Raising sunken ships: technique and patience. Secrets of sunken ships The Danube steamer regained its name

ERNEST COX - THE MAN WHO RAISED THE GERMAN FLEET FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

By the time Cox set out to raise the fleet sunk in Scapa Flow, he had never in his life had to raise a single vessel, even the most ordinary boat, to the surface. He never did any rescue work. In addition, he did not have an engineering degree. His profession was trading in scrap metal, for which he received the nickname "big junk man."

Cox was born in 1883. He was not very interested in learning and left school at the age of 13. But even without receiving an education, he was able to quickly move forward thanks to his indefatigable energy and outstanding abilities. Marrying Jenny Miller in 1907, he went to work for Overton Steel Works, which belonged to her father, and five years later he was ready to organize his own firm. His wife's cousin Tommy Danks agreed to finance the venture on the condition that Cox would never require him to take a practical hand in the new company. During the First World War, Cox and Danks carried out government orders for the supply of military equipment. At the end of the war, Cox bought out his partner's share and, with uncanny foresight, devoted himself entirely to the scrap metal trade, not yet knowing that he was already fully ripe for the main business of his life - the rise of the German fleet.

FLOODED FLEET

Under the terms of the armistice, 74 German warships, including 11 battleships, 5 battlecruisers, 8 light cruisers and 50 destroyers and destroyers, were interned in the vast natural bay of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. There they were supposed to stay until noon on June 21, 1919 - the moment of the official surrender of Germany. The area where the German fleet was located was patrolled by British warships, but small crews remained on board each German ship, nominally subordinate to Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter. No English officer or sailor was allowed to board any German ship.

On the evening of June 20, Vice Admiral Sidney Fremantle, in command of the British ships guarding the German fleet, received a message that, at the request of the German representatives, the armistice was extended until noon on June 23. He decided to occupy the remaining time with torpedo exercises, and on the morning of June 21, the entire English fleet in the area went to sea, with the exception of three destroyers awaiting repairs (one of them could even breed steam), a mother ship, several drifters and armed minesweepers.

Precisely at noon on June 21, a predetermined signal was raised on Admiral von Reuter's flagship. Pennants were immediately hoisted on all German ships, red flags were hoisted on the boats, horns roared, bells rang, and the joyful cries of several thousand German sailors rushed into the air. Meanwhile, the officers and foremen who were in the lower rooms of the courts opened the kingstones, broke the intake pipes of the outboard water supply systems. They bent the stems of the intake valves so that they could not be closed, and threw overboard the handles and flywheels of the Kingstons. On the destroyers, moored two and three to one barrel, mooring lines were screwed to the bollards and the cotter pins of the anchor chains were riveted so that it was impossible to disconnect the chains later.

And then, in front of a few English sailors, who looked in horror at everything that was happening, the German ships began, like drunks, to sway from side to side, roll, colliding with each other, sink to the bottom - bow, stern, side, or turning upside down. English drifters and trawlers, opening gunfire, tried to force the Germans to close the kingstones, but they, wearing life jackets, began to jump overboard or in lifeboats headed for the shore. Eight people were killed and five wounded.

The British made an attempt to save at least a few ships, but they managed to withdraw only a few destroyers, three cruisers and one battleship into shallow water. 50 German ships - from destroyers with a displacement of 750 tons to the battle cruiser "Hindenburg" with a displacement of 28 thousand tons - went under water at a depth of 20 to 30 m.

Never before in history have so many warships been sunk in one relatively small area of ​​the sea. This record lasted until February 17, 1944, when the Americans sank 51 Japanese ships in the Truk Lagoon in the Pacific Ocean.

Urgently returning that same evening to Scapa Flow, Admiral Fremantle, with difficulty restraining his rage, said to von Reiter:

“Honest sailors in any country would be incapable of doing such an act, with the possible exception of your people.

At the time of the events described in England, there was an acute shortage of metal for the production of a wide variety of products - from railway rails to razor blades. It was necessary to build ships, produce agricultural machines, cars, typewriters - in a word, everything that the country that returned to peaceful life needed. Cannons, tanks, shell casings were melted down.

In 1921, Cox beat his competitors by buying old battleships from the British Admiralty and then dismantling them for scrap at the Queensborough shipyard. And three years later, he bought from the British government for 20 thousand pounds. Art. German floating dock.

Cox himself did not really know what to do with the huge U-shaped colossus. He only intended to cut off a huge steel cylinder, 122 m long and 12 m in diameter, installed in the dock (it had previously been used to test the strong hulls of German submarines) and sell it for scrap. So Cox did. As a result, he remained the owner, in fact, of a floating dock completely unnecessary to him.

THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA

Soon, having arrived in Copenhagen to negotiate with the Danish firm Peterson & Ahlbeck regarding the sale of a consignment of non-ferrous metals, Cox started a conversation with the owners of the company about the lack of scrap iron. In response, Peterson half-jokingly advised him to use the same floating dock to try to raise some of the ships sunk in Scapa Flow.

“I don’t suppose you can lift battleships, but as far as I know, there are thirty or forty destroyers lying at the bottom of the bay, and the largest of them does not have a displacement of more than a thousand tons. And your dock quite lifts three thousand tons.

Indeed? Well, why can't he, Cox, be able to raise the battleships? For example, the Hindenburg. Twenty-eight thousand tons of metal are rusting at the bottom, waiting for someone to pick them up. And no one has yet dared to do so.

Here Cox had an idea that captured him for many years. And if Cox took on something, then he did not waste time in vain. He spent one day in the technical library, studying the relevant literature and contemplating a plan for further action. Then he went to the Admiralty and asked to sell him "as is" several destroyers lying at the bottom of Scapa Flow Bay. Admiralty officials treated Cox's request with the utmost honesty. They invited him to first personally examine the whereabouts of the ships and, what was even more important, they gave him a report on the results of the survey of Scapa Flow by the official commission of the Admiralty, which had visited him five years earlier.

“The question of raising ships is completely eliminated,” the report said, “and since they do not interfere with navigation, it makes no sense even to blow them up. Let them lie and rust where they sank.”

The destroyers lay on the bottom around their mooring barrels in such disorderly piles that, according to the experts, their recovery was associated with exorbitant costs. As for large ships, none of the existing methods was suitable for lifting them. Cox, however, was not a specialist, but a practitioner. He saw the meaning of his life in solving engineering problems, and the rise of the German fleet seemed to him simply a more complex operation in scale. In addition, the opinion of the Admiralty experts could not influence his decision in any way, if only because he did not bother to read their report.

COX BUYS SEA-BED FLEET

Cox nevertheless heeded the advice and went to Scapa Flow to personally verify on the spot that it was impossible to raise at least one ship. He then returned to London and offered the Admiralty £24,000. Art. for 26 destroyers and two battleships. Stunned by Cox's audacity, the top brass accepted the money. Cox became the owner of the Navy.

Incredible as it may seem, one day in the library and an equally brief visit to Scapa Flow was enough to set the course of action. The huge floating dock, which Cox so unexpectedly became the owner of, had a lifting force equal to 3 thousand tons; the mass of each destroyer ranged from 750 to 1.3 thousand tons. Therefore, Cox believed, he could well lift two or even three destroyers with the help of the dock, if for some reason they could not be disengaged under water. Only a few weeks will pass and the destroyers will be finished. The money raised from selling them for scrap could be used to cut off the bow, gun turrets of the gigantic battlecruiser Hindenburg, which was lying almost on an even keel in a depth of 18 m, and on top of that on a pebbled bottom. At low tide, the towers were completely out of the water, so cutting them off with oxy-acetylene torches would not be difficult.

The money from the sale of the towers will be used to pay for the costs associated with lifting the Hindenburg with a displacement of 28 thousand tons. And when the cruiser is raised, it can be used as a giant pontoon to lift other ships. The plan was quite good - a kind of strict sequence of predetermined events. It had only one drawback, which stemmed from Cox's absolute ignorance of ship-raising matters: the plan could not be carried out.

But all this was yet to be verified. In the meantime, Cox had a fleet lying at the bottom of Scapa Flow, a floating dock and a large number of anchor chains from sunken battleships, which he intended to use instead of lifting cables. He had neither specialists nor the appropriate equipment. On the island of Hoy, where Cox planned to organize a headquarters for the management and conduct of the entire operation, there were no workshops, warehouses, or living quarters whatsoever. There was absolutely nothing, not even electricity.

The day after the purchase of the fleet, Cox began hiring people. He was particularly lucky with two. These were Thomas Mackenzie and Ernest McCone, who later received the nickname "a couple of Macs." They formed the main headquarters for all further operations.

With these things over, Cox, defying the objections of his two assistants (much of what he did in later years went against their opinion), cut off one wall of his U-shaped dock and put a temporary patch in its place. Now the dock has taken the form of an inverted L. Then he cut the dock halfway across and towed it 700 miles to the Orkney Islands. There, the dock was pulled ashore at Mill Bay on Hoy Island and finally cut in half.

As a result, Cox had two sections of the dry dock with a section resembling an inverted G, 61 m long and 24.3 m wide. The walls of each section housed pumps, air compressors, generators, as well as engine and boiler rooms. On the decks there were 12 sets of lifting devices. Each such device included a block with a lifting capacity of 100 tons and a manual winch with a triple gear. Each block, in turn, was connected to hoists with a lifting capacity of 100 tons, attached with bolts and massive steel plates to the dock wall. From the hoists departed lifting chains, passed through the pulley streams. The loose ends of the chains hung over the edge of the deck into the water. Two people were required to operate one winch.

