“Lost and Found-Legacy of the USS Lagarto,” the Emmy Award-winning documentary about the mission, sinking and — 60 years later — discovery of the USS Lagarto, will debut in Thailand at a Dec. 12 event in Koh Tao hosted by the MV Trident, the famed wreck hunters who found the U.S. submarine sunk by the Japanese during World War II in the Gulf of Thailand. (more…)

When it comes to diving shipwrecks, some feel there’s a distinct difference between diving wrecks sunk as artificial reefs (or insurance payouts) and wrecks on which people died. Many of these underwater tombs are only accessible to technical divers who both feel the thrill of seeing history close-up, but feel the weight of the events that lead countless seamen to their depths.

The U.K.’s Diver magazine has a great take on diving grave wrecks in its July issue. Author Michael Sawyer said he doesn’t dive grave wrecks to be a “ghoul,” but simply because “I’m drawn to wrecks. Period.”

“It would be foolish, however, as a diver, not to address the moral aspect while adding the (ship) to the logbook, considering that it’s a tomb, and a relatively recent one at that,” he wrote. (more…)

The following is a trip report by Lance Robb of Closed-Circuit Divers in Australia which last month chartered Koh Tao’s MV Trident for a week-long tech liveaboard. If you’ve got a great Thailand tech diving trip report, use the Contact form to let us know.

Stuey next to the forward deck gun USS Lagarto

The MV Trident usually operates out of Koh Tao and considering the distance we had to travel to get to these wreck sites the boys decided to take the boat to Koh Samui, so we all made our way there to join the boat.

That afternoon had us assembling our equipment pumping tanks and generally settling in for the week ahead. That evening around 7.00pm we slipped the lines and we were on our way and motored all night and into mid morning before we arrived at our first mark. We arrived on the position all very excited with most of us in the wheelhouse glued to the sounder looking for the big red lump protruding from the normally flat sandy bottom of the Gulf. (more…)

American public television this weekend will debut a documentary about the mission, sinking and — 60 years later — discovery of the USS Lagarto, a U.S. submarine sunk by the Japanese during World War II in the Gulf of Thailand and found by Jamie Macleod and the crew of Koh Tao’s MV Trident.

“Lost and Found: The Legacy of the USS Lagarto” will air on Public Broadcasting System channels in Chicago, Milwaukee, Wisc.; and Indianapolis, Ind. to mark the annual Memorial Day holiday.  Airing times can be found here. The one-hour film was made by Chicago filmmakers Harvey Moshman and Chuck Coppola, who produced the Emmy Award-winning local documentary “The Eastland Disaster.”

The Lagarto was one of 28 submarines built by the Wisconsin’s Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. during World War II. Weeks before the end of the war in May 1945, it sank in the Gulf of Thailand. The sub was lost for more than sixty years, until May 2005, when it was discovered  sitting upright in 225 ft. of water. (more…)

A good overview of the development of Thailand’s dive industry — particularly technical diving — was recently published by the Tourism Authority of Thailand. A bit basic for experienced tech divers, the article nonetheless offers interesting background on the Gulf of Thailand’s many wrecks accessible to technical divers.

Two of the most popular new activities in Thailand are wreck diving, mostly in the Gulf of Thailand, and cave diving, mostly along the Andaman Sea coastline. The Gulf of Thailand falls well short of being an Asian Bermuda Triangle, but is rich in sunken wrecks resulting from misadventures in trading, piracy and war. Many stories have been lost in the mists of time but, according to one list, there are at least 179 sunken Japanese ships – or marus, as some divers prefer to call them.

Some of the biggest recent discoveries date from the Second World War. In mid-2005, a group of technical divers from Koh Tao came across a US submarine that had been sunk in 72 metres of water by the IJN Hatsutaka, a Japanese minelayer that recorded an anti-submarine action with depth charges at the time…. (more…)