Читать книгу Into the Abyss. Diving to Adventure in the Liquid World онлайн

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In anticipation of the trip I had avidly read all the information I could gather on the wreck. Port Napier was a huge mine laying vessel, some 550 feet long and weighing in at 9,600 tons. On the night of 27 November 1940, she had been berthed at the railhead at Kyle, just a few hundred yards from where we would be launching. At that time, Kyle with its deep water, and easy access to the Inner Sound and out to the Minch, the Hebrides and Northern Isles was a significant naval base.

Kyle was also the railway head, the end of the railway line that snaked here from Inverness. The harbour was deep enough to accommodate large vessels of Port Napier’s size.

For days her crew had laboured hard, loading her with 550 mines that had arrived by rail. They were carefully passed down through the small loading hatch in the deck near the stern. From there, the crew ran the mines along narrow-gauge railways inside the vessel, which ran the full length of her and connected her 6 cavernous holds where the mines would be stored.