It was here that McCone's first encounter with Cox took place. McCone demanded the purchase of steel cables with a circumference of 229 mm. Cox insisted on using old anchor chains instead of cables, since each cable would cost him 2,000 pounds. Art. In this dispute, Cox prevailed, but only for a while.

FIRST DESTROYER

The lifting of the first destroyer V-70 began in March 1924. It was a ship with a displacement of 750 tons, lying at a depth of 18 m about two miles from the coast. The ship sank on an even keel, allowing the divers to easily place a lifting chain around the propeller hub. At low tide, the ends of the chain were selected with the help of winches of two sections of the dock, anchored above the destroyer, until the chains were stretched. The tide lifted the stern of the destroyer, and another chain was passed under her hull, this time closer to the bow. In this way, 12 chains were gradually stretched under the bottom of the ship. To do this, divers, using long metal rods, first pushed a thin cable under the destroyer with a chain attached to its end.

On a cold March morning, at low tide, 48 people, divided into pairs, began to evenly rotate the handles of the winches. We made six turns and the destroyer broke away from the bottom. The coming tide helped to choose the chains for the same length. But then, with a deafening shot-like sound, chain No. 10 flew out of the water. Its torn end hit the dock wall like a projectile. Cox shouted, ordering everyone to throw themselves prone on the dock deck. And not in vain. Under the unexpectedly increased load, the chains began to break one after another. Broken links, cables, hoists, massive blocks flew in all directions.

The destroyer, freed from its bonds, went like a stone to the bottom. By some incredible chance, no one was even injured. When all was quiet, the men on deck began hesitantly to their feet, expecting the inevitable blast of curses from Cox. To their amazement, he was laconic:

“I'll get the cables as soon as I can, but it'll take at least a week. In the meantime, you have enough business on the shore. Here, take care of it.

Only noticing that the dumbfounded people continued to stand without moving from their place, he finally barked:

“Well, now go, what are you waiting for!”

Both Macs, whether they wanted it or not, won the first round. One of the workers remarked:

“If he didn’t have both a genius and an ass in him, he would never have taken on a job of this magnitude, let alone finished it. With the exception of McCone and Mackenzie, none of us knew anything about lifting ships, and they didn't really understand it either ...

The cables arrived in April. Their middle part was flat, which provided more reliable support for the ship being raised. To skip the cables weighing 250 tons under the bottom of the sunken destroyer, they used, in fact, the previous method. All blocks were put in place, and at low tide, at 4 am on August 1, 1924, a new attempt was made to raise the ship.

The winch handles made ten turns, all the cables were taut, but none of them vibrated (this phenomenon usually precedes a break). Ten more turns, and the destroyer was 38 mm off the seabed. Every 20 revolutions, Cox ordered people to rest. This continued until the superstructure of the destroyer appeared from the water. And then Cox saw that there were no torpedo tubes on the ship. This time he was overcome with unbridled rage.

“Mackenzie, what the hell!” Your damned divers ripped off the apparatus with cables!

“Ask the fish,” said diver Bill Peterson, “or ask those quiet ones on the shore.

So they were stolen? yelled Cox. “I’m going to the police, I…

He did not turn anywhere: there was nothing that could be done to help the cause. The inhabitants of the Orkney Islands, in the dark nights, have long removed everything that was possible from the ships that sank at a shallow depth.

In the end, the destroyer V-70 was lifted and brought to the dock. It could have been sold for a thousand pounds and a half, but despite the desperate need for money, Cox did not dare to scrap his first production in Scapa Flow. Instead, he had the holes in the ship's underwater section patched up and converted into a carpentry workshop, naming it "Rescue Block No. 1".

The first success confirmed the correctness of the method chosen by Cox to raise the destroyers. On August 12, it was the turn of the S-53, followed by the S-55 on the 29th, G-91 on September 12, G-38 on the 27th of the same month, and finally on October 13, S-52. Then came a break - it was necessary to complete the construction work on the shore and adapt the workshops built there for work during the winter months.

While preparing to lift the destroyer G-91, a diver, working between two destroyers lying on the bottom, fell into a trap when the chimney of one of the destroyers suddenly collapsed on him, pinching his air hose and signal end. Two of his comrades, in a desperate hurry, tried to free the diver, while Mackenzie, meanwhile, decided to use the phone to somehow calm the poor fellow.

However, picking up the phone, he, to his bewilderment, heard the words of a popular song coming from it, however, in a very poor performance.

– Hello! Mackenzie exclaimed. “I… um… well, how are you?”

"It's all right, sir," he heard back. - How do you like my voice?

“Extremely awful, but we'll get through one more verse somehow,” Mackenzie encouraged him.

Divers hardly give in to a panic. This is the nature of their profession.

In total, during the period from August 1924 to May 1926, Cox and his team raised 25 German destroyers. Some of them lay on the bottom in an inverted position. At one time, experts from the British Admiralty came to the conclusion that it was impossible to raise them. In fact, it turned out the opposite. The free space left by the superstructures between the seabed and the hull of the ship made it easy to get lifting cables. To each such cable, passed under the destroyer, a conductor cable was attached, connected to the lifting cable of the next winch. Thus, the entire operation of wiring the cables could be completed in 40 minutes.

Cox was afraid that the steel mooring lines of the destroyers lying at the bottom would make lifting work much more difficult. To deal with them, it was decided to use dynamite. Mackenzie's people were so skilled at working with this explosive that the cable cut by the explosion could not be distinguished from the sawn one with a hand saw.

By 1925, the lifting of destroyers had become such a common thing that four days were spent on the entire operation. In one case, six ships were raised in two weeks. If the ships floated upside down, they were turned over, which usually took about an hour. Both docks were taken out into deep water, and then on one of them they began to etch the lifting cables, and on the other to select. As a result, the destroyer lying on the cables simply rolled into the desired position.

By the summer of the same year, ten destroyers were sold to Alloa Shipbreakers for scrapping. For them, Cox received 23 thousand pounds. Art. – more than half of the £45,000 originally spent. Art.

Cox felt that it was time to take on larger ships: destroyers weighing 1300 tons each. Fearing, however, that the halves of the dock at his disposal would not be able to lift such a load, he spent a fair amount of the money received from the sold destroyers to buy more one huge German floating dock. This dock also had a U-shape.

According to the plan developed by Cox, it was required to flood the dock and sink it to the bottom, then raise the destroyer in the already proven way - using the halves of the old dock - and lower it onto the deck of the flooded dock. After that, it remained to pump water out of the dock, and it would float to the surface along with the destroyer.

However, the plan failed. They could not manage to enter the destroyer torn off the ground into the flooded dock. The walls of the dock interfered. Cox ordered to pump water out of the dock, and when it floats, cut off one of the walls. As a result, this dock also acquired the shape of an inverted L. Now destroyers can be safely dragged into the dock from the side.

But nothing came of it either. At the first attempt, the dock, during the ascent, tilted so that the destroyer in it almost slipped back to the bottom into the thickness of the silt. The dock, along with the destroyer, had to be flooded again. Unfortunately, this was done too quickly - one corner of the dock cut deep into the bottom. At the same time, the dock plating warped, some of the rivets flew out and the walls filled with water. Now they have become the owners of an already sunken dry dock. In the end they managed to lift it, but it proved to be the most difficult undertaking they had ever faced.

So, everything was in vain. Cox again had to use two sections of the old dock as pontoons to lift the destroyers. To his great annoyance, he found that they lifted 1300 tons just as easily as before 750 tons.

The last destroyer was raised on May 1, 1926. And then Cox again had ambitious plans. It was time, he thought, to take on even bigger ships. And why not start with the biggest? From the Hindenburg, a battle cruiser with a displacement of 28,000 tons, i.e., 4,000 tons more than the largest ship ever raised from the bottom of the sea. A very suitable ship to work out further plans on it.

But at this time, unfortunately, a general strike broke out in England, the largest in the history of the country. Cox's influence on the people who worked for him was so great that not one of them left him. Everything went well on this point, but as a result of the strike, the price of coal rose to 2 ft. Art. per ton, and although Cox desperately needed coal, hundreds of tons of coal, he could not buy it at such a high price. Nothing could help him and his people.

And yet, why not? They knew how to work, and therefore solve the problem. The bunkers of the Seydlitz cruiser with a displacement of 25,000 tons were filled to the brim with coal. Cox removed several plates of the armored deck of the cruiser, adjusted the floating clamshell crane, and coal began to flow uninterruptedly into the furnaces of his rescue tugs Layness and Ferrodenks, as well as other ships and workshops.

THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO RAISE THE "HINDENBURG"

So, it was possible to be taken for the "Hindenburg". Yes, for the Hindenburg. The battle cruiser 213 m long, 29 m wide, with a side height of 8.2 m lay at a depth of about 22 m. The thickness of the water layer above the poop reached 9 m and 3 m above the bow of the deck. Even at low tide, only the boat deck and navigation bridge protruded above the surface of the sea. Cox examined the ship, lying almost on an even keel, and in the end decided to raise the cruiser by pumping water out of it. To do this, it was necessary to close and close up all the openings, including the kingstones, fans and hatches left open by the German sailors when they left the ship. The divers had to install over 800 patches and plugs ranging in size from 0.04 m2 to a giant 78 m2 chimney cover made from two layers of 3-inch boards held together by a dozen 152-mm I-beams. This structure weighed 11 tons. The tightness of the patches was ensured by a canvas laid with tow, which was previously laid along the edges of the holes. In the process of the final fastening of the patches, this kind of cake was compressed and in the future it no longer let water through.

