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The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast by Ron Young
The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast by Ron Young
You have to admire an author who badges his work a 'comprehensive guide', but studying both volumes of The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of The North East Coast, I could forgive veteran diver-author Ron Young for such audacity. He has almost justified his title, and his work will be studied eagerly by wreck-divers.
He tells me he has dived about 25 of the wrecks he has written about - a good average for writers of shipwreck books - but has collected much more material over the past 10 years from a large number of sources, including, of course, many North-east divers.
The first volume concerns 165 wrecks from 1740-1917, volume two 207 wrecks from 1918-2000. Young covers sinkings from Whitby to Berwick, with photographs and diagrams of marks and a handy star-rating for the wreck and nearby underwater scenery.
Five stars is the maximum and largely depends on a wreck's condition, which in turn is generally controlled by depth. So examples such as the 2025 ton steamer Maystone, sunk in 1949 after colliding with an aircraft-carrier off the Outer Farnes and lying upright and intact in 88m, gets a five-star rating, while the dull seabed of sand and stones on which it sits merits only one. Kendall McDonald |
| The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast by Ron Young (Tempus Publishing, 01453 883300). Softback, 224/256pp, £15.99 per volume |
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