Feature

In November 1941 the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Ark Royal

was returning from Malta, when it had been torpedoed
and sunk by a German U-boat Southeast of Gibraltar. Its
destruction was a devastating blow to the Royal Navy's
power in the Mediterranean theatre of war and to the
morale of the British people. In October 2002, nearly sixty-
one years after it was lost, the remains of the Ark Royal
were identified on the bottom of the Mediterranean using By Daniel Warren, Robert Church
and Rick Davey, C & C Technologies,
C & C Technologies HUGIN 3000 AUV. Inc., USA

Discovering H.M.S. Ark Royal

In the autumn of 2002 the British that had been converted from other In two years of wartime operations
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) con- types of warships, the Ark Royal had the Ark Royal had been attacked nu-
tracted C & C Technologies, Inc. been planned from conception to be merous times but had managed to
(C & C) of Lafayette, Louisiana to an aircraft carrier. Constructed in survive relatively unscathed. Howev-
conduct a search for the World War Birkenhead, England, between 1935 er, on November 13th 1941, while re-
II aircraft carrier H.M.S Ark Royal.The and 1938, the new carrier had an turning from operations off Malta, luck
search would be carried out using C overall length of 244 metres and dis- ran out for the Ark Royal when it was
& C's HUGIN 3000 AUV, which at the placed over 23,000 tons when it was sighted by Friedrich Guggenberger,
time was deployed in the Mediter- commissioned in November 1938. It commander of the German subma-
ranean. A key point of the project was capable of speeds of up to 31 rine U-81, who fired four torpedoes
would be the investigation of a target knots and could carry up to seventy- from long range at the Ark Royal and
located in 1,066 metres of water dur- two attack aircraft. In addition to its its escorting battleship.A single tor-
ing a BBC-sponsored multi-beam sur- complement of aircraft, the Ark Royal pedo struck the starboard side of Ark
vey search for the carrier. During a bristled with an array of defensive ar-
single dive the HUGIN 3000 surveyed mament that included sixteen 4.5-inch
this object with side-scan sonar, sub- guns, thirty-two 2-pounder anti-air-
bottom profiler and multi-beam sys- craft guns, and thirty-two 5-inch guns.
tems.The results of this survey con- Once commissioned, the Ark Royal was
firmed that the target was indeed the assigned to the Royal Navy's Home
wreck of the Ark Royal.This article dis- Fleet. At the outbreak of hostilities
cusses the survey and its findings. with Germany in late 1939 the Ark Roy-
al saw action almost immediately, its
aircraft assisting in the sinking of the
Historical Background
first German U-boat of the war, U-39.
The Ark Royal (Figure 1) was the Roy- It also shot down the first German air-
al Navy's first modern aircraft carri- craft of the war.Throughout roughly
er. Unlike other carriers in the Fleet the next year and a half, from October
1939 to March 1941, the Ark Roy- Figure 2: HUGIN 3000 AUV, (Photo C & C
al took part in many of the ma- Technologies).
jor operations in the Atlantic and
Mediterranean. Among these Royal, exploding amidships, directly un-
were the search for the German der the superstructure. The blast
Pocket Battleship Graf Spree, the ripped a 40-metre by 9-metre deep
Norway Campaign and the de- hole in the carrier, killing one British
struction of the French Fleet at sailor.Within minutes the Ark Royal
Dakar. In May 1941 the Ark Royal was listing heavily to starboard.The
played a key role in the destruc- following morning, on 14th Novem-
tion of the German Battleship ber 1941, despite all efforts to save
DKM Bismarck when a torpedo the ship, the Ark Royal rolled over and
from one of its Swordfish aircraft settled on the bottom of the Mediter-
severely damaged the battleship's ranean, where it remained undiscov-
Figure 1: H.M.S. Ark Royal (Photo Naval Historical Center). steering. ered for nearly sixty-one years.