The work was greatly simplified when someone was lucky enough to find a metal plate with an engraved layout of all pipelines, valves and gates. The rescuers were extremely lucky - before that, the divers who worked inside the ship had to find holes, relying only on their instincts. Six groups of two people each patched and caulked the stitches from May to August.

Meanwhile, four sections of docks (the second dock was also cut in half after it was raised) were installed in pairs along the sides of the cruiser. It took 16 anchors to hold them in place, some of them laid half a mile from the docks. The sections of the ship protruding from the water and all sections of the docks were connected by bridges. To protect against severe storms, often observed in the Orkney Islands, two destroyers raised shortly before were placed on the windward side.

August 6 earned eight 12-inch centrifugal and twelve 6-inch submersible pumps. The water level in the cruiser's hull began to drop, but too slowly. There was a big leak somewhere. Soon the divers discovered that the small fish - saithe, which scurried around the sunken ship in abundance, had eaten all the fat that was soaked in the tow in the seals of the patches.

Cox seethed with anger. The practical Mackenzie took the appropriate measures: he added 10% cement to the fat. Even pollock found this mixture inedible. In addition, Mackenzie found that the composition he invented had even better sealing properties than simple fat. The pumps were turned on again, but the water level again almost did not decrease. A diver was lowered inside the cruiser hull to find out what was the matter. He found the cause of the leak and fixed it, but in doing so, his air hose and signal end caught on something, so his partner had to come to his aid. While he was freeing his comrade, their hoses and lines became so entangled that they had to be brought to the surface together.

“Did you dance down there?” grumbled the attendant who unraveled them.

The pumps are working again. And again without visible results. This time, divers were sent to inspect the ship from the outside to see if any opening was left open. Soon one of them signaled upstairs - in need of urgent help.

He was found pressed with his back to the opening of the onboard kingston with a diameter of 20 cm. The water pressed on the diver with such force that the only way to free him was to flood the cruiser again and thus relieve the pressure. So it had to be done, but in the end several hundred pounds were wasted.

"You've made an expensive gag," Mackenzie remarked.

- What am I to blame? I was sent to stop the leak, and I liquidated it,” the diver replied.

In the end, the pumping of water went at full speed. Submersible pumps were lowered from the forward gun turret through a supply pipe directly into the holds. Another 18 centrifugal pumps were added to the already working pumps. Five days later, the nose of the cruiser surfaced. In one hour, 3.6 thousand tons of water were pumped out of the ship. The bow part appeared on the surface with some roll, and the more it surfaced, the stronger the roll became: 30°, 40°…

Fearing that the cruiser would capsize and the people on board would die, Cox reluctantly gave the command to stop pumping water from the bow to allow her to sink. We tried to pump water from the stern. History repeated itself.

“The damned ship is heavier on the port side,” Cox decided, “and that's the point.

Nobody argued. Now everyone understood that, trying to lift the ship from one end, they were essentially balancing a load of 28 thousand tons on a keel less than a meter wide. Until the cruiser is balanced, they will not succeed.

Cox drove one of the destroyers, moored it to the starboard side of the ship and filled it with water. A double steel cable was brought to the steel foremast of the battlecruiser and its end was fixed on another destroyer, stranded off the island of Kave, 1200 m from the cruiser.

On September 2, Cox again tried to raise the ship, this time on an even keel. When the upper deck of the cruiser had just emerged from the water, a cable snapped attached to the stranded destroyer. By some miracle, a steel snake whizzing through the air did not hit anyone, but the cruiser listed 25 ° to the port side. Dusk fell, a gale of 55 knots was blowing, but Cox and his men stubbornly refused to admit defeat. They worked all night, although all the diving boats sank in the clearing waves. The Hindenburg, only off the ground like a giant boar, rolled heavily from side to side.

By dawn, the main steam boiler on the right dock failed. It provided energy for at least half of all pumps, and if they stopped, the Hindenburg would inevitably sink. In desperation, Cox drove the Ferrodanx and tried to use its boilers. Nothing came of it.

Six months of hard work and £30,000. Art. were wasted. People silently looked at Cox. Some had tears in their eyes. He invested almost all of his fortune in this enterprise - 1,000 pounds each went to pay workers and equipment costs. in Week. Cox now had only 10,000 pounds left. and he was close to complete ruin.

Cox turned to Mackenzie and said curtly:

We will raise it next spring. I already figured out how to do it. In the meantime, we can do the Moltke.

He never mentioned the Hindenburg until 1930, when, in his opinion, everything was ready for a new attempt.

"VON MOLTKE"

The battle cruiser Von Moltke had a displacement of 23 thousand tons - 5 thousand tons less than that of the Hindenburg, and a length of 184 m, that is, 30 m shorter than the Hindenburg. However, in width and draft, it almost did not yield to the latter. The cruiser lay at a depth of 23.5 m with a list of 17 ° to starboard.

There was only one small feature in the position of the Moltke - it sank upside down.

Theoretically, this made lifting the ship easier. Its intact hull could easily be sealed. To do this, it was only necessary to close the kingstones that were open when the cruiser was flooded (and since the ship was in such an unusual position, it was not difficult to get to them), after which compressed air had to be supplied to the capsized cruiser and it would emerge.

The first thing to do was to remove algae from the skin. Shod in boots with high tops, people began to perform this operation with pruners, but then were forced to use razor-sharp axes. Some algae grew taller than human height and were as thick as a hand. When they finished with the algae, they began to close up the kingstones. Holes of small diameter were plugged with wooden plugs, and larger ones were filled with a mixture of cement and sand hardening under water.

In mid-October, air was pumped into the cruiser. The battery of air compressors supplied 8.5 thousand m3 of air per day to the ship's hull. Since the depth was small, the air needed to be compressed to a pressure of only 1.05-1.5 kgf / cm2. However, such a large volume of water had to be displaced that a whole 10 days passed before the cruiser's bow appeared on the surface.

Although the bow rose a good 2.5 m above the water, the stern still continued to lie on the ground, and very firmly. A list was formed to the left side, which reached 33 °. This meant that all the compartments of the ship were connected to each other and the air could freely pass from one compartment to another, and since the bow rose first, all the air pumped inside the ship rushed there.

Thus, all bulkheads had to be sealed. Moreover, it was necessary to arrange air locks in the hull, through which workers could penetrate inside the cruiser after compressed air was supplied there. It was decided to use 12 steel boilers with a length of 3.6 m and a diameter of 1.8 m as locks. They were bolted to the bottom in the area of ​​the stoker No 2 and the forward engine room. Oxy-acetylene torches cut holes in the bottom plating - where the locks were installed, and also arranged manholes in the bulkheads of all compartments to provide workers with unhindered passage. Electric bulbs were hung everywhere, both for lighting and as an emergency signal in case of an urgent need to leave the ship.

While the bulkheads were being sealed, a control valve was installed in the bow of the hull to bleed air. Once, a worker assigned to control the valve, having misinterpreted one of the incessantly given orders, closed the valve. The nose of the cruiser, where air had again accumulated, began to rise again, which caused a rapid increase in trim.

Mackenzie, who was at that moment in one of the aft compartments, felt something was wrong when he noticed that the air in the compartment suddenly became cloudy and people's faces became visible, as if in a fog - the result of a sudden rarefaction and partial condensation of moisture due to a sharp drop in pressure. Deciding that the forward air lock was out of order, Mackenzie and the workers who were with him, without feeling their legs under them, rushed to run, overcoming manholes in four bulkheads in their path. A stream of air rushing into the nose whistled through the manholes, which tore off hats and jackets from people, threw lumps of coal and large pieces of rust at them. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and then everyone remembered what happened as a very funny incident.

In May 1927, everything was ready to once again try to raise the Moltke. But it did not go beyond another attempt. Rescuers could easily raise either the bow or the stern. However, in any case, the roll to the port side remained unchanged. All Cox's efforts to eliminate him led to nothing. The case took a somewhat comical turn. A 300-ton section of the previously raised destroyer was moored to the starboard side of the ship, which was filled with 200 tons of water. Then, having previously sealed all the onboard tanks and bunkers of the cruiser, they blew those of them that were located on the port side and filled the tanks and bunkers of the starboard side with water. Finally, Cox ordered to moor two sections of the dry dock to the starboard side of the ship, connect them to the cruiser with 20 cables with a circumference of 229 mm and flood both sections.

On May 20, Moltke began to be raised for the third time. The pressure of the supplied air was brought to 1.5 kgf / cm2, and the bow of the ship appeared on the surface. The list still remained, but this time relatively small.

And then one of the lifting cables snapped. Behind him is the second, third, fourth, fifth ... Without wasting a second, Cox ordered the rest of the cables to be etched somewhat in order to reduce the load on them. The remaining 15 cables survived. As shown by the divers' inspection, the cables burst not from tension, but were cut by the sharp edges of the decks under the influence of the huge mass of the Moltke.

Smoothed metal plates were placed under each cable in the place of its contact with the edges of the decks, and the ascent resumed. When the bow of the cruiser left the water, it turned out that the list had decreased to 3 °. At 13:15, the stern rose, and now the giant ship appeared on the surface, like a floating whale. Around the "Moltke" rose 6-meter water columns. They disappeared only when the pressure of the supplied air was reduced to 0.7 kgf / cm2 - the limit value necessary to maintain the buoyancy of the ship.

On June 16, Moltke began to be towed to Layness. During all the days preceding this event, people for 16 hours a day cut and blew up superstructures, chimneys, masts - everything that, in the normal position of the vessel, rose above the deck level, and now prevented its towing. A gale was blowing, and "both Macs" were concerned about the middle gun turret, which they wanted to cut off. However, Cox refused to give himself unnecessary trouble. Towing began, the tower crashed into the ground, and the Moltke stopped. I had to follow the advice of "Poppies". Unfortunately, the tower turned out to be made of the strongest steel at that time, and the rescuers were forced to lift the giant battlecruiser on cables, as was once done with destroyers. The lifting force of the docks was clearly not enough to support the entire huge mass of the cruiser, but since she was already afloat, she was able to be slightly lifted and delivered to the shallows off the island of Kaveh.

There, it was necessary to further lighten the ship in order to prepare it for the 280-mile passage to the Scottish port of Rosyth, where the Moltke was to be scrapped. Ordinary railway rails were laid across the bottom of the inverted cruiser, along which they launched a crane installed on the platform, designed for a load weighing up to 3 tons. t to extract the engines and various ship mechanisms from the inside. In total, 2 thousand tons of steel and cast iron and 1000 tons of armor and non-ferrous metals were removed from the cruiser. At the same time, the rescuers set a world record by cutting through 30 cm of 305 mm thick steel plates with an oxy-acetylene torch every 3 minutes.

Cox decided to tow the cruiser upside down and stern first. This meant that massive steel towing bollards had to be welded to the propeller hubs, and a house for living, a kitchen, a dining room and a room for air compressors had to be built on the bottom of the ship.

In addition, in the port of Rosyth in the Firth of Forth, it was necessary to find a place where a cruiser could be parked in order to be cut into pieces for subsequent sale to Alloah Shipbreakers. Eventually Cox persuaded Admiralty officials to allow him to dock the ship in one of the vacant Navy drydocks.

Cox painfully pondered how to get out of this situation. He desperately needed money to keep the work at Scapa Flow going. The Moltke cost £60,000. st., but his bankers flatly refused to lend him any money on the security of the ship, which was still in Scapa Flow, since it had real value only in Rosyth.

On May 18, 1928, three tugs: Seefalke, Simeon and Pontos, owned by one German company, began to tow the cruiser. Cox and Mackenzie were on the Moltk. When the caravan entered the Pentland Firth, a strong wind, unusual for this time of year, blew. The inverted hull of the cruiser began to roll heavily from side to side, which caused an intense leak of air continuously pumped into it. They could not go into cover, because with any significant change in course, the Moltke would inevitably list and sink as a result of additional air loss. His hull already protruded from the water by less than two meters, instead of the previous six.

The caravan was near the city of Vik when the wind died down and the pitching stopped. Only then Cox muttered:

“As for me, I’m damned glad to be off it,” the cruiser left.

Before that, he flatly refused to do so until the danger to his people had passed.

Cox arrived at Rosyth and was greeted by a remarkably polite official, who announced to him that he would be forced to forbid the cruiser from docking:

“I'm sorry, but this is the order of the Admiralty,” he explained to Cox.

Enraged, Cox rushed to London. As he found out there, Admiralty experts feared that a ship turned upside down would disable the dock. They demanded a deposit in case of possible damage to the dock. Cox did not have a penny, only Moltke. He laid it down. Such a decision could have very serious consequences, for Cox had no right to start work on dismantling the ship until any claim for damage to the dock that the Admiralty could bring him was satisfied. But he had no choice.

Returning to Rosant again, Cox hired an Admiralty pilot to meet and escort the Moltke. Regardless of him, as a result of a sad misunderstanding, the captain of the Seefalke tug, in turn, hired a pilot in the Firth of Forth.

The two pilots soon entered into a bitter squabble over their prerogatives and seniority, while the Moltke, turned upside down, majestically moved directly onto the central abutment of the bridge over the River Firth. It became clear that the tugs would pass on one side of the abutment, and the cruiser on the other, unless she crashed into the abutment at all.

The only thing left to do in such a critical situation was to immediately cut the towing cables. And so it was done. As a result, the Moltke set a second record, becoming the first large warship to pass under the bridge not only unmanned, but also upside down, without people on board. The always busy traffic along the river fell into complete disorder, ships and boats scattered in different directions from the slowly moving giant. There were screams and curses. Only when the cruiser was again taken in tow did everything return to normal.

In the meantime, Cox's divers were working in the empty dock, installing supports and bracings that they hoped would accurately reproduce the shape of the cruiser's deck surface, with the remnants of sheared turrets, masts, and deckhouses, and thereby prevent damage to the dock. The Moltke was brought into the dock and the water was carefully pumped out.

Cox's days of agonizing waiting began. And then one fine morning, an official package from the Admiralty arrived in Scapa Flow. It contained a bill for damages to the dry dock at Rosyth, the property of His Royal Majesty, and a letter offering to pay the bill immediately in order to avoid the confiscation of the Moltke as collateral.

Cox sat for several minutes holding a bill folded in half, afraid to read what was written there. Then, making an effort on himself, he unfolded the document and looked at the affixed number. The bill was for eight pounds.

UNSTABLE SEIDLITZ

The epic with the Moltke had not yet ended when work was under way on the Seidlitz battlecruiser with a displacement of 26 thousand tons. The ship, 200 m long and 31.7 m wide, lay starboard on the ground at a depth of 20 m. Even at high tide its left side protruded almost 8 m above the sea surface. Cox, after examining the cruiser, decided to lift it upside down. "Both Macs", blazing with indignation, hoarse voices proved to him all the madness of such a plan, but Cox was solid as a rock. You just need to close up all the holes on the port side along the middle line of the cruiser, then pump air into the hull, and the ship itself will break out of the silt holding it.

Lacking money, Cox removed 1800 tons of armor plates 305 mm thick from the port side of the cruiser and sold them as scrap to America. But this operation, although it made it possible to somewhat improve Cox's financial affairs, also had unpleasant consequences: in order to restore the lost balance, 1800 tons of gravel had to be shoved into the port side rooms. The ship's hull was then divided into eight watertight compartments, each of which could be ventilated independently of the others. Eight airlocks were also installed - old steam boilers with a diameter of 1.8 m.

The sealing of the hull and the installation of reinforcements for bulkheads continued until the end of December 1926. Some patches and closures exceeded those installed at the time on the Hindenburg in size - their area reached 93 m2 or more. The stern of the cruiser was sealed and drained by February, the rest of the compartments by June 1927.

Before proceeding with the lifting of the ship, the rescuers first raised the stern and then the bow of the cruiser to check. Everything seemed to be going well. June 20 was the decisive day. Seydlitz surfaced without any trim. For the first time in history, a man lifted a ship lying on board from the bottom of the sea without first leveling its position. And that man was Cox!

And suddenly, when the sides of the Seidlitz were already almost 8 cm above the water, somewhere in the bow of the ship there was a dull roar. Koko, without a moment's hesitation, ordered to release the air from all compartments, but it was too late: another muffled blow immediately followed. It was under the pressure of compressed air that the bulkheads collapsed, and now the bow of the ship was no longer divided into separate compartments, turning inside into a single whole. Overgrown with algae, like a sea monster, the nose almost jumped out of the water, then stopped, trembled ..., the Seydlitz turned upside down and sank.

The cruiser lay down on the ground with a list of 48 ° at a relatively large depth. The superstructures, gun turrets and masts stuck in the silt did not allow him to finally roll over. Together with him, all the air compressors of rescuers and more than half of the air locks went under water. By the end of September, divers cut off the bridge, superstructures and masts of the cruiser, while workers sealed her starboard side.

In the first week of October, everything was prepared for the next rise. The cruiser surfaced, and the roll unexpectedly decreased from 48 to 20 °. But then the ship rolled over to the other side, this time with a list of 50 °. One attempt followed another, but Seydlitz resolutely did not want to assume a normal position. By the end of October, the number of such attempts reached forty. And all to no avail.

Cox was completely furious. He ordered the ends of a whole heap of large steel cauldrons to be cut off so that they could then be filled with fast-hardening cement when the cauldrons were set on the bottom next to the side of the cruiser on which he listed. This time, when the Seydlitz was again flooded, its side rested against steel cylinders. As a result, the cruiser was on an even keel, and the rescuers began work to balance it. On October 25, the ship surfaced with a list of 25 °, but already acquired sufficient stability.

To eliminate the list, Cox, using 22 steel cables with a circumference of 229 mm, attached one of his precious dock sections to the side of the cruiser, opposite to the direction of the roll, and flooded it.

On November 1, Seydlitz reappeared on the surface, although with a slightly raised nose, but quite stable. And then, one after another, ten cables burst. No one could understand why the rest survived - usually in such cases everyone is torn. But one way or another, having rolled over from side to side and breaking off almost half of the cables, the cruiser froze with a roll of only 8 °.

While the ship was being prepared in Lyness for towing to Rosyth, the rescuers managed to significantly reduce its mass by removing the engines and some mechanisms and cutting off the forward gun turret with explosives. As a result, the draft of the cruiser decreased by more than 2 m. However, this achievement had its downside - the ship's stability was greatly reduced.

Towing, which was led by Mackenzie, began in May 1928. Forecasters predicted good weather, which was an important circumstance - the freeboard at the Seidlitz prepared for the haul did not exceed 4 m. But, as expected, as soon as they went out to sea and a storm broke out. The cruiser rolled from side to side all the time, huge waves rolled unhindered along its bottom from bow to stern. All property rescuers, even stocks of food, soaked through with water. As a result of air leakage, the freeboard height decreased to 1.5 m.

So four days passed. Nobody got even a little nap; then the wind died down a little. All air compressors were running at full load, but this was only to compensate for air leakage. Should one of them fail, the ship would inevitably sink. And in this tense situation, the captain of the tug asked naively:

“Mack, could you lift the boat a little?”

