September 2024 – the discovery of SOLSTAD III ex. ILSE
In September 2024, together with Tomasz Stachura from Baltictech, I had the opportunity to dive an unidentified wreck lying north of Władysławowo at a depth of 95 metres.
I was already halfway to the Baltic coast — more than 600 kilometres from my home in Kraków — when Tomasz called me.
“You know, actually it's going to be just you and me diving. The rest of the team can't make it.”
The position had been sitting on Tomasz's “to-check” list for several years. When the day finally came, the weather was far from perfect and we weren't even sure whether we would be able to conduct the dive. Fortunately, Espace, our diving vessel, handled the waves smoothly, and a few hours after leaving the harbour we arrived at the position.
The multibeam image showed a roughly 50-metre-long, ship-shaped object with a high bow and stern. There was still a chance that it might turn out to be nothing more than an unremarkable fishing vessel, but we decided to go down and find out.
After a long descent to the bottom, it became clear almost immediately that we had found something interesting. The shape of the hull, construction details and artefacts scattered around the wreck all suggested that we were looking at an old steamship. The wreck lies slightly inclined towards its port side. Around 15–20 minutes into the dive, we decided to leave the stern and spend the remaining part of our planned bottom time exploring the bow. We passed large cargo holds forward of the superstructure and continued towards the front of the ship.
Numerous pieces of wreckage were scattered around the bow. After filming the area, just as we were about to turn around and begin our long journey back to the surface, I spotted something on the deck.
A ship's bell.
It lay partially buried in sediment next to the ship's side. I carefully cleared away the mud with my hand, and an inscription slowly became visible:
ILSE 1929
During the more than two hours of decompression that followed, we kept thinking about the bell and the name engraved on it. Would we be able to trace the ship's origins and discover what had happened to her?
Identification proved difficult. There was very little information available online, but with the help of several fellow wreck enthusiasts we eventually managed to solve the mystery. The vessel was listed in Lloyd's Register as SOLSTAD III, ex. ILSE, built in 1929 at Lödöse Varv for a Swedish owner. She sank on 15 October 1940 northeast of Rozewie, Poland, during a severe storm that caused her cargo to shift. Fortunately, the entire crew was rescued by the vessel Ligur.
Eventually, we even managed to find several high-quality historical photographs of the ship.
See the gallery below for more images from this remarkable discovery.
