Diver buys WW1 shipwreck off Cornwall for £300 on Facebook

A diver who has bought a World War One shipwreck off the Cornish coast for just £300 could not resist the opportunity, he says.

The wreck of the SS Almond Branch was advertised on Facebook Marketplace, where Dom Robinson, 53, saw it and arranged its purchase.

The Almond Branch, a 3,000-tonne cargo ship nearly 330ft (100m) long, was originally bought by someone in the 1970s who hoped to find something valuable on it but it turned out to be just a “big pile of rusting iron”, Mr Robinson told BBC Radio Cornwall.

He said he had already dived on the wreck off Dodman Point before buying it and was looking forward to diving it again in the summer, with a sense of ownership adding to the experience.

• There are thousands of wrecked vessels and aircraft around the UK coast, according to the Receiver of Wreck, which lists the requirements of shipwreck owners and anyone who dives on wrecks and salvages material from it
• Shipwreck owners have the right to sell such property
• The Receiver of Wreck has no involvement with the sale of shipwrecks within or outside UK territorial waters but will record ownership to facilitate contact with the owner if items are recovered by someone else from a privately owned wreck
• All finds from wrecks must be reported to the authority within 28 days
• The Protection of Wrecks Act forbids diving on dangerous wrecks and restricts access to wrecks of historic, archaeological or artistic importance

The British merchant ship was torpedoed near Mevagissey by a German submarine in 1917.

Mr Robinson, a project manager from Portsmouth, Hampshire, said his purchase was signed off by the government’s Receiver of Wreck, which is responsible for managing who owns shipwrecks.

That was after he had dived down to the wreck to check again what he was buying.

“I just went along and I kind of kicked the tires and I sucked my teeth, and I knew what it was,” he said.

Mr Robinson said he first found a passion for exploring shipwrecks as a child and had been diving for more than 30 years.

“It feels a bit different when you’re diving a wreck, and you know that you have a sense of ownership on it,” said Mr Robinson, who has more than 9,000 followers on YouTube.

While there is no money to be made from the wreck, Mr Robinson said he hoped to find the ship’s bell, which he said he would love to keep.

He said: “So, if anybody finds the bell, they should report it to the Receiver of Wreck, who will ask me whether I want to keep it or not.

“And, if they find the bell, then obviously, hands off my bell.”