History has not preserved Mackenzie's answer for us.

On the sixth day of their journey, they brought the Seydlitz to dry dock at Rosyth. Above the water, only the upper part of the bottom of the cruiser, resembling the back of a whale, was visible. Rescuers brought the ship into dry dock in an upside down position, as had previously been done with the Von Moltke.

COX'S NEW FANTASIES DURING THE RISE OF THE KAISER

In December 1927, a month after the successful lifting of the Seydlitz, preparations began for the lifting of the Kaiser, a battleship with a displacement of 24.5 thousand tons, lying upside down with a list of 8 ° at a depth of 23.5 m. proven methods are cement patches, wooden plugs and plugs. The bulkheads were reinforced and made watertight, airlocks were installed on the hull leading to separate compartments. To keep the ship on an even keel, longitudinal bulkheads were sealed between the starboard and portside boiler rooms. This made it possible to maintain different air pressures in the compartments of both sides.

Vessels at the moment of ascent, when their buoyancy seems to fluctuate between positive and negative, are characterized by very poor stability, so Cox once again took advantage of steel cylinders filled with concrete, laying them on the ground under the Kaiser's port keel. He was well aware that an excessive displacement of a mass of only a few tons in one direction or another would cause the ship to tilt by 1–2 °, and this would be enough for thousands of tons of water to rush across the ship's diametrical plane, destroying the results of several months of work.

He also proposed a new idea, the meaning of which he refused to explain to anyone. First of all, while the sealing work was still going on, Cox ordered the boiler filled with concrete to be lowered to the bottom at a distance from the stern of the battleship, equal to its length. In March 1928, just before the Kaiser was lifted, steel propeller shafts delivered on barges from the Seydlitz and Moltke, along with several hoists with a carrying capacity of 200 tons, were dropped into the water near the boiler.

The rise of the battleship began on March 20, and almost immediately Cox was seized by such a fit of rage, which was so usual for him. One of the divers, Sandy Thomson, forgot to unscrew the light bulbs from a hastily built lighting network. Trying to correct his mistake, he rushed back to the battleship just at the moment when the rise began. Cox, on the other hand, had an iron rule: for safety reasons, everyone was strictly forbidden to stay on the ship during the ascent.

“I'm sorry, sir,” said Thomson with the most serious look, “but you said that the ship should be raised by evening. So I went down to push him.

The coke immediately cooled down. The incident has ended.

And "Kaiser" and in fact managed to raise the same evening. By March 13, she was ready to be towed to Lyness. But then Cox intervened. First of all, he ordered to cut through all the decks directly around the battleship's heavy conning tower. The same cuts were made in the hull above the conning tower, forward and aft of it. Propeller shafts from Seydlitz and Moltke were inserted parallel to each other into these cuts, along with hoists hanging from them. The entire structure was then filled with concrete.

The Kaiser was towed so that its conning tower was located exactly above the heavy concrete-filled cauldron at the bottom, after which Cox coolly ordered all air to be released from the battleship's hull. The ship immediately went to the bottom, the conning tower rested against the boiler and was pressed into the hull by the entire 25,000-ton mass of the Kaiser.

In order to keep the conning tower suspended, the chains of two hoists with a carrying capacity of 200 tons were securely fastened, the exhaust valves were closed, and compressed air was again pumped into the hull. Thus, Cox immediately solved all the problems associated with the large draft of the battleship. Now it could be safely towed in shallow water.

By mid-June, the Kaiser was ready for a ferry to Rosyth, which went so smoothly that the compressors had to be turned on only for 2 hours a day.

In May - June 1929, Cox, almost as a courtesy, raised a fast cruiser - the Bremse mine layer with a displacement of 4.2 thousand tons, which lay in the northern part of the Scapa Flow Bay. Back in 1919, the British Navy tried to pull the cruiser aground and almost succeeded in this: the cruiser was lying on the ground in an inverted position with a large roll. The bow protruded above the water, and the stern was at a depth of 20 m. Cox divided the ship into five compartments, sealed each of them, and then cut off the superstructures, bridge, masts and so on with the help of explosives. While working on the Bremza, for the first time, rescuers encountered the danger posed by oil on a ship: an accidental explosion of oil vapors knocked down one person and scorched another.

When the sealing was completed, the roll of the ship was eliminated with the help of hoists, again using sections of the floating dock and cables with a circumference of 229 mm. The cruiser surfaced after a two-day injection of compressed air. Since it was no longer good for anything, Cox cut it into pieces in his workshops in Lyness.

SECOND ATTEMPT TO RAISE THE "HINDENBURG"

However, Cox's thoughts were elsewhere. He felt ready to try again to raise the Hindenburg. The failures experienced once hurt his pride, and he firmly decided this time to emerge victorious.

Work began in January 1930 with a major overhaul and refurbishment of four sections of the docks. By the end of April, all of them were again installed over the cruiser. Of the 800 previously delivered patches and closures, only 300 needed to be replaced. In addition, the hole left by the ship's last chimney had to be sealed.

Naturally, the completely unsatisfactory stability of the cruiser caused the greatest concern. Cox was well aware that thousands of tons of water were just waiting in the wings to capsize the ship again. And he ordered to cut out of one of the raised destroyers a “piece” 9 meters wide and 12 meters long - an entire engine room. Then this giant wedge was flooded next to the Hindenburg, squeezed under her left cheekbone and filled with 600 tons of cement, which covered the cruiser's propeller from the port side. In April, flanged bodies of steam boilers 6 meters high and more than 2 meters in diameter were bolted above the main hatches with bolts. They provided access to the surface and, in addition, served as cofferdams. The giant cofferdam also formed the cruiser's sealed bridge. From the central control panel installed there, it was possible to coordinate the work of six main pumping stations located throughout the ship. Cranes were installed on sections of the docks to lower the submersible pumps as soon as the water level in the ship's hull began to drop. The pumping of water began on July 15, and in just 2 hours the nose surfaced. This time, without any heel, he protruded from the water by as much as 3 m - almost a meter more than in 1926. Nothing foreshadowed trouble.

And yet it happened. The cruiser suddenly lists heavily to starboard. This has never happened to him before. Feeling no strength to continue further struggle, Cox allowed the Hindenburg to sink again, ordered the second wedge to be driven under the right cheekbone of the cruiser, and then went on a three-week vacation - the first since the beginning of the epic in Scapa Flow in March 1924.

When he returned, work resumed again. The bow of the ship quickly rose almost 5 m above the sea surface. But then some sheets of plating near the stern began to bend, which was now pressed by all the huge mass of water inside the vessel. Cox decided to ignore this, hoping that the ship would not break in half while 90% of its volume was in the water. The cruiser's bow showed no intention of listing. Successfully completed the rise and the stern.

This was the only time that Cox took his wife and daughter with him on the rise of the ship. Partly, perhaps, because as soon as he ripped his coat or stained his sleeve with grease, his wife invariably began to lament:

- Look what you've done!

If he happened to walk on a sloping deck, she immediately shouted:

- Watch out, you'll fall!

To all this, Cox only muttered to himself fiercely under his breath:

- These women!

But he was too proud of the Hindenburg to leave his women at home. Everyone was waiting for the performance, and it took place. When the deck of the cruiser was out of the water, Cox, shod in high boots, went aboard the ship to take possession of it. One of his men, excited by the significance of what was happening, jumped after Cox, but landed just in a hole in the deck covered with water. He disappeared for a few seconds and then reappeared, crying plaintively that he couldn't swim.

Cox pulled him out and, in an excess of emotion, sat him on his shoulders to carry him to safety. But as soon as he took a step, he himself fell into another hole and sank headlong into the water. The poor man he had saved literally froze in horror, waiting for the inevitable outburst of rage when Cox reappeared on the surface. But Jenny, Cox's wife, got ahead of her husband:

“Oh, daddy,” her clear, gentle voice sounded, “just look at who you look like!”

On August 23, 1930, the Hindenburg was taken to Rosyth, where it arrived three days later after an exceptionally calm transition.

FETTER AIR "VON DER TANN"

The work continued, but Cox was already pushed to this only by wounded pride. For the moment, he remained in the loser, losing a total of 20,000 pounds. Art., and wanted to finish the epic, at least without suffering a loss. The Hindenburg was not yet fully prepared for towing to Rosyth when Cox and his crew began to lift the battlecruiser Von der Tann with a displacement of 20 thousand tons. The ship lay upside down with a list of 17 ° to starboard at a depth of 27 m It was decided to raise it in the same way as the "Kaiser": clean the bottom, fill the kingstones with concrete and install air locks.

Everything seemed to be clear, but in this case, the rescuers faced two significant difficulties. Firstly, in order to reach the cruiser's hull, the air locks needed to be significantly extended, since the distance from the sea surface to the port side was almost 7.5 m and a little less than 30 m to the starboard side. Secondly, when a hole was made in the hull of the cruiser, an incredible stench of rotting algae and the remains of various marine animals was drawn from there.

Concerned about the safety of his men, as soon as the first air lock was installed, Cox blew the entire hull of the ship twice with clean air. However, this did not help much - when working with oxy-acetylene burners, small fires and even explosions of combustible gases accumulated in the compartments occurred every now and then. Then he ordered that the whole ship be treated with a special chemical composition, no less fetid, but preventing, as it was supposed, the danger of ignition of gases.

