History on our doorstep

One of the things I like about coastal cruising is visiting places of historic interest. On our recent trip from Southampton to London we ventured up the river Medway where the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery lies, complete with 1500 tons of explosive. One of the reasons the explosive has never been removed is that there is a chance it could ignite spontaneously - in an earlier similar situation whilst attempting to remove explosive from a ship off Folkestone the ordnance exploded with such force as to cause shock waves equivalent to 4.5 on the Richter scale! One estimate suggests that if the SS Richard Montgomery exploded it would cause a 300m width of water to be thrown 3km (!!!!) into the air, and the blast would shatter nearly every window in Sheerness! The ship itself is just visible above the water (see below), and an exclusion zone is marked by several buoys which mark the wreck. Fascinating!

The wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery