It's the busiest waterway in the world.
Come on, Skipper. Get a move on. That way.
A gateway to our nation.
Over 90% of the world's trade travels by sea.
It's not just TVs and refrigerators, it's everything around us.
Protected by a multi-agency task force, it's a
unique stretch of water.
This is warship Tyne, warship Tyne, channel 12, over.
INDISTINCT
It's very difficult to police the Channel.
To board every vessel is an impossible task.
It's a place where swimmers
and Sunday sailors fight for space with cruise liners...
..and cargo ships.
It's like trying to get across the M25 during rush-hour.
For some, the English Channel is their place of work.
If my mum came out here and saw what I was doing up here,
she would tell me to get off straightaway.
For others it's a playground.
Whoo-hoo!
But for those who venture onto its unpredictable waters...
We're just going to assist the moving of the casualty now.
Board control, diver lifeboat ..it can mean life or death.
Just drag him onto the boat!
I hope my babies get to see this and see what Daddy does for a living.
LAUGHTER
Today on Channel Patrol,
the RNLI rush to rescue a stranded teenager.
Yeah, Mayday's usually if someone's in the water, someone's sinking, someone on fire.
It is a proper emergency.
A trawler fishing boat breaks down miles out to sea.
The main engine, we've just lost the main engine.
And the Navy's bomb disposal are called out to
a hazard in the shipping lanes.
A safety fuse has been lit.
In approximately five minutes' time, there will be an explosion.
The Channel is a 350-mile long lifeline that feeds the UK economy.
Towering cargo ships bring 95% of everything we buy into its ports.
But its waters have also long offered a rich source of food.
Commercial fishing contributes over £880 million to the economy.
But it's also one of the most dangerous jobs there is.
Over the last ten years, more than 200 vessels have been lost at sea,
and over 600 fishing men killed or injured.
Trawler skipper Mike Young is on his way out of Brixham Harbour,
into the Channel for a three-day trip on the Lady Lou.
We're sort of targeting the prime fish, like a Dover sole,
a lemon sole, turbot, a brill.
Good fish, good fish you buy, expensive fish.
In a restaurant, maybe not so much on a market.
Hopefully, we can be catching between 20 and 40 boxes a day.
That's our working limit.
If we look for an average of between £3,000, £3,500 a day to catch,
then they'll be happy enough, that's our sort of working limit.
The Channel is vast, so choosing where to fish is the most
important decision the skipper makes.
Get it wrong and you might not catch enough to cover
the cost of the trip. I've made a choice.
We're going to kind of shoot in a little patch of ground which
I was fishing in last year this time. And it produced good fish.
There's a crew of four of us on here, all grown men,
all got mortgages, families, kids.
We have to catch fish and make money.
Because if we don't fish, we don't get paid. If we don't fish, we don't eat.
But before they've even put their nets out,
Mike gets a call to say the Lady Lou is about to be boarded.
RADIO: Your attention. It's a routine.
An official team will come over to you to conduct a quick document
and a quick gear inspection. Over.
All right. Yeah, no worries, no worries.
HMS Severn is part of the Navy's fishery protection squad.
Decades of overfishing have resulted in strict regulations,
governing the quantity of fish caught and the equipment used.
The Severn's crew regularly patrols the Channel
to check the rules are being followed. Big Brother's watching.
There's not a lot you can do without knowing.
Mike hasn't caught any fish yet for them to inspect,
but they need to make sure his fishing gear meets regulations.
INDISTINCT
Detailed measurements are taken on each of Lady Lou's nets to
check the holes aren't too small to let younger fish through,
and the mesh is the right width.
15 length.
79. 79.
If the Lady Lou's gear doesn't meet regulations,
she could be sent straight back to harbour. 82.
We're just here basically to help conserve the fish stocks,
and make sure it's a sustainable fishing industry so you continue to
see fish on the shelves in supermarkets
and the fish and chip shops.
78. 78.
Average, 85.1. Ideal.
You can get boarded twice a month, once a month, whenever.
They are just doing their job,
but from my point of view now, we're an hour behind now.
Maybe two hours.
We're on a limit, on a schedule.
We've got to get this gear in the water and catch some fish.
So the first one better be a good one.
With daylight running out, Mike can finally get his nets in the water.
Like many of the boats fishing in this area, the Lady Lou is
a beam trawler.
It's two beams, which are towed off the booms, the side of the boat.
They're dragged behind us for anything for an hour.
They're dragged on the sea bed. They sort of tickle the fish.
So the fish come out, the chain goes over the fish, the fish stick
their head up, and then we go over them, and hopefully they end up in our nets.
To boost his earnings, Mike's hoping to find a seasonal
visitor to these waters which isn't restricted by fishing quotas.
This time of year now, the cuttlefish come into the English Channel,
and hopefully these next few days, we're going to try and catch some of them.
As night draws in, the nets are winched up.
This is the first tow of this little trip, and we'll see what drops out.
Hopefully it'll be worth our while, we can stay put
and have the rest of the night in this area.
We'll find out now.
Yeah, that's a nice haul. That's a nice haul.
Actually the volume of it, a lot of the time you're better off catching
less fish but better quality.
I'm thinking it doesn't look too bad.
The nets go straight back in for the next haul.
The fish need to be sorted, gutted and put on ice
by deckhand Kevin, before they can really judge what they've got.
Under EU regulations,
fish below a set size have to be returned to the Channel.
How's that one looking, Kevin?
3st of sole.
Five are flat, no brills. That's it.
