As you might know, HEPCA has organized the setup of a mooring system on SS Thistlegorm.
The main reason behind the mooring system, is that a lot of diveguides, still attach the ropes from their boats to weak parts of the wreck.
While i was working as a guide in Egypt, i saw a ship that was tied to the train wagon that could fall into the wreck every day. Due to waves that day, it was moving up and down by about 1 meter, it is amazing it didnt fall into the wreck. Remember there was other divers inside the wreck at that moment.
Hepca has also made holes in the wreck, to let the air escape the wreck, the oxygen in the bubbles from the divers accelerates the rusting and decay of the wreck.
Unfortunately some diveboats, boat captions and diveguides, are not capable at tying to the mooring lines, and still attach their ropes to the wreck. The loops of the mooring system is at about 20 meters of depth, and the distance from the loops to the wrecks is about5 meters. I agree 100% with HEPCA that if a diveguid is not capable of diving to 20 meters to attach the rope, they should NOT be allowed to guide on the wreck at all. The same goes for every dive guest that cant swim 5 meters against a current to the wreck, should never be allowed to dive Thistlegorm.
Hopefully the boats/captions/diveguide breaking the rules will be prosecuted very hard.
Lets hope this wonderful wreck will still be open for diving in the future.
