Weymouth & Portland · United Kingdom · Wreck
British Inventor
A flat bow-section wreck at 17 to 20 m with reef alongside
Area photo: Jacko · CC BY-SA 2.0
Only the bow section of the British Inventor ended up on the seabed here; the rest of the ship was towed away and repaired. What is left is a fairly flat wreck of plates and other wreckage on a mainly sand and gravel bottom, with published depths of 17 to 20 m and rocky reef alongside. Scallops are what divers come back with, along with crabs, shoals of fish and the occasional lobster.
Where it is and how deep
50.6003° N, 2.2941° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
This is a fairly flat wreck: plates and other wreckage spread over a mainly sand and gravel bottom, with published depths for the site running from 17 m to 20 m and nothing standing high enough to see from any distance. Only the bow section of the ship sank here, the rest having been towed away and repaired, so there is no stern and no engine room, and no obvious ship shape to navigate by once you are down.
Work the wreckage in a slow pattern rather than swimming a straight line. Plenty of scallops are around on the open ground, and the rocky reefs beside the wreck carry crabs, shoals of fish and the occasional lobster. The mix of flat wreck and reef is what makes the dive, and the edge between plates and gravel is the easiest thing to follow back when the visibility drops.
The wreck
- Vessel
- British Inventor
- Type
- Ship; only the bow section sank here
- Cause
- Not published; the rest of the ship was towed away and repaired
- Lies
- Fairly flat, plates and wreckage on a mainly sand and gravel bottom at 17 m
Marine life and season
- Macro critters
- Reef fish swarms
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair | Fair |
Season follows Weymouth & Portland: Sea temperature runs from about 7 °C in February to 17 °C in August; winter gales off the Atlantic rather than the cold are what stop the boats.
Sources
- British Inventor (Wreck) - Scubago — Scubago
- Dive Sites — Dive Beyond
More dive sites in Weymouth & Portland
A 1939 mine casualty broken across a 30 m seabed
Shore entry over shingle into boulders and kelp to 15 m
Wreck
An 1868 paddle steamer upright beside the Portland breakwater
Wreck
Boilers at 24 m on the edge of the Shambles Bank
Wreck
A 1918 torpedo loss at 36 to 38 m on clean sand
Wreck
An upright submarine hull under a coat of plumose anemones
Wreck
Torpedo tubes and a 3in gun on a submarine at 40 m
Wreck
A shallow wreck inside the breakwater for a first wreck dive
Similar dives elsewhere
Boilers in 7 m on the rocks that took a 1907 steamer
Protected 1863 paddle steamer, licence needed to dive her
Two upright boilers with a triangular swim-through between them
,_Portland_Harbour.jpg){kind=link}
Blown apart by her own powder magazine in 1788, at 20 metres