Yesterday’s second dive for the SAMPHIRE team was a monitoring dive on the well-known Thesis wreck, one of the highlights of the Sound of Mull diving community. The Thesis sank in the Sound in 1889. Local diving centre operators Mark and Annabel Lawrence asked us to visit the site to check up on recent reports that large sections of this well-loved wreck had been destroyed over the winter, and as with the Short Sunderland it was speculated that dredging may have been the cause. The SAMPHIRE team carried out a dive on this site last year to test some photogrammetric recording techniques so were familiar with the previous condition of the site. A short dive yesterday afternoon was sufficient to establish that there has been a major collapse of the decking around the bow. However the fact that the external hull around the bow is still intact and the fragile and highly corroded nature of the surviving elements of the bow structure suggests that the collapse has more likely been due to the natural degradation of the hull. The photo above show Bob Mackintosh, student volunteer with the SAMPHIRE project searching around the bows of the wreck.