Bottom time: 20 mins.

Viz: 'excellent'.

14th June 2005

courtesy:
Dom & Carey

Visiting Portland’s Breakwater Diving Centre from France where we both live. Dominique Samuel a Breton Diver, Life-boatman at the Arzon station in southern Brittany positioned at Port Crouesty, and I, a former habitué of Breakwater Divers, now living in France, had the chance to slip an extra dive in early one morning. We selected the Binnedijk as it was the closest wreck to the pier now that the ‘Hood’ is a banned ship.
This Old Dutch ship built in the traditional style in 1921 was sunk in October 1939 as a result of a string of 18 U boat mines left by the U26. 18 mines sunk 3 ships with another ship hit but not sunk, a good score for a month’s cruise. The broken ship now lies at approximately 50°32’N W 02 20’ in 28 M with a height off the bottom of approximately 3M. We left the pier at 08:30 on a perfect morning, no clouds, but force 4 rising from W by S. By 09:00 we were on site in a lumpy sea.
Jay shot the wreck and we jumped in - down the shot. He’d had some doubts exactly where the shot was? It was OK - beautifully positioned. Even from the shot it was obvious that we had hit a day of incredible viz.  From 15M down we could see the shapes below not clearly but enough to see them. On the bottom the viz horizontally was greater than 20M, just amazing! We tied off our line though it could be said to be unnecessary, good habits die hard. Our shot was just off boiler 1 (see the diagram) in a mass of pipes and a couple of large bent pipes like ventilators, see picture (  ) we did a thorough inspection of boiler 1, there is a big hole in the side you can look in to the interior but you’ll need a torch to see the tubes inside.  Between boiler 1 and 2 there is a confusion of pipes plates and bit and pieces, again an interesting insight as to how things were constructed in those days, lots of rivets. We moved on to a large round object with a grid in it, under the opening a giant lobster whose tail I could see through the grid but I could not get my hand through to get him out in the open, so that Dom could photo him better, he got a shot head on but not his size. Cuckoo Wrasse and Ling Pout and lots of fish surrounded the wreck. Not that many lines but at least one trawl net on the outer perimeter. The mast had an enlargement on it, you can see those in the old photo. The bow? Section seemed to be semi intact with what we thought was the winch a more detailed inspection will reveal if we were correct.
By now we had been down at 27M or so for 20 minutes so a return to the shot was indicated. Dom’s computer was indicating a minute or so before a compulsory decompression stop and mine was still not into the cautions zone, following good practice we took the details from his computer and stopped 2 minutes at 6 M.  We could see the rippling surface and wave patterns very clearly - like a giant modern painting. On surfacing there was much more wind and a good sea running as we were clear NE of the Bill. On reflection a few hours after the dive, it was impressive we were perhaps lucky to be the only two on the site, but to dive in such conditions a site with such history and so close to harbour was a delight rarely found. We even repositioned the shot for Jay so that it would pull out easily for him. Diving as we do in Southern Brittany with the gulf of Morbihan and the off shore islands of Hoedic, Houat, and Belle Isle not far away we have a good appreciation of picturesque sites, wrecks like this are gems to us and are to you; Hopefully our chance to see more of the site than usual will have contributed an international view to your plan of the site. What a super idea to adopt a wreck. I am expecting the “I’ve dived the BINNEDIJK” tee shirt to be the latest craze for the international set!

Carey Nason & Dominique Samuel. At Castletown, Portland 2005/06/14

Land based research 2005

Built in N V Werf De Noord @ Alblasserdam, by a sub-company of the ship building tycoon Bonn & Mees during 1921, as part of a large order from the Holland and America line.  Shortly after finishing this order Bonn & Mees were forced into liquidation by trade union strikes. She was a type “B” class 6,800 ton, single screw 3000 shaft horse power steam turbine, with double reduction gearing and a service speed of 12 ¼ knots, length of 121.9 metres, beam of 16.5 metres and a draught of 11.3 metres. She was designed as a cargo ship.
The Binnendijk also had seven sister ships: Bilderdijk – torpedoed by a sub on 19/10/1940 sailing from Halifax to Liverpool, Burgerdijk, Blydendijk, Bloommersdijk, Breedijk, Boschdijk, Beemsterdijk - hit a mine off Pembrokeshire in 1941, 40 lives lost.
The Last Voyage
The Binnendijk set off from Boston under steam to New York during September 1939, she was bound for Rotterdam. On entry to the English Channel, she was requested by the Royal Navy to dock in Weymouth or Portland before crossing the channel for an inspection (there was suspicion of her carrying contraband). On the 7/10/1939 as she travelled up to Portland, the captain – W.Moree requested she drop anchor of the Shambles as the sun was setting. Around 10pm she struck a newly developed German magnetic mine. One of the first types used in combat. She was soon ablaze and sinking slowly.
From the Liverpool Daily Post, Oct 9th 1939:
The Dutch steamer BINNENDIJK, 6,800tons, bound from New York to Amsterdam was sunk in the English Channel early yesterday, 41 survivors landed in a lifeboat which stood by all night. Capt W. MOREE of Rotterdam, master of the BINNENDIJK, said, he was on the bridge when there was a terrific explosion, and the engines and wireless were put out of action. “The ship began to sink very slowly.” He said “and when we fired rocket signals they were answered... Later an examination vessel came alongside and making fast to our ship, took us off. There were 41 officers and crew we had no passengers.”
Around 2.40 am on the 8^th of October 1939 she slipped beneath the waves for ever lost, or so all aboard thought!! The mine was laid by the U26, under the command of Klaus Ewerth. During the 4 weeks spent on patrol the U26 laid 18 mines and sunk 3 ships. The Alex Van Opstel and the Elena  R being the other two. The Binnendijk now lies 2.4 miles north east of the Shambles in 27 metres of water. Position 50.32.117N   002.20.000W, her wreck number is 18616

Activity since she sunk
16/10/39 – Cable swept by the Kilmun to a depth of 26m off the sea bed. Masts swept off and a buoy laid to warn other ships
21/01/47 – Drift swept by the Steepholm to a depth of 12m off the sea bed. Buoy removed
08/08/52 – Salvaged by Risdon Beazley Ltd. Left 6m off the sea bed
14/01/91 – Examined using a transponder. Found 6m off the sea bed. Main wreckage dimensions 120m X 30m, with smaller scattered wreckage within 60m of the main site.
23/08/05 – MDD team descends to explore and survey the site.