Captain Trevor Jackson (born 26 November 1965) is an Australian technical diver, shipwreck researcher, author and inventor. In 2002 he staged what became known as the "Centaur Dive", which subsequently led to the gazetted position of the sunken Hospital Ship AHS Centaur being questioned. Jackson is the inventor of the 'Sea Tiger' lost diver location system, and an author on the subject of wreck diving.
Jackson had doubted the accuracy of the Australian Government's original findings for some time [1] before he and New Zealand diver, Dr Simon Mitchell, supported by a team of 15 back-up divers, staged a world record scuba dive to investigate the site. The dive took place near Brisbane on 14 May 2002, after nearly a year of planning. [2] At a depth of 178 m (584 ft), the dive was the deepest scuba dive to a wreck undertaken at the time, a world record which held for several years. [3] A camera was taken to the bottom by Jackson but pressure related equipment difficulties meant that no usable footage was retrieved. Despite the lack of conclusive proof, the pair remained adamant for several years that the wreck they had seen on the dive was too small to be the Centaur. Jackson was quoted on the 60 Minutes current affairs program: "[T]his wasn't a wreck of the dimensions that the Centaur was which, you know, was 100m long. It was a much smaller thing". [4] They suspected that the wreck was a small freighter called the Kyogle, sunk in 1951 by the Royal Australian Air Force. [4] [5] [6] Eventually their insistence prompted investigations by the media and the Royal Australian Navy. [7] It was subsequently shown that the Centaur was not where it had been assumed. [8] [9] [10] In 2009 the Queensland Government approved funding for a renewed search for the lost hospital ship. [11] The true resting place of the Centaur was discovered in December of that year. [12]
Between 1998 and 2004 Jackson was directly responsible for the initial discovery of at least 19 shipwrecks in the Coral Sea. [13] These ships included the Dutch dredger Kaptajn Nielsen, [14] [15] the USNS Dolphin, [7] [16] the SS Dover, [17] and the SV Missie. The latter contained a vast collection of 19th century glassware and is now a declared historic shipwreck. Most of these wrecks lay in depths well beyond the normal limits for recreational scuba diving. In 2005 he won the OZTek Technical Diver of the Year award for his services to wreck exploration. [18] Jackson's research into the exact position and depths of shipwrecks is currently being utilized by the Australian Hydrographic Office for new editions of admiralty charts for Queensland. [19] [20] The Australian Hydrographic Office also removed the protected zone from around the 'old' Centaur position. [21]
In January 2009 Jackson was involved in the Australian National Maritime Museum's discovery and initial survey dives of the 19th century historical Australian shipwreck, HMCS Mermaid [1829], [22] and the Queensland Museum's discovery of the SV Waverley [1889] near Thirsty Sound, Qld, in March later that year. [23] [24] [25] [26]
Captain Jackson is the author of two books on the subject of wreck diving: Wreck Diving in Southern Queensland and Diveabout: Wrecks in Northern Queensland. [27] He is an active writer for several dive publications and websites.
During 2009, Jackson patented a system of using specially designed buoys to locate divers lost on the surface. [28] [29] The system has been adopted by dive operators in the US, New Zealand and Australia. [30] [31] The system draws upon the 'deliberate error theory', utilized by US Navy pilots during World War II to relocate their aircraft carriers. More significantly, it involved the development of buoys tested and weighted to exactly replicate the drift characteristics of non-swimming divers on the surface of the ocean, and the use of timed and measured vessel manoeuvres. [32] [33]
Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. The term is used mainly by recreational and technical divers. Professional divers, when diving on a shipwreck, generally refer to the specific task, such as salvage work, accident investigation or archaeological survey. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving. The recreation of wreck diving makes no distinction as to how the vessel ended up on the bottom.
Diving activities are the things people do while diving underwater. People may dive for various reasons, both personal and professional. While a newly qualified recreational diver may dive purely for the experience of diving, most divers have some additional reason for being underwater. Recreational diving is purely for enjoyment and has several specialisations and technical disciplines to provide more scope for varied activities for which specialist training can be offered, such as cave diving, wreck diving, ice diving and deep diving. Several underwater sports are available for exercise and competition.
