Many years ago, I was out wreck diving on the North Sea.
Now, this type of diving is not for everyone and can be quiet adventures. Bad visibility, strong currents - it's easy to lose contact with the guide lines and get yourself lost underwater. Which probably means you cant find your way back to the shot line - which is your ascent line back to the decompression trapeze station under the diving ship. This is what the dive crew looked like....
Now, notice the heavy steel hammer and crow bars - used to remove artifacts from the wrecks. Something I personally don't agree with - but, as the Dutch authorities are clearing away the old wrecks allowing salvage's to take the metal for scrap there is little argument against it.
Visibility is bad, and most things are heavily buried under silt and/or overgrown with coral growth.
You think you spot something - and it turns out to be a crab!
Then you see something - undoubtedly man made! No doubt about it.... a pipe of sorts leading up to something with a clear round shape.
Well, I made the mistake of pointing out this "round object" to one of the divers in the group... only later to see him during the ascent, with this "block of coral" tucked under his arm.
Back on the diving ship, I chastised the diver reminding him that this was a war wreck - that young men had probably died on the sinking ship and that he should have shown some respect. Well needless to say, there was no respect - and after some discussion I simply told the guy I was watching him and that I fully expected that he should put it back "over the side".
Back in port after the two day trip and as we left the ship - he knew I was watching him! And I painstakingly scrutinized his diving crate - and fortunately for him, it was not in there.
I went back on-board to do a last gear check, and sure enough there that lump of coral sat - he had it "hidden" under the deck bench and left it there. Now, whether or not he planned to return to pick it up I do not know, but all I did know was that he was not going to get away with it. So, I took it with me (knowing full well, that that the ships crew would simply toss it over the side into the harbor if they came upon it during cleaning the decks).
For years it lay in my office, with me feeling guilty for having pointed it out to that diver, every time I saw it on the shelf. So finally, I decided to take another look at it. Weeks of soaking in vinegar (as well as a well known soft drink on cola basis) and painstaking scraping away the growth with dentists tools - revealed this brass steam pressure gauge, that had once sat proudly on the side of the steam kettle in the machine room.
From the side of the burst valve fitting - we can read a date stamp.
The paint on the dial had long corroded away....
But after careful cleaning I was able to get the "movement" restored to a level where we can see it's workings - similar physics applies to the workings of the pressure gauge (depth gauge) in this watch in my collection, the Deep Two.
with it's fantastic mechanical depth gauge!
And from the rear, we can see how increasing pressure on the Bourdon tube drives the spindle...
I wanted to pay tribute to the young men who has served on that ship and decided that instead of leaving it this way where it was destined to gather dust in my office for years to come, to rather utilize it to serve as a reminder.
A reminder to those that served, and sailed the seas.... and in keeping with the tradition of IWC for making instrument to sail....
An IWC Deck Clock
It hangs here proudly on the wall - in tribute to the men of HMS Cressy
supported by some other IWC memorable in my collection.
