Rosguill

HMS Hurst Castle

admin — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:36:04 +0000

On her last day’s work of the 2011 season the Rosguill has found HMS Hurst Castle in a little over 80m of water around 12/14 miles north of Tory Island.

HMS Hurst Castle was a British Royal Navy, Castle – class corvette of 1,010 tons built in 1943/1944 which were an updated version of the much more numerous Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy, and started appearing during late 1943. They were equipped with radar as well as asdic. On the 1st September 1944 she was torpedoed by German submarine U-482 and sunk. 16 men lost.

Diagram of wreck by diver below.

This is probably the last of His Majesty’s Ships to be discovered in my area off north Donegal. It is a really great find and I hope that in 2012 some photographs and video may be taken and be put online. Also, perhaps place a fitting tribute on her in memory of the men who lost their lives.

The mortar launcher in the diagram is very similar or the same as : – http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/exhibitions/navy/objects_photos_search-e.aspx?section=4-D&id=28&page=1

The torpedos are very similar to these: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hedgehog_anti-submarine_mortar.jpg

Season finishes

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:57:41 +0000

2011 will remain in the memory of most regular divers to north Donegal as the year in which the visibility never really attained its normal clarity. Sure, there were a few days when the water turned to blue gin, but not many. Hard to understand why?

Weather was great right up until start September and as of second half October remains unsettled.

The Rosguill had a relatively sucessful year, pinging 10 new wrecks and diving 5 wrecks not dived since Beasley. Bells recovered from Veronica and Roscommon.

2012 hope to continue diving some of the “virgins” and intend to spend time looking for HMS Hurst Castle.

Few artefacts shown below from the SS Englishman, dived near the end of the season.

Season draws to a close

admin — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:13:48 +0000

Still reasonable fishing – if the weather would allow the Rosguill go wherever.

September fishing

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:36:22 +0000

Fishing September good – Blue Sharks gone? – spoke too soon – caught 2 Blue Sharks very next day – 13 degrees water temperature.

But most other species OK.

First Common Skate at end of season

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:35:16 +0000

Nice female 173 pound Common Skate – first this year on board.

Some Turbot & Brill

admin — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:14:03 +0000

Nice day at Turbot and Brill. Sand fishing Ok. Also Limeburner for the “usual suspects”. Blue Sharks are fairly poor – a few around but not big numbers. Few Tope at Limeburner. Mackeral fairly good numbers. Water temperature 2011 barely managed to reach 15 centigrade – probably main reason for low numbers of Blue Sharks. No Porbeagles around.

Blue Shark Tooth

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:32:47 +0000

A close up photograph of a tooth from a Blue Shark – makes a “kitchen devil” look positively harmless!!!

All sizes & sexes

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:11:32 +0000

Some nice Blue Sharks. The 90 pound male took the bait and after a very strong run was struck by the angler…………the line went slack and the angler wound in…….the Blue was running towards the boat unknown to the angler who thought that it was truly gone………………..just as the swivel came out of the water the Shark breached the surface, turned and ran again……..never saw a Shark before which ran almost the whole way back to the boat……amazing!

1st Blue Shark 2011

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 21:01:39 +0000

Rosguill boated 2 Blue Sharks – 55 pound & 35 pound. First of the year & although the second day fishing for Blues, reports from other skippers are indicating that Blues this year are not good

North Donegal diving!

admin — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 09:14:42 +0000