In 1986, the United States and the USSR were at still very much head to toe in the Cold War, each vying to show the world the technological superiority of their respective country and political systems. Before the year ended, each would capture the world’s attention, but with horrifying disasters of technology gone terribly wrong. In January the pride of NASA, the space shuttle Challenger, exploded shortly after launch killing her entire crew, and in August the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred when the Chernobyl nuclear power station blew up, spreading deadly radiation across the Russian landscape.
Not nearly as news breaking as these events, 1986 would also be the Russian merchant fleet’s most tragic year as well. The seasoned passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov collided with a bulk carrier in the Black Sea, sinking in eight minutes with 425 dead, and the Soviet nations most luxurious cruise ship, the Mikhail Lermontov sank under somewhat unusual circumstances 35 miles from Picton New Zealand, becoming the most accessible and intact passenger liner shipwreck for divers, in the world!
The Mikhail Lermontov was launched in 1972 and like the four preceding vessels of her class, was named after an acclaimed Russian writer. Her namesake, Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov, was a Russian novelist and poet who was 27 years old when he died during a duel. At 578 feet long (155 meters) with a 77 foot beam, (23.6 meters) the Lermontov weighed in at 20,027 gross tons, and she could cruise at a respectable speed of 21 knots. Reflecting her communist owners, she was designed with only one class of accommodation available for her intended maximum of 700 passengers. In 1982, just four years before she sank, the Soviets spent (US) 15 million dollars to upgrade the vessel from communal to private toilet facilities, and redecorated all the public rooms and spaces to make her as competitive as possible to international passengers.
On February 6th, 1986, the Lermontov left Sydney Australia with 738 souls aboard, 408 passengers and 330 crew, on what was advertised as “The Cruise of a Lifetime”. At the helm was Russian Captain Vladislav Vorobyev. He made ports of call at Auckland, Tauranga and arrived at the capital city of Wellington, New Zealand on February 15th. At midnight, he cast off the lines and crossed the Cook Straight that separates New Zealand’s North and South islands and docked the ship at Picton’s Waitohi Wharf at 8:00am.
In Picton, the Lermontov’s officers held a small luncheon party for the Marlborough Harbormaster and pilot, Captain Don Jamison, who had come aboard to guide the passenger vessel through the local waters when she departed for Milford sound, further south along the coast. Captain Don Jamison was extremely knowledgeable about the area waters, having worked for the local Harbor Board for sixteen years prior to boarding the Mikhail Lermontov. Before that had been at sea for 17 years, making regular trips between Australia and the UK and was an executive officer with the Crusader Line on their New Zealand/Japan route. At the Russian luncheon, Jamison had two glasses of vodka and a bottle of beer, a fact that would be brought to attention in light of the events about to unfold.
At 3:00pm the Lermontov backed away from the Picton Wharf under the control of Captain Jamison. The weather was overcast with a heavy rain and 25 knot wind out of the south. As the Lermontov turned about in the small harbor, the vessel came perilously close to land during the maneuver. Captain Vorobyev admonished the harbor pilot for allowing his vessel that close to the shoreline and to not allow it to happen again. Captain Jamison then began a series of inexplicable decisions that would ultimately end up with one man dead and the Mikhail Lermontov on the bottom in just another 8 hours.
Pulling out of the harbor, Jamison decided to leave the more direct channel out and instead took a somewhat longer and less traveled route to sea. He told the Russian crew on the bridge that he wanted the passengers to look at the beached wreck of the Edwin Fox, the last surviving example of an Australian convict ship. (The wreck has since been salvaged and is currently under restoration in a Picton harbor dry dock). Not many people were interested in looking at the wreck in the gloomy weather and over the next two hours as they continued through confined waterways towards open sea, the harbor pilot came dangerously close to shore twice more. At 5:30 pm and with clear open water directly in front of them, Captain Jamison made his last, and for the Mikhail Lermontov, fatal decision.
Cape Jackson is a craggy spit of land that juts out menacingly to sea from the South Island. Directly in line with the tip of this promontory, is the Jackson Head lighthouse beacon on Walker rock. There is 600 yards of open water from the tip of Cape Jackson to the lighthouse on Walker Rock, but it is not deep water. The area charts show a reef including rock pinnacles, which come dangerously close to the surface. If the helmsman maintained his course and passed the lighthouse on his port side, it would keep the Lermontov in the deep water channel and safely out to sea, but to the helmsman’s surprise, Captain Jamison made the decision to turn to port and ordered him to steer BETWEEN the lighthouse and the rocky tip of Cape Jackson. Trusting the harbor pilot and his knowledge of the local waters to keep them safe, the helmsman obeyed the order.
