The Hazardous: The mighty English warship HMS Warspite (or
Warspight, as it was sometimes spelt), along with HMS Orford and
several other vessels, sighted the French privateer Hazardeaux.
The Warspite, constructed in 1666, had been rebuilt in Rotherham
the year before and was in top-flight condition. It brought its 64 guns
to bear on the lone Frenchman. The Orford, although ageing, was
also a formidable vessel.
The French captain offered stiff resistance, however, firing salvo after
salvo. The Hazardeaux's gun decks were noisy enough to blow your
eardrums out. Cannon fired, men shouted and rounds as big as
melons crashed through the timbers. Anti-personnel grapeshot sent
razor-sharp pieces of metal flying at all angles. It must have been
terrifying. Hazardeaux's 50 guns kept the British at bay for several
hours, but eventually the French ship was overpowered. She ended
up a complete wreck, but in those days of wooden sailing craft, enemy
vessels weren't sunk but captured.
Hazardeaux had been loaned by the French Navy to a nobleman to
help harass France's foes. Now she was towed into Portsmouth as a
prize of the Royal Navy.
The Warspite would be rebuilt in 1716 and renamed Edinburgh.
The Orford's first and only rebuild came in 1713 and she enjoyed a
long career, eventually sinking after strikinga reef in the Gulf of Mexico
in 1745. It took several months for shipwrights and carpenters to render
the Hazardeaux serviceable again. She was commissioned into
Queen Anne's Navy as HMS Hazardous Prize on 27 March, 1704.
Designated a 4th Rate vessel fielding 54 guns, she was big for that
A section of the wreck, coated in
marine life
Tape measuring a section of wreck
next to a cannon rating at 137ft and displacing 875 tons. But her crew had shrunk to
320 from the original 350 Frenchmen.
For two years she served without incident, mostly escorting convoys
across the Atlantic from the New World colonies. Then, in early
November 1706, she encountered a terrible storm that was causing
havoc to shipping in southern England.
HMS Hazardous Prize was approaching the English Channel after
failing to keep a convoy together on the Atlantic crossing. To make
matters worse, as the western approaches were sighted her
commander, Captain Brown, passed away in his bunk.
The vessel came under the command of Lt John Hare, who in turn
was commanded by Captain John Lowen from a smaller vessel,
HMS Advice. To get out of the ferocious south-westerly, Lowen
ordered both vessels to come about at St Helens Roads, off
Bembridge, Isle of Wight.
Lowen ordered Hare to the safe anchorage there, but conditions
proved too difficult for the crew. The vessel missed anchoring twice
before grounding on Hounds Reef in Bracklesham Bay.
Over the howling wind and crunching of the hull, Hare shouted to
his men to dump what they could to lighten the ship. Cannon and
ammunition were cast overboard, but the crew must have been overwhelmingly taskloaded.
Hazardous Prize was dashed against the shore in Bracklesham Bay, close to the
Witterings, pinned down on the sandy beach and battered by the surf. Hare requested
lighters and men from Portsmouth, but in the end the order was given to abandon ship.
When the storm subsided, efforts were made at salvage, but the Channel doesn't stay calm
for long in November and the vessel was soon abandoned. Waves smashed the wooden
hull into the sand, and before long the Hazardous Prize story was forgotten.
Ordinarily, such a site would be off-limits to divers like you and me, yet thanks to a
collaboration between the Hazardous Prize team and Wittering Divers, ordinary Joes
and Jos can see an ancient wreck site for themselves.
However, it's not a case of turning up and doing the dive. A group has to be granted a
visitor's licence by English Heritage, and to qualify you must book onto one of the
special courses run by Wittering Divers in summer.
These are infrequent because of the weather and tides, and places are sought after,
so booking ahead is essential.
The day-long course starts with a lecture by the wreck licensee, Iain Grant, who
details the vessel's history and discovery. His animated talk is laced with ripe facts
that get your interest-saliva running.
Wittering Divers' Tony Dobinson then details the marine life to be seen on and around
the site. He brings all those unobtrusive, slightly drab little organisms to life. It gives
you a whole new perspective on English Channel wreck-diving when you can name all
the growths that colonise the structures.
With a grasp of what you'll see, and armed with a waterproof guide-book, you are
the end of an encrusted
cannon
a dimly seen archaeologist at work
on the Hazardous Prize site
taken out to the wreck site, where an underwater trail has been set up.
Each of the 10 numbered stations along the trail corresponds with a page in the book.
It may be a pile of cannon (Station 1), the bow (4) or perhaps the southern,
deteriorating end of the vessel (7), but each one gives you the wreck and marine-life
details you need. You are not allowed to swim inside the perimeter, which is a little
disappointing, but then, a careless fin-kick could obliterate work that has taken weeks
to uncover.
After 300 years in this exposed location, the Hazardous Prize is not in the best of
health. Don't expect to see shining cannon, jutting timbers or neatly stacked piles of
cannonballs. The area is silty and prone to bad weather, so the artefacts are covered
in a fine layer of sediment, and fused and covered with encrusting growth.
Anything standing upright is colonised and coated with the lifeless-looking growth that
in fact forms a vital part of the UK's marine ecosystem. It is as much part of the wreck
as the piles of fused cannonballs.
To the untrained eye this site is a pile of drab rocks sticking out of a featureless
seabed. But the guide-book helps to bring the wreck and the project surrounding it to
life.
John Hare was not blamed for losing his ship. John Lowen of HMS Advice, the senior
ship, was found guilty of negligence and not living up to his ship's name.
An inquiry found that Lowen gave poor orders to Hazardous Prize, resulting in the loss
of the vessel. He was stripped of his command and hounded out of the Navy.
I would like to thank him for leaving me a goldmine of experiences that few others will
get to share - the chance to dive a 17th century shipwreck.