Lusitania Project ’17
An International team of technical divers has begun what is hoped will be a long-term project digitally mapping one of Ireland’s most famous shipwrecks.
Jealously guarded by the Irish Government, the site of the sunken liner – a monument and a war grave – is not open to day-tripping divers or tourists, and anyone planning to dive to the Lusitania, on which 1,195 people perished, has to come forward with a proposal and gain the approval of both the Government and the wreck’s American owner Greg Bemis.
In 2017 after getting the green light for their proposal to survey the state of the wreck and digitally map it, dive organiser Peter McCamley from Jerrettspass, Northern Ireland and 4 other local men were joined by other specialist divers – Frank McDermot, Res Soheil, and expert Finnish cameraman Kari Hyttinen – as they took the 93 metre plunge, 11 miles off the Irish coast, to try to uncover the secrets of a ship that had once been the largest and fastest liner in the world (launched in 1907, it predated the Titanic), and was hailed as a great emblem of the British Empire.