I was curious if anyone knows of an incedent in which a model was sunk in battle but not found or recovered. If you have or know of a story like this, please share.
I know of a few examples of a ship taking multiple days to recover... usually this involved a submarine vanishing from sight in the middle of the pond, and required SCUBA gear and several hours of detailed search patterns to properly recover. The only ship I know that was never recovered wasn't a combat ship. It also wasn't not recovered because it couldn't be found, it wasn't recovered because it sank in a duck pond that was so choked with bird @#$% that the skipper passed for health reasons. Having sailed on that pond several times myself, I can understand his decision perfectly well...
I know of one ship that literally sat on the bottom of a pond for something like a half a year. Although the area was marked and searched many times over, the ship couldn't be found. Finally, someone (Dave R) purchased an underwater live view camera and found the ship within an hour. Dave has many more details about it.
I only know of one lost ship here, the Jasmine Elise, a cargo. She went down in deep water at Bowning, her float failed and as far as I know, she's still out there somewhere.
We still have one lost in our Sanford pond, it sank 2 years ago march, a Italian light cruiser. We did not bother looking for it with the camera since it had been on the bottom for over a year and a 1/2. The one we found with the camera, after searching for it free diving, hired diver, for like 10+ hours, only took 15 minutes to find with the camera. Frank just finished rebuilding it last weekend, and it should be at Nats battling again this year.
Yes it is the one we battle in, and where we recovered the ship using the camera. But he's not to big, just 3 to 4 ft is all. He followed the diver around the whole time, about 10 to 20 ft behind him, chasing after the turtles and fish that the diver stired up, don't think he caught anything that we could see.
He just lays on the far shore sunning himself, and watches us battle. He's too little to harm anyone. And it's good to see him there, if he's around no bigger fellows are near, since they are territorial.
A gator leaping from the deep to grasp a ship in its mighty jaws and pull it into the abyss would make a pretty good youtube video!
Mike I think it is just a truth that not only Floridians are made of sterner stuff, but all us Region 3 guys are. We all battle in that pond and find it a bit amusing that we have a gator near by.
Yes. !987.A Kuma class CL was sunk in a pond in Fresno California. Could not find it. This was in April. We came back I think Labor Day weekend. We had a Graf Spee class sink. Our diver went down and found it down on the first try and brought up a vessel.Everyone thought it was the Spee. Instead it was Kuma. Spee was found a few dives later. The Kuma lost only the small gell cell. Everything else came back to life.Amazing.
Wow, thats kinda scarey loseing your equipment aand expensive. I Would be looking until i drowned if i didnt find one that i lost.
I should hope not! No ship is worth your life. I regularly swim for sunken ships, but I have no problem calling it quits if I cannot find it. You can always go back later with SCUBA gear, or hire a diver to find it for you.
During our last battle in Nov, we had a new visitor. The 4 ft gator is gone, we now have one at least 8ft or better, you could see his outline cruising in the water. But as soon as the boats went into the water, he moved to the far end of the pond.
I remember at the IRC Nats in Fla, years ago. We asked if the pond had any aligators, and were informed that every pond in Fla. had an aligator. But.... this one stayed on an island in the middle of the pond, and slept most of the day. At night battle, we kept the ships pretty near in! marty