26 - September 2004 Hydro INTERNATIONAL

 Feature

HiPAP (High Precision er.A side-scan sonar mosaic was pro-

Acoustic Positioning) duced and each line of data was re-
acoustic tracking system. viewed by C & C and BBC personnel
Surveying in 1,500 metres for details of the wreck site for com-
of water HUGIN 3000 parison with plans of the carrier.
positioning is accurate to Based on the data acquired by the
±5 metres, after post- HUGIN, the wreck site was con-
processing. firmed to be that of the H.M.S. Ark
Royal.
The sonar mosaic (Figure 3) provides
Survey and Findings
an overall picture of the wreck re-
The HUGIN 3000 AUV mains. It indicates that the wreck site
investigation grid for the is strewn over nearly 0.27 square kilo-
BBC multi-beam target metres of seafloor and is oriented
was devised to provide roughly north to south.At the north-
maximum coverage of ern edge of the wreck site are the
the search area; it con- remnants of the main hull. Approxi-
sisted of eighteen track- mately 218 metres to the south of
lines approximately
1,800 metres long.
The high-frequency
sonar lines were de-
Figure 3: High-resolution side-scan sonar mosaic of Ark signed to provide opti-
Royal wreck site (Image by BBC and C & C). mum sonar-strike an-
gles by programming
the AUV to pass the target from
HUGIN 3000 AUV
three directions.The series of
The C & C HUGIN (High Precision survey lines were offset in in-
Untethered Geosurvey and Inspec- crements of 10 metres
tion System) Autonomous Underwa- from the main target area
ter Vehicle (AUV) (Figure 2) is a third- and provided coverage of
generation AUV by Kongsberg Simrad a 1.6-kilometre by 1-kilo-
and the first commercially operated metre area of seafloor in a
AUV capable of surveying to 3,000 water depth of 1,066 me-
metres water depth.This AUV is in- tres. During the survey, which
tegrated with a multi-instrument sur- took approximately 7 hours,
vey payload consisting of a Simrad EM the AUV maintained an altitude
2000 (200kHz) swath bathymetry sys- of approximately 20 metres above
tem, dual-frequency Edgetech Chirp the bottom. Real-time acoustic links
side-scan sonar (120kHz and 410kHz) with the AUV provided the first im-
and an Edgetech Chirp subbottom ages of the wreck. Once the survey
profiler.AUV position accuracy is ac- was completed, the data was re-
complished using an inertial naviga- covered and processed onboard the these remains lies an extensive field Figure 5: Multi-
tion system coupled with a Simrad AUV support vessel M/V Rig Support- of debris containing several large beam composite
pieces of wreckage. image of main hull
The main hull section measures 183 of Ark Royal (Image
metres in length, roughly 61 metres by BBC and C & C).
shorter than the recorded length of
the Ark Royal. The high-resolution
side-scan sonar images of the main
hull (Figure 4) revealed extensive
damage to the forward section, sug-
gesting that a portion of the bow had
ripped away, along with portions of
the flight deck and the superstructure.
Several of the Ark Royal's gun turrets
remain intact on the wreck and are
visible in the high-resolution imagery.
A multi-beam composite of the hull
remains (Figure 5) shows the vessel
sitting relatively upright, with only 10
metres of bottom relief, indicating
Figure 4: High-resolution side-scan sonar image of main hull of Ark Royal (Image by BBC that much of the lower hull is em-
and C & C). bedded in the seafloor. Displaced sed-

Hydro INTERNATIONAL September 2004 - 27

 Feature

Figure 8:
wreck of one of Britain's most famous High-resolution
warships.This study provided insight sonar image of
into the last moments of this illustri- remains of Ark
Figure 6: High-resolution side-scan sonar image of possible Swordfish aircraft in field of ous vessel and opened the door to Royal
debris (Image by BBC and C & C). future research opportunities. superstructure (BBC
and C & C).
iments visible in the multi-beam im- fish biplane (Figure 6).At the south-
Biographies
agery provide evidence that the im- ern extremity of the field is a large
pact of the hull as it entered the section of debris partially buried in Daniel Warren is staff marine archae-
seabed was in a south to north di- the seafloor.This appears to be the ologist for C & C Technologies, Inc.,
rection. remnants of the missing bow section at the Houston,Texas office and has
Lying south of the main hull by 218 (Figure 7) with one of the aerial lift an MA degree in Maritime History
metres is a 527-metre long by 426- arms still attached. and Nautical Archaeology. He was
metre wide field of debris (Figure 3). principle investigator for the 2003 U-
High-resolution side-scan imagery de- 166 Archaeological Project and is co-
Conclusions
picted a wide variety of objects scat- principle investigator for the 2004
tered throughout this area, including Based on the findings of the HUGIN Deep Gulf Shipwreck Project.
pieces of the superstructure, flight 3000 AUV survey of the Ark Royal Robert Church is staff marine ar-
deck remains, gun turrets and sever- wreck site it is possible to speculate chaeologist for C & C Technologies,
al aircraft. One of the aircraft would on events occurring after the vessel Inc., at the Lafayette, Louisiana cor-
seem to be an inverted Fairey Sword- sank on the morning of 14th Novem- porate office and has an MA degree
ber 1941.The evidence suggests in Maritime History and Nautical Ar-
that as the Ark Royal sank beneath chaeology. He is principle investigator
the Mediterranean it planed away for the 2004 Deep Gulf Shipwreck
in a northerly direction and con- Project and was co-principle investi-
tinued to roll over. The super- gator for the 2003 U-166 Archaeo-
structure and portions of the flight logical Project.
deck tore away as the vessel Rick Davey is C & C Technologies Re-
turned keel up.At about the same gional Manager for Europe & Africa,
time, a large section of bow responsible for marketing and survey
snapped off from the main hull, operations including deepwater AUV
scattering debris across the surveys. Mr Davey has worked with
seafloor as it spiralled into the bot- C & C for three years on AUV devel-
tom.The main hull continued to opments and applications, having pre-
slowly roll as it plunged towards viously been chief surveyor for BP at
the bottom, eventually righting it- various exploration centres around
self before crashing into the the world. He is a member and ex-
seafloor from a southerly direction. ternal examiner for the Royal Insti-
Figure 7: High-resolution side-scan sonar The information gathered during tution of Chartered Surveyors.ı
image of Ark Royal bow remains (Image by the BBC survey yielded the first
BBC and C & C). glimpse in sixty-one years of the E-mail: djw@cctechnol.com

Hydro INTERNATIONAL September 2004 - 29