Matt den Haan invited Jeanna, Richard and I to attempt a dive on the SS Governor last weekend and of course we jumped at the opportunity.  We knew our chances of making it on the wreck were slim, but that didn’t matter.  Just the chance to make an attempt on what many call the “Mount Everest of Diving” was enough for us to say yes without hesitation.

The SS Governor was a 417-foot passenger liner built by the New York Shipbuilding Company in 1907 in Camden New Jersey. The deck plans list her beam at 46 feet, depth 29 ft. 6 in., Draft 22 ft. 6 in., and her max speed at 16 - 25 knots. She could accommodate 96 in her first class staterooms, and 286 in the first class berths, while her maximum passenger capacity was 427.

In the very early morning of Friday April 1, 1921, she collided with the SS West Hartland, departing Port Townsend for India.  The Hartland tore a 10’ gash in her starboard hull.  Twenty minutes later, the Governor sank, taking 8 lives with her.

Dan Warter has written a great article, along with pictures and video on his website, DCS Films.

We started our planning about 10 days before the trip.  The Governor sits upright in 240’ of water, and is considered by many to be a more challenging and difficult dive than the Andrea Doria, due to the depth, currents and the fact that she lies in the shipping lanes.

Weather has to be perfect, currents need to be perfect and we needed clearance from VTS (Vessel Traffic Services).  After looking at currents for the day, it appeared doable....not ideal, but doable, to our novice eyes.  Several technical divers have been trying to figure out the currents on the Governor for years and still don’t fully understand how they work.  Our plan was to arrive at the site very early, drop the grapple, and sit and wait and watch the currents. 

We completed VTS’ requirements by submitting our dive plan, emergency procedures and evacuation procedures, now it was dive planning time.  Our plan was to try to keep max depth to 230’, but spend much of our time on the deck, keeping our average depth in the 210’.  We would be using 15/55 for backgas and 50% and O2 for deco.  Planned bottom time on the wreck was about 25 minutes, with a total runtime of about 100 minutes.  General profile for the dive was for every 1 minute we were on the bottom, we had just over 2 minutes of a decompression obligation. 

Friday evening quickly approached and I had not been sleeping well the past few days from a combination of excitement and a bit of anxiety.  We all met at NWSD to pick up our tanks, assemble our gear and review the general dive plan.  Mark Allen, from UASI, who owns the salvage rights to the Governor joined us and graciously spent an hour or so reviewing blueprints of the ship, discussing the history of the Governor and giving us some advice and suggestions learned from previous expeditions (thanks again, Mark).

We all went home and attempted to get some sleep (“attempt” being the key word).  6:30am arrived quickly and we all met at the dock at 7:30 and conditions were beautiful....sunny, no fog, flat seas.  Maybe we would get on the wreck today after all.

We made the 2 hour trek out to the site, staying in contact with VTS.  We arrived at the site, just off Point Wilson and immediately started mowing the lawn, looking for the wreck.  We found her rather quickly and started our pattern to determine her orientation on the bottom.  Richard, Jeanna and I were team 1 and in first.  Matthew, Patrick and Jason were team 2 who would splash right behind us.

We started slowly gearing up as our “predicted" slack was approaching, putting on our undergarments, drysuits, etc. when we call a call from VTS...there was a deep draft vessel coming through in about an hour and our dive operation was being shut down.  Perfect seas, sunshine, seemingly good water visibility, unlimited surface visibility, and what appeared to be doable currents and we’re now being told to cancel our dive.  Its always the thing you don’t expect....

We spoke to the VTS supervisor who informed us they were not able to reroute the vessel, and that we could not enter the water until it passed, about an hour away.  We all discussed what our options were and decided we’d wait for the vessel to pass and make the call then.

45 minutes later the vessel passed.  We dropped the grapple and watched the current running against the float.  It was definitely moving, but looked manageable.  Team 1 geared up.  Richard was first in, then Jeanna, then me.  Richard entered the water and was immediately given his scooter and scootered to the float.  The boat repositioned and Jeanna entered and scootered to the float.  As the boat repositioned for my entry I prepared to enter the water, watching Richard and Jeanna.  We got into position and just as I started to step forward, I saw 2 thumbs...Jeanna and Richard were thumbing the dive.  Current was beating them up.  We’re not doing the Governor today.....

Richard and Jeanna got back on the boat and told us that current was so strong they couldn’t grab on the line.  They had to wrap their elbows around it, and the scooters weren’t fast enough to run against it. 

We discussed our options and decided to do the Al-Ind-Esk-A-Sea, a large processor that sank in 1982 in Everett.  The “Al” has a very colorful history serving as a cruise ship and naval transport prior to her life as a processor.  Like the Governor, Dan has great info on the Al at DCS Films.