Thames Wreck Masts Cut in $13M Job; 1,500 Tons of Bombs Remain
Crews removed the rusting spars from the 1944 SS Richard Montgomery off Sheerness, but the explosives stay on the seabed under constant watch.
By Layla Fontaine ·
The three masts of the SS Richard Montgomery are gone.
Officials declared the engineering project complete this week, ending years of concern that the rusting structure could collapse and ignite the cargo below. The shipwreck sits in the Thames Estuary, roughly 40 miles from London, and still holds an estimated 1,500 tons of World War II explosives.
The Montgomery was one of 2,700 vessels built in the United States to support the Allied war effort. It ran aground on a sandbar off Sheerness in August 1944 while carrying munitions intended for operations after the D-Day landings. The ship broke apart during initial salvage attempts and sank, leaving its cargo intact on the seabed.
Recent surveys showed the masts were deteriorating and the vessel had begun to lean. Nolan Conway, a naval architect with Resolve Marine Group, the firm hired for the job, said the primary fear was that a collapse could strike the cargo and trigger a detonation. Some of the munitions are believed to have pressure fuses, making impact a serious risk.
The team built a custom lifting frame to raise each mast without causing any sway. They used a remotely operated underwater diamond-wire saw to cut the masts, eliminating the need for divers to enter the water. Keir Mather, the U.K. maritime minister, told the House of Commons that the project finished ahead of schedule. The total cost was just under $13 million, according to The Guardian.
Mather stated that the masts had placed a heavy load on the structure, and removing them reduces that risk. The explosives remain in place because extracting them would carry considerable dangers. Experts disagree on the severity of a potential explosion, with estimates ranging from shoreline damage to a tidal wave traveling up the Thames, or a minor event that only closes a nearby shipping channel. Conway noted that while the range of impacts is large, none are ideal, but officials still judge the overall chance of an explosion to be low.
The masts have been moved to the Historic Dockyard Chatham museum for display. The government will maintain an exclusion zone around the wreck, which lies 1.5 miles off the Sheerness coast, and will continue to monitor the site continuously.