In fact, it turned out differently. When the rescuers sealed the last bulkhead, they had to cut a pipe filled with gaseous decomposition products with an autogen. There was an explosion. Mackenzie was thrown up the ladder with such force that he hit his head on the underside of the hatch coaming. He was found floating face down in the water and was sent to the hospital for several days. Three people working with the burner were thrown into the compartment located behind them, which immediately began to fill with water through the bulkhead destroyed by the explosion. They climbed into the uppermost corner of the compartment, where the air in the room was supposed to accumulate, and stood there neck-deep in water until after 3 hours they were removed by rescuers who cut through the body with an autogenous.

Von der Tann surfaced at the end of November and was towed to Lyness on February 5, 1931.

Rise of the "Prince Regent Luitpold". FIRST ACCIDENT

In connection with the crisis that broke out, prices for scrap metal fell so low that Cox did not even begin to dismantle the ship, but instead immediately began to prepare for the rise of the Prince Regent Luitpold, a battleship of the same type as the Kaiser, which sank upside down with a roll of 18 ° to the port side at a solid depth of 32.5 m.

Given the depth at which the ship lay, the rescuers had to pump compressed air into its hull at a much higher pressure than usual. It was also necessary to increase the length of the air locks - up to 30.5 m on the starboard side and up to 18 m on the port side. Cox decided to divide the battleship's hull into 12 compartments, installing a separate airlock for each. Work began in May, and almost immediately the rescuers faced the same danger - air polluted by decomposition products in the ship's rooms. Several times the compartments of the ship were purged with compressed air and treated with chemical compounds. In addition, so much coal dust and soot accumulated in the ship's rooms that the rescuers had to work in smoke masks.

Despite all the precautions taken, on May 27, an explosion occurred in the bow compartment of the battleship. The exact reason for it has remained undetermined. In all likelihood, when compressed air was bled from the compartment to raise the water level in it, a certain amount of combustible gases entered the room with it, which for some reason then ignited. Two people suffered severe burns, and carpenter William Tate was knocked down and knocked unconscious. Through the holes from the rivets knocked out by the explosion and the torn off air lock, water rushed into the compartment, and people had to get to the surface through the waterfall that fell on them. Mackenzie, Peterson, and Sandy Thomson tried several times to get Tate out, but he choked before they could get to him. His death sounded to Ernest Cox as a kind of signal that heralded the end of the epic in Scapa Flow. He completed the rise of the battleship, which began on 8 July. Three days later, the ship surfaced.

Cox lost no time in selling the Bayern, the last ship he owned and yet to raise, and all his workshops and equipment in Lyness to McCrone & Hardy, a subsidiary of Alloah Shipbreakers. Soon after, the company merged with the Metal Industries Group, a giant British consortium, and work at Scapa Flow continued along the paths beaten by Cox. Most of his men, including "both Macs," remained where they were.

Cox's net loss for eight years at Scapa Flow was £10,000. Art., but while he devoted all his vigorous energy and creative forces to the cause of raising these monsters resting in the depths of the sea, his abandoned trade in scrap metal made him a millionaire.

Cox lived another 30 years and died in 1959. He tirelessly traveled all over the world, organized various enterprises, and devoted a lot of energy to the defense of England during the Second World War. But all this did not have that unique romance and attraction that Scapa Flow, which remained forever in his memory, possessed for him. He and the scuttled German fleet united in some strange union of man and purpose, culminating in an almost epic achievement unparalleled in the history of ship-lifting.

Secrets of sunken ships
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Judging by the reports of the world tabloids, 2014 went down in history as the year of underwater treasure hunters.

Back in May, the planet spread the news about the planned rise of the remains of the legendary “Santa Maria” recently discovered in the Caribbean Sea, on which Columbus discovered America in 1492. Specialists of the Black Sea Center for Underwater Research plan to raise a Byzantine ship from the bottom of the Black Sea.

Presumably, on board the ancient ship is a myriad of treasures and priceless artifacts. The Italian authorities finally towed the liner Costa Concordia, which sank in 2012, to the port of Genoa for subsequent disposal. The weight of the vessel is 114 thousand tons, and its length is more than three football fields. At the same time, there is a catastrophic lack of ship-lifting specialists all over the world.
Mikhail Ivanov, head of the Underwater Research Laboratory, agreed to tell our publication about the nuances of the profession.

— Mikhail, do ships often sink?
What a romantic start to a conversation! "Ships are broken, chests are open ...". Speaking seriously, according to various estimates, in the entire history of our civilization, from 1 to 3 million ships perished in the waters of the oceans. And the number of valuables that ended up on the seabed is not at all quantifiable. However, it is possible to raise sunken ships to the surface in extremely rare cases. This is a complex, hard, routine work that requires high skill and courage from divers, sophisticated equipment and original technical solutions. There are no templates here! Each such task is unique in its own way. And, believe me, when the expediency of raising a vessel is considered, the presence of treasures on it plays a far from decisive role. Nevertheless, one of the successful examples of such an operation is the rise of the English cruiser Edinburgh, which was transporting 465 gold bars as payment by the Soviet Union for Lend-Lease supplies. In the spring of 1942, the cruiser sank at a depth of 260 meters. As a result of joint Soviet-British expeditions in 1981 and 1986, 460 gold bars with a total weight of 5,534.6 kg were raised from the bottom. Rescue firms received 2,490.0 kg, the USSR - 2,257.5 kg, and the UK - 752.5 kg of gold. The organizer of the operation to raise the treasure, Keith Jessob, became a millionaire, earning $ 3 million.

Battleship of the Russian fleet "Gangut"

- What are good reasons for the rise of ships in Russia.
- The main reasons are very prosaic: the elimination of obstacles to navigation and fishing; lifting man-made objects where dredging and construction of hydraulic structures are planned; execution of a court decision or an order of the prosecutor's office related to the circumstances of the sinking of the vessel; the desire to make money by cutting the hull for scrap. In the rarest cases, the vessel is raised for the sake of restoration and further operation.
By the way, in world practice the most exotic example of this kind is the rise of the Norwegian tanker Stolt Dagali, which rammed the Israeli passenger liner Shalom on the night of November 26, 1964. As a result of the collision, the tanker broke in half, its stern part, together with the engine room, sank, and the bow, about 100 meters long, remained afloat. She was towed to Sweden. Around the same time, the K.T. Gogstad". His hull, on the contrary, received damage to the bow, while the stern, along with the engine room, remained intact. As a result, it was decided to splice the stern of K.T. Gogstad" with the bow of the "Stolt Dagali"! 300 tons of metal were spent on the transition section. The new tanker, which turned out to be several meters longer than either of its "parents", received the name "Stolt Lady" and continued to work for the former shipowner.

German battleship Bismarck

- Raising a ship for scrap metal is a profitable business?
- Undoubtedly! Recall at least the legendary Ernest Cox. A hard-working young man, at the age of 29, organized his own company to raise ships for scrap. By the end of the First World War, the whole of Europe knew about Ernest Cox's firm, and he himself received the nickname Big Junkman. After the war, under the terms of the armistice, 74 German warships were interned in the bay of Scapa Flow in the north of Great Britain. Subsequently, they were to be transferred to the Entente. Only a small part of the support team, consisting of German officers and sailors, remained on board the ships.

Suddenly, on June 21, 1919, a prearranged signal was given from the flagship of Admiral von Reuter. In an instant, all the interned ships of the German fleet raised pennants, flags, horns roared, bells sounded. The officers in the holds opened the kingstones, smashed the nozzles, throwing the flywheels of the valves overboard. The German fleet went to the bottom! The ships sank at a depth of 18 to 22 meters. The British, of course, tried to prevent sabotage, but in vain. More than 50 ships, 2/3 of the German fleet, were at the bottom. Some time later, in business negotiations with Paterson & Ahlbeck, the owner of the company, Paterson, jokingly advised Cox to raise the ships of the German fleet from the bottom. The big junk dealer accepted the challenge. Returning to London, he, without delaying the matter, offered the Admiralty £24,000 for German ships lying under water: the British naval authorities were very surprised, but they took the money. And, I must say, it was dishonest, since it already had the conclusion of authoritative experts that it was impossible to raise the ships. Meanwhile, Cox, suddenly becoming the owner of an entire fleet, set to work. He towed large ships in the overkill position (upside down), arranging gazebos for the compressors and the expedition team on the bottom of the ship. Contrary to the opinion of Admiralty experts, he completed the rise of all ships by 1929.

Ernest Cox

- It is well known that sunken ships are raised to the surface only in exceptional cases, despite the harm that they cause to the environment. Why?
- Often a shipwreck is accompanied by a spill of oil products and direct death of the inhabitants of the seabed in the place of the ship's sinking. Ship cargo can also lead to significant pollution of the aquatic environment. In this case, the rise is justified. If the fuel is pumped out, toxic substances are removed, and the remaining hull does not interfere with navigation, then the ship, on the contrary, becomes an excellent underwater substrate for the prosperity of marine animals and algae, serves as a shelter for young animals. That is, it performs the same functions as a coral reef. Moreover, an international trend towards the creation of artificial reefs is actively developing today. Here are just a few examples.
2001 - 27 decommissioned New York subway cars are sunk 30 km from the coast in the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of more than 20 m to create artificial reefs.
2006 - Dozens of old armored personnel carriers are sunk in the Atlantic to create an artificial reef for sport fishing in South Carolina.
2010 - 25 decommissioned Thai army tanks are scuttled to create artificial reefs at the bottom of the Gulf of Thailand near Bangkok, Thailand.

