“Guz.tech” is the UK’s technical diving conference based here in Plymouth (‘Guz’ is the old naval term for Plymouth dockyard) and is now in its second year of running. Hosted at the University of Plymouth, the conference showcases the best of British technical diving and shipwreck discovery.
This year's speakers include Mike Paige and Karl Taylor who were part of the diving and production team discovering two missing wrecks. The Royal Navy ‘Q’ Ship Lady Olive and German submarine UC18 were found after a four-year search off the Channel Islands. The two were known to have destroyed each other in battle, but details have remained a mystery until now. The discovery has been made into a BBC documentary (view the trailer), aired in October, and Karl will give us some behind the scenes detail on how such an expedition was filmed.
We will also hear from Rich Harpin. Last month, Rich led a hugely successful expedition in the Moray Firth to identify some of the victims of First World War German raider SMS METEOR. Rich will show the team’s photos, photogrammetry and video to demonstrate how they did it. A definite combination of deep technical diving and imagery, capturing information to bring to the surface from the depths.
Other speakers include Steve Mortimer presenting the history and discovery of HMS Hawke, 110 metres deep and 70 miles offshore from Fraserburgh. Graeme Bruce will be speaking about his discovery of five uncharted wrecks in a month in Scotland. Diver James Hadlow along with skipper Chris Lowe will be documenting the ongoing hunt for US Coastguard Cutter Tampa, which sunk with the highest American naval combat casualty loss in WW1.
