick trip outside Wick harbour followed by a quick 180 back to the quay side, and a day of coastal walking.

Things looked up on the 17th, we returned to our blip. Once again the shot fell just short of the stern, but what a stern. It was huge. Some of our number came off the line and swam to the top of the wreck, their silhouettes looked tiny above me. Each of the propeller blades was taller than me, so I reckon the diameter to be in excess of 3m.

This ship was upright with an intact hull. Deck gone, & most of the cross bracing collapsed. Except at the extreme stern where much decking remained, this also benefited from incredibly dense marine life.

Fiona and myself got far as the engine & boilers before turning back. John & Bruce swam hard to cover the full length, reporting the hull similarly intact throughout.

At the time of writing we still have no name for this ship. However it's size (some estimated 400ft length) may make it easier to identify than our small wreck of 2 days previous.

This 6365 ton liner was sunk by air attack on the 6th November 1940.

I found myself diving an area with several winches, much machinery that I failed to recognise, and a lot of steel structure. I really was n't sure which part of the ship we had descended on. Afterwards John Leigh reported seeing two telegraphs close together, so it seems probable that we were close to the bridge.

This large wreck requires more than our one dive to get to know it.

THE FREYA TODAY

The ship is now in two distinct sections with the division just ahead of the mast. These sections being just too far separated to be covered in one dive.

The forward section consists of the bow, which is intact from the stem to the forward face of wheelhouse, now laid over on it's port side. Beyond this the hull is very broken. Instantly recognisable were the two engines and their control panels. Further aft was more wreckage that probably came from the bridge and wheelhouse. Although in my one dive there was nothing more in this area that I could positively relate to pictures of the Freya afloat.

The aft section has no intact hull, but several large structures that were probably part of the superstructure. Parts that I could definitely relate to the surface picture were the funnel and the tripod mast.

HISTORY OF THE FREYA

The Freya was built by Wm Denny & Bros Ltd of Dumbarton, being launched in November 1954. The ship was a twin screw motor vessel of 274 gross tons and 58 net tons. She was 145 feet long, 24 feet beam and 11 foot depth. The engines were made by British Polar Engines Ltd of Glasgow and were each 4 cylinder, of 500bhp giving a speed of 14.5 knots.

Commissioned in the April of 1955. She patrolled mainly around the Moray Firth. It seems that she never had the confidence of her crews & gained a reputation for instability.

On the 8th of January 1959 Freya anchored at 1500 hours in Sinclair Bay. The wind was NW force 4. At 0315 hours on the 9th Freya heaved up anchor to move southwards, as the wind had veered to the northeast increasing to force 6 - 7 with squalls of force 8. At approximately 0440 hours Freya heeled to port and veered to starboard. She never recovered from the roll and lay over on her beam ends with the funnel lying in the water. She foundered approximately 15 minutes later.

The first that the wider world knew of the sinking was around 0930 hours when the trawler Summerlee passed a message to Wick radio. Stating 16 men had been picked up from a rubber dinghy by the Belgian trawler Berchmans.

Unfortunately 3 of the crew were missing. Despite a search by Coastguard , lifeboat, & helicopter, these men were never located.

Credit for research about the Freya must go to people other than myself, who chose not to have their names published.

Our boat for this expedition was the MV Karin. Credit for the success of the week must go to our crew :-

SKIPPER, John Thornton.

FIRST MATE, John Philips. Whose culinary skills were much appreciated around breakfast time.

Anyone interested in a similar expedition would do well to look at John Thornton's website.

Anyone not interested in the number crunching aspect of diving may bypass this section. No offence will be taken.

My equipment for the dives described above was an Inspiration rebreather (others in the group used conventional open circuit scuba gear).My diluent gas being 10/50 heliair (that is 10% oxygen, 50% helium, & 40% nitrogen). I ran the unit with it's standard oxygen partial pressure setpoints of 0.7 for descent, 1.3 at all other times, and flushed the unit with pure O2 when I reached my 6m decompression stop.

In case of problems with the rebreather I carried two 9 litre cylinders of bailout gas. One with 16/50 trimix for use from the bottom up to 15m, the regulator from this cylinder was bungeed around my neck. The other cylinder contained 60% nitrox decompression gas, to be used from 15m to the surface. Fortunately none of this precautionary equipment was used during the expedition.

Decompression tables were produced using Gordon Henderson's DDPLAN, using gradient factors 20/100. The great thing about DDPLAN is I can produce and laminate my tables and runtimes at home, and do not need to touch a computer whilst out on the boat.

Maximum dive depths varied between 50m & 67m. I tended to go for bottom times of about 20 minutes, which made for total dive durations of just over an hour.

No records broken, but much interesting diving.