Bid to map wrecked ships at Scapa Flow

Some of the most historic scrap metal in Scotland is to be mapped by divers and underwater scanners.

A project to survey the salvage sites of the scuttled German High Seas Fleet in Orkney is due to get under way in the next few weeks.

Archaeologists from the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute have teamed up with SULA Diving for the Historic Environment Scotland-funded project.

Scapa Flow was home to the British Grand Fleet during both world wars.

Following the German defeat in the Great War, 74 ships of the Kaiserliche Marine’s High Seas Fleet were scuttled by the Germans at Scapa Flow.

At least seven of the scuttled German ships, and a number of sunken British ships, can be visited by scuba divers.

And on October 14 1939, under the command of Günther Prien, U-47 penetrated Scapa Flow and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak anchored in Scapa Bay. Of the 1,400-man crew, 833 were lost. The wreck is now a protected war grave.

Salvage efforts to raise the scuttled ships for scrap saw 45 recovered and, as a result, various components of the ships’ structures lie on the seabed but are relatively undocumented.

The new survey is intended to identify the primary scrap sites and associated secondary sites.

It is hoped the survey will provide baseline data for the longterm monitoring of the sites and the results will go on the Scapa Flow Wrecks website.