At 5:37pm the Mikhail Lermontov struck with a sickening thud and developed an almost immediate 12 degree list to port as she raked her side on Hawea rock, a rock pinnacle submerged along her path at 15 feet, (5 meters) below the surface. The Lermontov needed at least 27 feet (9 meters) of clearance when fully loaded. The impact ripped a forty foot gash along three watertight bulkheads and the flooding quickly became uncontrollable. Realizing his ship was mortally wounded, Russian Captain Vorobyev took control of the vessel and headed away from the rocky coast and into the nearby bay of Port Gore. He wanted to beach the ship on a gentle sand bottom but the rising water short-circuited the electrical system and the engines went still. Photographs clearly show that at one point, the ship had drifted up close to the beach, but for some reason the crew never anchored in the shallow water. Without power, the sinking Mikhail Lermontov drifted at the mercy of the wind further into the bay.
At 6:00pm an unofficial mayday call was broadcast, but no announcement was made to the passengers telling them what was happening and many passengers only became aware that something was terribly wrong when they saw crew members wearing life jackets! Despite all that had happened, an announcement was made that dinner would be late by an hour, but the wine tasting session that was in currently in effect would continue and in keeping with tradition, the Russian band played on…that is until the glasses at the wine tasting slid off the tables from the ever increasing list!
The Tarhiko, a tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas, was the first to respond to the mayday call and arrived in the harbor at Port Gore at 8:45pm, just as the passengers and crew were getting into lifeboats and evacuating the Lermontov. Also responding to the mayday were twenty-three small local craft, the Wellington-Picton ferry Arahura, and the HMNZS Taupo which all arrived and helped search for survivors in the heavy rain and gathering darkness. By the time the Lermontov was abandoned, the list had increased to forty degrees, and at 10:27:pm she went down by the bow, landing port side up, in 120 feet of water, (37 meters).
All of the passengers were safely rescued, although some elderly people were injured making their way along the Lermontov’s sloping decks, or in the jump from the ship to the lifeboats. The single fatality was a Russian crewman; a refrigeration engineer who’s body was never recovered. In the immediate aftermath of the sinking accusations were leveled at the Harbor pilot for his reckless decisions and piloting, and also at the Russian crew for failing to properly inform the passengers of the impending danger of sinking. There were also claims that the Lermontov’s life saving equipment was defective; lifeboats had holes rotted through the wooden seats, bilge pumps were inoperative or missing handles and dry rotted life preservers could be torn apart by hand.
On March 6th 1986 the New Zealand Governments Preliminary Marine Enquiry released the following findings; that the New Zealand Pilot was responsible for the sinking, that the Russian crew should be praised for their efforts in saving all the passengers, and that the lifesaving equipment aboard was adequate. Divers were quickly dispatched to the site to ensure the oil leaks were stopped and the ships safes and gold stores were recovered for the owners. After assessing the damage the ship received and the cost of salvage, the thought of raising the Mikhail Lermontov was dismissed. A second team of divers then removed sixteen hundred tons of fuel oil and lubricants’ thereby heading off a possible environmental disaster, and then the wreck of the Mikhail Lermontov was abandoned by her owners.
For the twenty year anniversary of the sinking, our team of American divers formed an expedition to visit the wreck and see how the Mikhail Lermontov has faired after two decades of immersion. Our group was quite the slice of Americana; represented were East Coast wreckers, ice hardened Great Lake types, a laid back team from Northern California and a few odds and ends from Texas and Colorado. Although you can dive the wreck from a small day boat out of Picton, the distance to the dive site and economic logistics of a live aboard made much more sense for our group. Brent McFadden of Dive Marlborough in Picton, New Zealand handled our equipment and gas needs and soon enough we boarded the very comfortable dive vessel Affinity and headed out to the wreck site.
It’s roughly a 4 hour run from Picton to the bay in Port Gore were the Lermontov rests, weather permitting, and the weather for our trip was somewhat cool and overcast at the start. October is spring in New Zealand and is the time of year when the waters are at their clearest, at times reaching 50 feet (16 meters) of visibility. Port Gore is quite remote, with just a handful of homesteader ranches widely spaced around the bay, and the green jutting hills that surround us are covered with sheep that graze blissfully oblivious to our presence as we arrive under scudding clouds and intermittent showers. There is still a wild and untamed edge to this place, and with the low lying mist gripping the hilltops all around us, it’s beautiful and has a mysterious air all at once.
At a glance the Lermontov is vaguely reminiscent of another, more famous lost liner, the Andrea Doria. Due to a combination of factors like strong currents, extreme depth and its sheer size, the Andrea Doria was at one time referred to as the “Mt Everest” of wreck diving. Thankfully the only thing that the two wrecks have in common is that they’re both passenger liners lying on their starboard sides, abandoned by their owners and left to the domain of the fish and the wreck diver. Where the Andrea Doria is accessible only to the “technical” diver trained and equipped to dive to depths of up to 250 feet, the Mikhail Lermontov rests in just under 120 feet of water, with her port side bridge wing only 36 ft (12 meters) from the surface!
There are no dangerous currents or fast moving tides and with hills surrounding you on three sides, you are protected from bad weather that could otherwise cancel your dives. During our expedition, a storm blew through the area for two days straight, bringing with it constant winds that at times peaked at nearly 60 miles an hour. Anywhere else and we would have been either getting beat up or back at the dock cursing the weather, but thanks to small size of the bay and those looming hills on three sides, the wind could not build waves that that would prevent us from diving.