Australian Hospital Ship (AHS) Centaur was a hospital ship which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 died, including 63 of the 65 army personnel.
Benjamin Cropp is an Australian documentary filmmaker, conservationist and a former Open Australian spearfishing champion. Formerly a shark hunter, Cropp retired from that trade in 1962 to pursue oceanic documentary filmmaking and conservation efforts. One of his efforts for The Disney Channel, The Young Adventurers, was nominated for an Emmy award.
Edward Lee Spence is a German-born American archaeologist. He is a specialist in the field of underwater archaeology.
MS Zenobia was a Swedish-built Challenger-class RO-RO ferry launched in 1979 that capsized and sank in the Mediterranean Sea, close to Larnaca, Cyprus, in June 1980. She now rests on her port side in approximately 42 meters (138 ft) of water and was named by The Times, and many others, as one of the top ten wreck diving sites in the world.
RMS Quetta was an iron-hulled steamship that was built in Scotland in 1881 and wrecked with great loss of life in the Torres Strait in 1890. She was operated by British India Associated Steamers (BIAS), which was controlled by the British India Steam Navigation Company (BISN). She was wrecked on a previously unknown rock, which has been called Quetta Rock ever since. The Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018 protects the wreck.
David Louis Mearns,, is an American-born United Kingdom based marine scientist and oceanographer, who specializes in deep water search and recovery operations, and the discovery of the location of historic shipwrecks.
Sinking ships for wreck diving sites is the practice of scuttling old ships to produce artificial reefs suitable for wreck diving, to benefit from commercial revenues from recreational diving of the shipwreck, or to produce a diver training site.
Michael C. Barnette is an American diver, author, photographer and founder of the Association of Underwater Explorers.
Simon Mitchell is a New Zealand physician specialising in occupational medicine, hyperbaric medicine and anesthesiology. Trained in medicine, Mitchell was awarded a PhD for his work on neuroprotection from embolic brain injury. Mitchell has also published more than 45 research and review papers in the medical literature. Mitchell is an author and avid technical diver. He also wrote two chapters of the latest edition of Bennett and Elliott's Physiology and Medicine of Diving, is the co-author of the diving textbook Deeper Into Diving with John Lippmann and co-authored the chapter on Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine in Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine with Michael Bennett.
Peter Christopher, OAM, is an Australian author and photographer who writes about shipwrecks and riverboats. He is also a Director of the not for profit organisation, Clipper Ship City of Adelaide Ltd (CSCOAL), set up to save the 1864 clipper ship, City of Adelaide.
Leigh Bishop is an explorer and deep sea diver known for his deep shipwreck exploration and still underwater photography.
Honor Frost was a pioneer in the field of underwater archaeology, who led many Mediterranean archaeological investigations, especially in Lebanon, and was noted for her typology of stone anchors and skills in archaeological illustration.
Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this context all diving done for recreational purposes is included. Professional diving tends to be done where the job is, and with the exception of diver training and leading groups of recreational divers, does not generally occur at specific sites chosen for their easy access, pleasant conditions or interesting features.
The Society for Underwater Historical Research (SUHR) was an amateur maritime archaeology organisation operating in South Australia (SA). It was formed in 1974 by recreational scuba divers and other persons to pursue an interest in maritime archaeology and maritime history. The SUHR was renamed as the South Australian Archaeology Society in March 2012 as part of a plan to expand its activities beyond maritime archaeology to include other archaeological disciplines.
Save Ontario Shipwrecks (SOS) is a Provincial Heritage Organization in Ontario, Canada. SOS is a public charitable organization which operates through Local Chapter Committees supported by a Provincial Board of Directors and Provincial Executive.
Scuba diving tourism is the industry based on servicing the requirements of recreational divers at destinations other than where they live. It includes aspects of training, equipment sales, rental and service, guided experiences and environmental tourism.
Valerie Olson van Heest is an American author, explorer, and museum exhibit designer. She is co-founder of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association.
Diving With a Purpose (DWP) is an American non-profit organization aimed at locating and documenting shipwrecks, predominantly those related to the Atlantic slave trade.
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