New Baltic wrecks available for divers. What next for "Franken"?

The enthusiasts of diving in the waters of the Baltic Sea will certainly be pleased with the fact that more wrecks have been made available to the divers. Although the statement “handed over” probably does not present the full picture of the situation, as making them available required a lot of effort and systematic work over the last year, which was done by the Baltictech group.

Among the vessels made available, which divers can visit from 15 November 2019, are the wrecks “Georg Buchner”, U-272 the so-called shallow U-boat near Hel, “Little Stuttgart” – a small vessel sunk near Gdynia, the aircraft carrier “Graff Zeppelin”, “Muhlhausen” the so-called barrel ship and the cutter “Tupolew”. The full list of wrecks available for diving can be found in here.

-- Advertisement --

Now, wreck diving enthusiasts will no longer need special permits to visit these vessels, just a routine report to the boatswain’s office, as for any other trip.

The Baltictech team has announced that the next target on the agenda is the tanker “Franken”. Divers from the Tri-City group will try to restore the possibility of diving on this wreck already in the spring of 2020.

The situation with ‘Franken’ is unfortunately not simple. All because of the armament of the tanker, namely the ammunition that is still on the wreck. It is necessary to determine whether there is a danger to divers caused by military remains from World War II lying on the wreck. This was supposed to be determined in October 2019 by an inspection carried out by the Navy, but ultimately this did not happen at all.

In recent months, we have contacted the Directorate of Maritime Office in Gdynia by phone to determine what the situation is and what actions are planned regarding the “Franken” wreck. Although we have been assured of the goodwill of the officials and their willingness to make the wreck available for divers, it does not appear that this is followed by any more concrete actions.

At the moment the wreck of the tanker seems to be a problem for which nobody wants to take responsibility, and without that it will be extremely difficult to bring “Franken” back to the list of items available for divers. However, I sincerely hope that the efforts made by the members of the Baltictech group are heading towards a happy ending and will result in another success!

Source: Baltictech, own
Photo: Michal Procajło