The water temperature here in October is 55 degrees top to bottom with no appreciable thermocline, and although one member of our team toughed it out with a wetsuit, a drysuit is really the way to go here, especially if you want to maximize your bottom time. When you first poke your head below the surface the immensity of this 578 foot (155 meter) wreck is apparent. Our mooring line was conveniently located in the middle of the wreck and we had between forty and sixty feet (14-20 meters) of visibility. From just under the dive boat you could easily see the huge ships hull, with row upon row of portholes, just disappears off into the distance both fore and aft.
Because the hull and upper decks are intact it is easy to navigate and there are plenty of large open areas to explore like the enclosed swimming pool, the upper boat and promenade decks offer plenty to investigate. It surprising to see the wooden decks and railings are intact as you swim beneath arching lifeboats davits that poke up towards the surface. The single huge funnel with its two large stabilizing fins looks remarkably like the conning tower of a gigantic submarine lying on its side. Swimming further forward, the mast, radar dome and radio directional equipment are all still in place. The steel parts of the wreck is covered with cold water sponge’s, mussels and anemones but here and there is a small patch of hull is devoid of growth and the Lermontov’s original white paint, now blistered and peeling, flashes and peeks through. Omnipresent on the wreck are large blue cod that follow you around like puppy dogs, looking you right in the eye, bumping into your mask and begging for treats. If you grab and smash open one of the thousands of large mussels adorning the hull of the ship, these incredibly trusting and forward fish will eat directly from your hand, but be prepared, it will now follow you around for the rest of the dive shaking you down for more! Large octopus live in the shadowy areas of the wreck and one occasion I shined my light into a corner and a large one darted by, changing colors as it fled and shooting ink to cover his escape. I honestly cannot say who was more startled, him or I.
For those with the training, equipment and desire, the interior of the ship begs to be explored. On the bridge the engine order telegraphs, helm station and radar equipment are all in place, and radio equipment sits covered with soft sponges on the benches in the radio room directly aft. Open doors and silt filled hallways lead to staircases that wind deep into the bowls of the ship, glass and brass railings spiraling sideways as you corkscrew your way deeper into the ship. Swim through a set of double doors, (the upper one still swings!) that lead into the Leningrad Restaurant, a curved glass partition in the dining room acts like a mirror and bounces your light back at you. Tables poke out from the floor, (now the wall) and in the kitchen area, stainless steel shelves, sinks and food preparation tables still shine through the accumulated silt.
After a few days exploring the wreck, and studying the ships plans, I decided I wanted to go bar hopping; I would visit every bar aboard the Mikhail Lermontov in one dive! I started my underwater pub crawl at the forward end of the Bridge Deck, checking out the small fabric covered chairs and round cocktail tables that are still bolted in place in the Festival Lounge. From here I swam down three decks to the Lounge Deck and entered into the cavernous Bolshoi Lounge. With the ambient light pouring on from the open promenade windows above, I swim into the huge two deck open space created by the Panorama Balcony in the center, still ringed with brass and glass railings, and check out the skeletal remains of a huge chandelier with two unbroken two glass globes still in place.
At the back end of the Lobby Lounge, I slip behind the rectangular bar and slide open a gate, surprised to find the liquor cabinet still filled with silt covered bottles, a few with the contents intact. I grabbed what appeared to be a vodka bottle and head towards the Nevsky (port) and Astoria Bars, (stbd) which are located amidships. I first look around the uppermost and shallower Nevsky Bar, to find the stools are still in place around the question mark shaped bar and the fabric covered love seats are still tucked up cozy like under the promenade windows. The Astoria Bar is deeper and filled with too much muck and debris to really explore completely, but I see an open door between the two bars and when I shined my light inside, I see it’s loaded with cases of Coca-Cola, Sprite and beer, all still in plastic shrink wrap.
I have one more drinking establishment to go and it’s located all the way aft. Swimming along the Lounge Deck promenade, the occasional open windows above your head allows light to shine in intermittingly and traveling through here with your light off is very cool. The promenade opens up into the Winter-Garden and after passing the Hair Salon I can see the large greenhouse-like glass enclosure that houses the pool ahead. There are other divers inside and their lights are illuminating the sponge and anemone covered glass from within giving it the appearance of stained glass, like a huge church window. It’s a nice effect and I enjoy the other divers company as I swim into the pool area and head over to the Neptune Bar, but the King of the Sea isn’t serving today.
I have traveled over four hundred feet of the wreck on this dive and still have to swim 100 feet back to the anchor line. My bar hopping dive lasted 90 minutes and thanks to the shallow depth (and my rebreather) I had no deco time! The relatively shallow depth (for such a large and intact vessel) and multi-level aspect of this wreck allows you to maximize your bottom time with little or no deco penalty and gives the diver something to explore nearly every minute of the dive! After I surfaced, and put away my dive gear for the night, I couldn’t help but uncork the bottle I carried around, hoping to offer my fellow divers a shot of Russian Vodka but it was not to be. Saltwater had made its way into the bottle and it was not drinkable. That’s okay; the Mikhail Lermontov has a lot more to give…