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The Mystery of HMS Affray by Innes McCartney
The Mystery of HMS Affray by Innes McCartney
No one will ever make the perfect video for wreck divers. But Innes McCartney comes pretty close with The Mystery of HMS Affray.
His 30-minute production tells of the loss of HM Submarine Affray during a training exercise in the Channel in April, 1951. It took 60 days before the sub was found in 86m near the Hurd Deep, though long before that, all hope had been given up for the 75 men aboard.
Navy divers then found that the snorkel mast was snapped off and lying head-down over the side. This fracture was almost certainly the cause of the sinking. It would have let tons of water into the sub and filled her within moments.
McCartney handles the story of this disaster in a sensitive manner, as befits its 'war grave' status, and those planning wreck videos could learn from it.
I liked his technique of setting the sub's building and basic statistics in type like sub-titles, but over the relevant pictures. I also appreciated the clear and serious commentary given by Patricia Hornabrook, which fortunately triumphs over the somewhat ill-fitting tinkling piano background music.
There is good colour film taken in a sister sub, showing how modern the internal fitting was, and I presume that this was Naval archive film, as McCartney's production is 'in association with the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport' and 'a proportion of the funds from the video will be donated to the HM Submarines Centennial Fund'.
The 1998 underwater film of the wreck is taken in the deep dark by a team of technical divers, led by McCartney. Lights were, of course, necessary, but the result has good colour quality. We are led around key external features: bridge, binnacle, speaking tubes, navigation lights, closed hatches and where the snorkel broke away in its collar.
Defective welding was originally blamed for this but the mystery remains? Was there an impact? A battery explosion? We shall probably never know, but whatever the cause, the result was 13 tons of water per minute bursting into the sub's interior, and the death of all the crew.
This is a welcome first in an historic ships video series being produced by Innes McCartney for his Periscope Publishing company. |
| The Mystery of HMS Affray by Innes McCartney, Underwater World (020 8943 4288). 30min, £14.95 |
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