HMS Association designation.

 

How and why did the Association wreck site get an emergency designation? 

Well it all started with that anchor we lifted from Nut Rock in St Marys roads in 2013. That anchor was lifted from the Association wreck site in 1967 by the Royal Navy. They took it to St Marys to donate it to the islands for display here on St Marys. However, the short sightedness of our council back then turned their offer down-(I thought to say "generous" offer but everything the navy does is done with public money.)  The council didn't want responsibility. With nowhere else to go with the anchor the navy placed the anchor over by nut rock. The commander of this saga deserved a reprimand for poor planning using public money.  Nut rock is where we found the anchor in 2012 and then lifted it again. Unlike the navy team, this time we had funding and locals & the council's help to get the anchor from nut rock to display on the Green by the porthcressa schiller shelter. We told the Receiver of wreck what we were going to do. We also had an MMO licence to lift the anchor. From there someone went to Historic England and told them about our plan. For some strange reason, Historic England, then got into a fluster. Heaven knows why, but for some unknown reason, they thought we were lifting the anchor from the Association wreck site, -which is 7 miles away from Nut rock.  We then lifted the anchor from Nut Rock and got it ashore, totally unaware what was going on in the background. From freedom of information requests from Historic England clearly showed that they had contacted the DCMS and secretary of state and basically lied to them. They told the DCMS that two local divers, with a history of this kind of thing (lie no1) were about to raise the bows of the Association. (Lie no2) As a consequence of the dust kicked up by Historic England, the wreck received an emergency designation order over it. No one was consulted. Not one single stake holder was contacted. None of the salvage men then in control of the wreck were asked. No assessment of the wreck site took place. We were not asked what we thought. Nor did they look at the evidence as to where we had lifted our anchor from. We had sonar data showing its exact position on the seabed by nut rock where we found it. We had documentary evidence of the navy having placed it there in 1967. We never went anywhere near the Gilstone ledges where the Association lay. What was most ironic was that because of the failings above, a large part of the wreck lays outside of the new Government designated zone- and the place where the navy originally lifted this anchor from is part of that which lays outside!! This means that the part of the wreck then seemingly to be in most danger of salvage from the- "2 local divers with a history" -still lays undesignated today -so the place on the sea bed they were trying to protect has never been covered by the very emergency protection order designed to protect it!  All this I can prove-even down to exact position the anchor originally came from in 1967.  Those who ran Historic England at this time should have had some serious questions to answer. All the above silliness was simply because they couldn't be bothered to assess the site or ask anyone involved for information- how else can you get to the truth of what was going on?  Never has a designation of a wreck been more amateurishly, nor needlessly performed, or ill conceived. 

The anchor being lifted from deep sand by nut rock & clearly nowhere near from the Gilstone wreck site where Association lays.

 Another idiocy to come out of this saga was that the Receiver of Wreck wrote to me after the anchor was ashore stating that the original owners-the Royal Navy-had not wanted us to get their anchor ashore, therefore the salvage of it should not have taken place. I merely answered in the obvious-"if the Navy did not want the anchor salvaged-then why did they lift it from the wreck in the first place?"  Apparently all this was me- "antagonising the authorities." -at the time.  The result of all this was we lost our funding to get the anchor on display and now it lays in a field doing nothing-simply because the droit has never been cleared up by the Receiver of Wreck.  If the anchor has no owner it cant be passed on to the council. Only half of the Association got designated and a lot of people got very pissed off. All was avoidable had the authorities just done their jobs properly and acted as the law dictates.

Out of generosity we mere private sector citizens lifted this anchor ashore for public display. Had we simply been allowed to go through with the project it would have been on porthcressa green to this day. Instead it languishes in a field here on St Mary's still awaiting the paperwork to be cleared up- a job that is quickly done with the mere stroke of a pen. Well done government workers for all your help and cooperation in this worthy project. 

Going back to the navy using public money- A navy man (who had a lot to say about this anchor) once wrote to me how he, "under his own initiative, took a Gemini inflatable to go find the wreck of the SS Schiller".  The letter from this government worker-for that is what he was- was written like I was supposed to be mightily impressed by his actions paid for in part by me. You see he was in the navy at the time & he used navy equipment- all funded for by the public purse. My reply to this was that whenever I go hunting shipwrecks- I use my own boat and my own equipment- so any searching I do for wrecks is all funded out of my own pocket. Stick that in your arrogant Navy (Government worker) pipe and smoke it!