- You supervised the rise of the Andromeda meteor. What difficulties did you face?
- On the night of November 11, 2008, a fire broke out on the Perseus and Andromeda meteors moored on the Neva near the University Embankment. There was a legend that some passing cadet rushed to the burning ships and untied the Andromeda in order to save the second meteor from fire. The flaming ship was carried downstream, where it ran aground. When fire crews coped with the fire, Andromeda sank. The owner was obliged to raise the ship's hull from the bottom to the freezing point. But no one took up the work: the navigation was over, and to use the floating crane it was necessary to build bridges. And the floating crane would not be able to anchor because of the large number of communications at the bottom of the Neva - from gas pipelines to fiber optic communication lines. Moreover, the weight of the meteor is about 36 tons, from the load during the ascent, the granite embankment could simply move down to the Neva.

How did you cope with the difficult task?
“Our Underwater Research Laboratory has developed a plan for lifting the ship using inflatable pontoons, and the direct work was carried out by the Enpron-Povenets enterprise. A diving survey showed that the body of the meteor lost its rigidity due to the fire and bent in the middle. For lifting, special clamps were made for attaching parachute pontoons. We used pontoons made according to my personal calculations. As a result, the meteor was cut in half and each part was towed separately.

"Titanic"

- In your opinion, who should finance and carry out work on raising ships: the state or private traders?
— I am convinced that the lifting of ships cannot be a commercial enterprise. Otherwise, it will turn out like the son of a glazier: for dad to prosper, you need to break the windows in the district. For the correct organization of lifting operations, it is first of all necessary to solve the problem of legal support for this activity in the Russian Federation. Then develop a multi-year program of work to raise already sunken objects in all basins of the country.

They raise sunken ships much less often than they are looking for them. First of all, it is often not worth the task of raising this or that ship, the search is carried out for the sake of valuable cargo, on the detection and lifting of which the main efforts are concentrated. In addition, wreck salvage operations are in most cases very costly, and often downright dangerous for those trying to salvage ships, or for the environment. Although, in conditions suitable for the respective work, the recovery of sunken ships has been worked out to automatism and has several options.

Pull out, lift up, "blow out"

Currently, there are three main ways to raise sunken ships. The most common is the rise with the help of pontoons.

Specially designed ship-lifting pontoons are fastened under the ship's hull, and then, using special pumps, the pontoons are “blown through” with air and pumped up. At the same time, at a certain moment, the lifting force of the air, pushing the pontoons up, overcomes the weight and pressure of the water holding the ship at the bottom, and the ship rises to the surface. The pontoon method is good in cases where the vessel lies flat on the bottom and it is possible to attach pontoons to it.

The second of the main methods involves the use of floating cranes. This is applicable for small boats whose weight is suitable for the crane. The main restrictions in this case are the weight of the sunken ship and the material from which it is built - wooden ships cannot be lifted with a crane, they will simply fall apart.

The third way is to “purge” the ship itself - when it is not possible to attach pontoons, metal ships are sealed if possible, that is, all available holes in its hull are sealed, and air is pumped into the hold with pumps. This method is not always applicable, since many openings in the vessel simply cannot be tightly closed. There are also other ways: for example, if the ship sank close to the coast, it can be pulled from land using powerful winches. Finally, an exotic variant of "purge" of the ship is the method of lifting sunken ships, demonstrated in the popular TV show "MythBusters": the sunken ship is filled with ping-pong balls, which push it to the surface.

Raising ships is a true art

If sunken ships have been searched for, albeit with minimal chances of success and at relatively shallow depths, over the past few centuries, then the regular rise of ships became possible only in the last century. Prior to this, it was either pointless or impossible to raise ships.

Before the First World War, there were only about ten companies involved in the recovery of sunken ships, and half of them were located in England. It was in England at the end of the 19th century that the first operation was carried out to raise a ship with a steel hull - it was the Wolf paddle steamer, which sank 10 miles from the coast near Belfast Bay. It was the First World War that became a real revolution in the field of raising sunken ships.

As usual, the economic factor turned out to be decisive - after the end of the war, the world industry experienced a serious shortage of metal, since before that, for several years, the metal was mainly used for military needs.

The “metal need” was partially met through conversion, that is, the transfer of the former military metal to the peaceful industry. But during the war years, a huge number of military, transport and cargo ships were sunk. Large reserves of metal lay ownerless - therefore, increased attention was paid to the rise of ships.

One of the pioneers of the "industrial" recovery of sunken ships was the Englishman Ernest Cox. He turned to the British Admiralty with a proposal to sell the German fleet sunk off the Orkney Islands to the state for a thousand pounds sterling for each ship raised. Having received a deposit, he bought a decommissioned floating dock, converted it, hired a team - and in two years he raised dozens of German warships from the bottom, including the famous battlecruiser Hindenburg. In the case of the Hindenburg, Cox set a record - at that time no one had been able to lift a ship more than two hundred meters long and with a displacement of 28 thousand tons.

Alexander Babitsky

The light bulbs of the ship that sank during the Second World War are still burning, and the ship "Durnstein" was found twice

The most interesting finds made by our underwater archaeologists.

The Black Sea is capricious and has killed many sailors. And during the periods of several wars, fierce naval battles were fought on it. As a result, many unusual ships belonging to various eras found their last shelter at the bottom. There are even planes and submarines there. Over the past 10-15 years, divers and archaeologists have made a lot of discoveries. Andrey Nekrasov, an underwater photographer from Odessa, spoke about the most interesting finds of his colleagues “Today”.

SECRETS OF THE SUNKED LIEUTENANT

The destroyer of the imperial fleet "Lieutenant Zatsarenny" sank near Zmeiny Island on June 30, 1917 (according to the new style) during the First World War. It broke in half after hitting a mine laid by the German cruiser Breslau. Earlier, the Germans defeated the Romanian-Russian garrison and destroyed the lighthouse on the island. The destroyer was carrying a new detachment and materials for the restoration of the lighthouse and radio station. After the explosion, the bow part sank first. All 37 people who were there died. Those at the stern escaped, she was towed to the shore, but on the way she also sank. Odessa club of underwater archeology Navarex discovered the stern in 2002.

Divers found part of a plaque with the name

But it took another 5 years to find the nose! There is a lot of mysticism around the ship. For example, the bow and stern were on opposite sides of the bed of an ancient river. And the underwater archaeologist Alexander Tereshchenko discovered a trace of the bow on the echo sounder on June 17 - exactly 90 years after the death of the destroyer.

THE DANUBE STEAMBOAT RETURNED ITS NAME

Remains of a steamship wheel.

In the area of ​​​​the city of Ilyichevsk, the remains of the Dürnstein paddle steamer, built at the very end of the 19th century in Austria-Hungary, lie at the bottom of the sea. Why he died in 1944 is not exactly known. The river steamer was mobilized during the Second World War and was used as a small transporter, transporting goods and people across the Black Sea. (In peacetime, he cruised along the Danube between Austrian ports. - Auth.). A small mistake by the captain was enough for the Black Sea storm to sink a steamer unsuitable for sea voyages.

The same court seal.

It was first discovered by scuba divers back in the 1970s, but the coordinates were inaccurate. As a result, Ilyichevsk divers had to look for it again. They discovered the remains of the ship in 2006. But for a very long time, archaeologists did not know exactly what kind of ship it was. Only after painstaking searches in the mud in 2010 was it possible to find the navigator's locker with documents. On the papers there was the captain's signature and the ship's seal with the name of the ship in Gothic letters - Durnstein.

"BRYANSK" HELPED SPANISHES AND DIE FROM FASCISTS

"Bryansk" is very fond of divers.

The steamship "Bryansk" sank after being shelled by German aircraft in 1941. The Soviet transport worker was engaged in the evacuation of people from Odessa surrounded by the Nazis to Sevastopol. Fortunately, the raid occurred on the way back when the ship was sailing without passengers. Otherwise, the death toll would have reached several thousand. Underwater archaeologists believe that before the death, the captain of the ship tried to maneuver to dodge the shelling. But the huge 100-meter low-speed steamer had practically no chance of surviving. It did not reach the Odessa port "Bryansk" for about a dozen kilometers. Today, the remains of the ship are a favorite attraction for many divers. In particular, a seminar was held there on penetrating the remains of a shipwreck. In addition, his remains are very photogenic.

You can see the remains of an anchor. Photo:

The history of the ship is also remarkable. It was built in British shipyards at the end of the 19th century. Later, the Spaniards bought it and named it Inocencio Figaredo. At first he carried coal, grain and ore and even went to the USA. During the civil war, he sailed to the USSR and carried weapons to the communists and socialists who fought against the Franco regime. During the third stay in 1938, the ship was arrested in the Union so that it would not go to the victorious government of the dictator. The ship was named "Bryansk". Part of the Spanish crew was able to return home only two years later, the other part only after almost 20 years, in 1957. And some even preferred to stay forever in the USSR.

BARGE OR CRANE?

Mystery. The ship sank near the port of Odessa.

An unknown ship of the 19th century was found near the port of Odessa in 2009. They found it by chance - the expedition was searching for the German Junkers bomber shot down over the Black Sea. It is not yet known what kind of ship it was. Presumably, it was built in the 19th century. The nose resembles an iron, it did not have a bowsprit (forward mast). For merchant and military ships, the bow lines were smooth to increase seaworthiness. Divers discovered that it had a powerful capstan (a kind of winch) installed on it. The working version is that the unknown vessel was a barge or an ancient analogue of a floating crane or a dredger. However, archaeologists plan to return to it, since the “drowned man” has not yet been fully explored and its holds can store more than one mystery.

THE LIGHTS OF THE MOTOR SHIP "SULIN" ARE STILL ON

"Eternal" light bulbs.

