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The P 29, ex minesweeper Boltenhagen

E-Learning Explained

The P 29, ex minesweeper Boltenhagen
Scuba Diving Malta

The P 29, ex minesweeper “Boltenhagen”  

On August 14th, 2007, with calm sea’s and, beautiful weather. The final resting place of the Boltenhagen was established.

Surrounded by a flotilla of dinghies, luzus, yachts, workboats, local police and a rescue boat. The once proud Condor 1st class minesweeper “Boltenhagen” is tied up just off the breakwaters to the ferry harbour Cirkewwa on the North side of Malta.

This is to be her final resting place. To create an artificial reef in 37 meters of water on one of Malta’s most popular dive sites.

At 1358 hrs (CEST) they opened the well prepared water inlets so the sea could finally take her. It took only 14 minutes.

 

 

 

    

 

      

 

A little history 

Built as a Condor 1st class minesweeper, at the VEB Peenewerft Wolgast (project no. 89.118) for the former German Democratic Republic navy. Registered with the ID 352 and named “Boltenhagen” she was taken in to service on September 19th, 1970. After the German unification the “Boltenhagen” was run by the Bundesgrenzschutz as BG 31 until June 30th, 1996.

In 1997 the “Boltenhagen” was delivered to Malta as an unarmed patrol craft, where she was renamed the P29. Light armament was added and during her 12 years of duty around Malta she was responsible for many offshore missions including asserting control over Malta's Continental Shelf, anti-contraband missions, and numerous border control operations. Her sister-ship the P31 also a condor 1st class minesweeper was the patrol boat that managed to save a record of 250+ migrants from drowning in one operation in 2002.

 

  

 

 

Some data 

The P29 has an over all length of 51.98 meters, a beam of 7.12 meters and a draft of 2.3 meters. Fully loaded she had a displacement of 361 tons. Her two Russian MD 40 Diesel engines gave her 4000 horses on the shaft and powered her up to 20 knots. Last armament was a 14.5 mm quad, which was added in Malta.  

The Dive 

The P 29 found his final resting place on a sandy bottom between 37 meters on the bow and 36 meters of depth on the stern. The deck has an average depth of 32 meters and the top of the mast is in 17 meters of water. Due to the depth and the possibility of encountering currents and the involved mid water swim, it is a dive recommended for experienced divers only.  

Even though it is a new wreck and, not very populated with sea life yet, the first bream and damselfish have made it their home. A fair amount of growth covering the wreck has already occurred only a few months after her scuttling, promising to see a lot more in the future. Nevertheless she is an interesting wreck and the yard preparing her to be sunk, did a very good job in cleaning her and removing all the hatches and doors which might have become a trap to the unwary diver. Keeping her depth and the relatively short no decompression limits in mind, her open layout with light penetrating in all driveable compartments makes her a very good wreck for wreck dive training and penetration.

The reef close by is ideal to extend the dive a little without exceeding the no decompression limits and it makes it easy to do a safety stop without getting bored.

 

   

Answering a few questions 

A lot of people might ask: “Another wreck, just off one lying out there already for years?” And “Finally, but why so deep and why there and, not at another place?”  Now, what’s the purpose of sinking old ships so close to the coast? We all know, that properly cleaned there is no known impact on the environment. In fact we are creating an attractive habitat for a variety of sea life.

Only after a few months the steel will be covered in all sorts of growth and more and more different fish can be seen around these wrecks.

If you like to know more about sinking wrecks as artificial reefs have a look at our related article. Why there and not on another place and why so deep? The exact answer for this is somewhere at the Maltese Planning Authority. But there are a few considerations for finding a location, we can follow very easy.

Malta is quite a busy shipping area and therefore the location and the depth has to be chosen very carefully. While we are talking about shipping, we are not only talking about the big commercial ships. Since Malta is a very famous water sport location, there are in the summer thousands of yachts and pleasure boats around and even medium size sailing yachts can draw up to 3 meters (10 feet). Since the wrecks are all sunk in open water, the weather is also a factor which has to be considered. The winter storms and the involved swell here around Malta can be quite strong. If the wreck is lying to shallow, it doesn’t take too much to do damage on the wreck and even a relocation due to heavy swell is possible. A big part of the bridge of the “Um El-Faroud”, Malta’s biggest wreck, was taken of just a few weeks ago by on of these storms. The Um El Faroud is a 110 meter tanker which is broken apart and the two parts are moving. Changes can be seen every time there was heavy swell and the ship is lying in 35 meters of water. The final resting place has to be a sandy bottom. Around Malta we find underwater big areas covered with sensitive plant life. Since we are all divers and these wrecks are one of Malta’s main attractions for the diving community, the places have to be chosen even more carefully. They need to be out of the main traffic zones but still easy accessible by divers and they can’t be too deep because than they are only interesting for Tec divers.

Another consideration for finding a location to sink a wreck around the Maltese Islands is the general seabed. Close to shore in shallower waters, we find lots of big areas of sea grass, specially the Posidonia grass (Posidoniaceae). How boring, sea grass, we divers might think but did you ever look into it? I don’t want to be too scientific here, but as divers we should be concerned about our environment. We still want to go diving tomorrow and see the same beauty, we enjoy today. Here I want to give you just a short explanation how important sea grass is to keep the environment balanced and what it does for us divers:

1. It helps to keep the water clear by trapping fine sediments and particles with their leaves.
2. It stabilizes the bottom with it’s roots and stops important soil being carried away by water movement.
3. It provides habitat for many fish, crustaceans, and shellfish.
4. Itself and the organism growing on it is food for many sea animals.
5. Most important, it is a huge producer of oxygen, which is also needed by us humans to breath.
6. Even dead, piling up on the beaches in winter, it is still useful, protecting the shore line by keeping the sand from being washed out to the sea.

 

       

 

Summary 

Let’s be happy about the P 29 and where she lies. It’s not a bad place after all. She is laying in the sand, out of main traffic zones, deep enough not to get effected by every minor storm and away from sensitive sea plants. Still, she has good accessibility from shore and every moderately experienced diver is good to dive her. Every entry level diver, showing interest in diving wrecks will get to a point where he or she has to go to the next step, whether that is the Advanced Course or a Speciality Course. Purposely sunken wrecks in good condition, out of main traffic zones, away from sensitive bottom compositions like sea grass areas or coral reefs and are accessible for divers, will always be deep.