The Romanian ship "Sulina" is a favorite place for beginner divers. Although this vessel is quite well studied, amazing finds are still being made there.

The name of the vessel is clearly visible.

For example, one of the divers found there ... a urinal, moreover, adapted specifically for installation in a corner. And some light bulbs, if connected to the network, are still on.

There are many mysteries on Sulina.

But there is no clarity about the reasons for the death of the ship, which was used as a transport ship during the Great Patriotic War. At first it was believed that it was flooded by a Soviet submarine. But there is evidence that the torpedoes passed by, and therefore another version appeared: while maneuvering to evade a volley, the Sulina stumbled upon a mine.

The Black Sea is capricious and has killed many sailors. And during the periods of several wars, fierce naval battles were fought on it. As a result, many unusual ships belonging to various eras found their last shelter at the bottom. There are even planes and submarines there. Over the past 10-15 years, divers and archaeologists have made a lot of discoveries.

SHOOTING OUR AT "SALZBURG"

On the remains of the Salzburg steamship, two years ago, members of the Odessa underwater club Kusto installed a memorial plaque. It says that in October 1942, 2,300 Soviet prisoners of war died here. Not all the details of this tragedy are known. The German transport was attacked by the Soviet submarine M-118. The Germans were immediately taken on board, while the prisoners of war began to be rescued only many hours later. Some were pulled out of the water by local fishermen. In total, 6 Germans and more than two thousand prisoners of war died on the Salzburg. Their names are still unknown, they were buried in the village of Bolshaya Balabanovka (today Nikolaevka). The submarine went missing after the attack. She was presumably sunk with depth charges, but her remains at the bottom were never found.

SAILBOAT WAITING FOR CLUE

Found Turkish coins.

Very often, the finds of underwater archaeologists turn out to be not at all the object that they were looking for at first. This happened with the motor-sailing schooner "Militina", which sank in the area of ​​​​Snake Island in 1915. A ship was found at the supposed place of her death, but there was no sign of a steam engine on it. What kind of ship it is, scientists have yet to find out. Presumably, this is a French sailing ship that sank long before the death of the Militina, in 1854 or later. A “briquette” cemented by sea water from nails, fragments of saucers, glass cups and other items was lifted from it. Scientists from Zaporizhia, who later worked with this mixture, recovered a Turkish 10 lira coin minted in 1839, a copper tap from a wine barrel with inscriptions in French, and fragments of a service similar to dishes from French and English ships during the Crimean War. And "Militin" has yet to be found.

"PIKE" WERE SEARCHING FOR MORE THAN THREE YEARS

Shch-212. A mine explosion tore off the bow of the submarine.

Part of the work of underwater archaeologists is to search for the missing crews who fought during the Great Patriotic War. In 2005, they managed to identify the Shch-212 submarine (submarines of this type were called "Pikes"), which sank near Zmeiny Island. She went to hunt enemy transport ships in 1942 and most likely stumbled upon one of the mines laid by the Romanians.

A powerful explosion tore off the bow, which lies at the bottom perpendicular to the hull. Her Odessa submariners were looking for three and a half years: the coordinates on the Soviet official map were not accurate. But it was only in 2009 that it was possible to prove for sure that the find is exactly Shch-212. The divers photographed the net cutter installed on the submarine: this was only on the 212th. A commemorative plate with a number was installed on its periscope, and a wreath was placed on the wheelhouse.

THE OLDEST FIND IN THE SEA

Amphoras from the bottom of the sea.

The first and so far the only ancient ship that sank in the Black Sea was recently found by our underwater archaeologists - at the end of 2011. For such a long time, wooden structures in sea water usually do not survive. But this time, it seems that the ancient sailboat saved the hydrogen sulfide at the bottom, which blocked the access of oxygen and prevented its destruction. The ancient Greek ship was discovered by members of the Odessa Navarex club near Snake Island. The skeleton of the sailboat and its cargo, about a thousand empty amphoras, have been preserved. They fell out during the crash and are located about 80 meters from the ship. After conducting a preliminary analysis, archaeologists concluded that they were dealing with an ancient Greek trading vessel. It carried wine and olive oil from the island of Peparet (the modern name of Skopelos), in the Aegean Sea, to one of the ancient cities of the Northern Black Sea region, where olives did not grow. The find is dated to the 4th century BC. It was the heyday of ancient cities on the territory of modern Ukraine. The find is unique: only a few such ancient ships have been found all over the world.

SOVIET MINE DESTROYED

Mines in the Black Sea in 1941 were exhibited not only by German and Romanian sailors. In November, the Hungarian transport ship Ungvar was blown up by Soviet mines. The explosion also sank the two Romanian torpedo boats Vigelia and Viforul accompanying it. These objects are well known by Ilyichevsk divers from the Afalina club, who have descended to them more than once. One of the boats lies on the keel, and it has already been partially plundered. The second is belly up (at the time of the explosion, he was closer to the transporter), and his equipment was almost completely intact. The boats are believed to have unexploded torpedoes and depth charges. But the transporter was badly damaged by the explosion. From the explosion, a funnel with a diameter of about 160 meters was formed at the bottom. The Ungvar was transporting air bombs, anti-aircraft ammunition, fuel and food from the Romanian port of Sulina to Odessa. There is a version that, having noticed a mine, the commander of the convoy, who was on the transporter, ordered to shoot it. After all, the commander of the German Danube flotilla was also on the Ungvar. That is why the torpedo boats stopped right in the middle of the minefield and ended up so close to the epicenter of the explosion - this killed them. Six German officers and 12 Hungarian sailors died on the transporter, their Romanian commanders and one of the crew members died on the boats.

• Chisinau city

58-year-old Min Kwok, a fisherman from Hong Kong, unfortunately, instead of a fish, caught a huge log from the sea. At first, the man wanted to throw out an unnecessary catch, but he felt a strong smell emanating from the tree. When a fisherman removed a piece of bark from the tree, a yellow oil flowed out of it, which made him fabulously wealthy.

The man realized that in front of him was a large piece of eagle tree (aloe tree), used in medicine and perfumery to make aromatic preparations.

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Experts confirmed that the log, with a diameter of more than three meters, is indeed an eagle tree. Its estimated cost is one billion Hong Kong dollars (128 million US dollars).

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The sailor who found the tree plans to sell it and spend some of the money on charity. In traditional Chinese medicine, the eagle tree is considered a "diamond" among plants because it absorbs energy from the cosmos and has special powers. Its seeds and leaves are widely used in medicine.

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Few have heard of oud tree oil. But many have met the word "oud" in the names of spirits.
And this rather interesting perfume component. Firstly, the fact that the oud (or scarlet) tree is the most expensive in the world. And its resin - oud (other names: agar, kalambak) - is one of the most valuable components. The cost of about $ 18,000 per kilogram is far from the limit.

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The reasons for such a high price are the low resin content and the complexity of processing (only 12 ml of oil is obtained from 20 kg of wood). In addition, these trees are on the verge of extinction.
Secondly, the recipe for making oud oil has been kept a closely guarded secret for thousands of years. It was part of the love potions as a strong aphrodisiac. And only high-ranking persons could use it as incense and potion. Therefore, oud was called the wood of the gods or the tree of paradise.
But in fact, this is a completely terrestrial plant of the wolf family, growing in Asia. Several species are used to obtain oil, but the most common source of agar is Aquilaria (Aquilaria).
Thirdly, the oud tree acquires its special properties as a result of infection with a special type of mushroom. At the same time, the tree emits a fragrant resin, trying to overcome the fungus Phialophora parasitica that has settled on it. Trees that are at least 50 years old, and preferably 100, are suitable for processing.
Oud is obtained by steam distillation, extraction and hydro-distillation. The oil is filtered and then dried in the sun. The more mature it is, the better the flavor.
Naturally, in an attempt to reduce the cost of perfumes, chemical analogues of the smell of oud are used. However, they were not even close to the original.
The scent of oud wood in perfumery
Synthetic agar flavor substitutes are easy to distinguish. The smell of natural oud is a magical warm aura of smoky, balsamic, woody shades with sweet and sour nuances. It is a complex, deep, harmonious, balsamic fragrance slightly reminiscent of sandalwood and styrax.
While the artificial one is a flat leathery-woody smell, practically devoid of the play of shades and volume.
Oud oil creates an intense, warm, sensual, attractive, even slightly intoxicating note in the perfume. And it suits both men and women. Some perceive the aroma of oud very critically, while others simply captivate.
Pierre Montal was the first European perfumer to use oud. Now the French brand Montale has a record number of perfume compositions with this ingredient - more than 25.
Now only high-end brands can boast of agar perfumes. Although they can sin with a mixture of natural and synthetic components.
Rare arug can be found in Arabian Nights by Kilian, Midnight Oud Juliette Has a Gun, Accord Oud and Oud Immortel by Byredo.
In addition to a special note, oud increases the durability of perfumes. It opens on the skin for 12 hours, and lasts more than a day.
Uses of agar tree oil
Since ancient times, scarlet wood has been used as a material for incense in religious ceremonies, and expensive furniture and decorations have been made from wood.
The oil was most often consumed as an aphrodisiac, as well as to treat male impotence and restore estrogen balance in women. It was also used to heal wounds, improve and smooth the skin, to improve digestion with constipation and dyspepsia, to eliminate bad breath.
Oud is valued as an anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer agent.
Aloe tree oil tidies up the nervous system, harmonizes energy processes, and has a particularly positive effect on the heart. It restores a person's aura, increases energy, levels the surrounding energy space, and protects against the negative effects of dark forces.

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