OK, well, there we go. The first haul, nothing like what I was expecting.
A lot of fish, but a lot of wrong fish.
The majority of the fish we threw back for being small.
It's not the start he was hoping for.
We've still got a plan, we're still sticking to a plan.
We are going south, into deeper water where we I'll try
and target the cuttlefish. We'll come across them.
We have faith. We will come across them.
That's me for the day, I've done my hauls now. I'm ready for my bed.
I'm sure tomorrow will be a better day.
Boats like the Lady Lou will spend days, sometimes weeks,
far out at sea.
If bad weather strikes, they can find themselves battling up
to 80 foot waves, far from land.
The winter time can be horrendous.
You can be rolling six degrees, and it's bad, it's bad.
It gets to a stage in the winter where you have to weigh up what you are catching.
Crew safety always comes first.
Being at sea, you have to have such a respect for it.
It can be your best friend, earn you a living. And it can also wreck you.
The worse thing to happen is to lose a man over the side.
That is a fisherman's worst nightmare.
Let's see what today brings.
The first haul for me for the day, so I cross my fingers
and hope we've managed to nail down the elusive cuttle.
If we can stay on a box of cuttlefish haul, plus our little bit of fish, we'll be
all right. We'll be on to a winner.
It's the moment of truth as the nets are winched in.
Is there one or two cuttlefish going?
There's a little bit, not much.
Kevin, I can see a nice big turbot there, look.
You don't need many chips with them. Yeah, lovely.
Mike's really hoping for a good haul of cuttlefish.
That's what you want. Cuttlefish. Bag those.
How many cuttlefish was there?
Ah, three... Just over 3st? Yeah.
All right, mate, little improvement, isn't it?
Although all of Mike's catch will be sold at the harbour market,
it's likely these cuttlefish will end up abroad.
I do believe it's brought in Brixham, processed
and then it's shipped off to Spain.
So if next time you're in Madrid on your holidays or something,
you can look for a cuttlefish caught in Brixham.
There you go, that's all number two done.
A vast improvement.
The cuttlefish, the turbots and the brills, it's
all fish we're not quoted on. And the lemon sole.
It's not a great quantity of it, but the quality is fantastic.
It all looks good on the fish market, you know?
That's what the buyers will look at.
Nice, big, shiny fish with bright eyes. But we're happy.
We'll be quite happy to stay here...
..and see what the next few hauls bring.
Mike's picked a good spot,
but it looks like another fisherman's got wind of it.
There's my friend, Andy, there.
He's probably seen us going around and he's probably come for a little look.
When it comes to fishing,
having the latest technology isn't always a good thing.
When the fishing's good, the way things are now,
everybody knows where you are. You can't really hide.
So if you do get more than one or two boats going around the same
area for more than a couple of hours, other boats will see that
and maybe go and have a look, you know?
We've found this little patch now, so we'd like to keep this to ourselves.
Yeah, get off our land. Get off out of it.
HE LAUGHS
Another boat fishing in the area could seriously affect Mike's
catch, and if more turn up it could be game over.
Come across some good fishing, then I'm liable to keep it to
myself for a couple to three days.
You struggle to find it and
when you do, you don't want to let other people know.
Mike's only option at this stage is to keep fishing this patch
and hope no more boats try. to muscle in.
Such a complex body of water as the Channel needs many different
agencies to keep it safe.
Bad weather and busy traffic are the most common hazards
faced by fishermen...and the many other craft who use it.
But there are other, hidden dangers lurking beneath its waters.
Two world wars have left the sea bed littered with
thousands of unexploded bombs and mines.
And the agency tasked with retrieving
and safely disposing of them is the Royal Navy's Fleet Diving Squadron.
Right, morning, gents.
Our tasking today is to clear the obstruction which is
just off Stokes Bay.
Today, they're going to be using explosives to clear a hazard in the Solent.
Chief Petty Officer Simon Crew briefs his team.
So, beware of all shipping movements out there, and we'll conduct that with
the Solent coastguard...and QHM,
to make sure we're all clear.
One of three elite units, the Southern Diving Group is made
up of 60 clearance divers and specialists.
They cover a 1,400-mile stretch of coast from Hull, through
the Channel, and round the west of Britain to Liverpool.
It's a busy patch and they're called out to over 200 incidents a year.
Today, this is a planned operation,
because we've known the obstruction's been there.
We've been waiting for the correct tidal cycles.
The jobs we get are very varied, and it could be from going out to
assist a dredging boat or a fishing boat,
to a possible anti-defence invasion mine,
that's been uncovered due to some adverse weather.
Over the two world wars, the UK laid 250,000 sea mines within
the Thames Estuary, North Sea, alone.
Historic records suggest that 190,000 are still on the bottom
of our sea bed, being washed up or recovered by seamen,
so bombs are technically very old,
still highly dangerous and make them still quite volatile.
Before they can set out on their mission, the team needs to
prepare their kit.
What we are doing now is we're going to test the safety fuse to see
if it is burning right.
Then we'll cut off five minutes' worth of the safety fuse.
By checking how quickly it burns,
they can calculate how much fuse wire they will need.
The divers will have to light the fuses just above the explosion
site, so it's vital they have enough time to get clear.
What we are after today is five minutes' delay,
so once we light that fuse we know we have five minutes to the initiation.
39.5.
Once it's in place and the safety fuse is attached to
a detonator, which is attached to the plastic explosives
we'll use for the demolition, it is imperative we get it right the first time.
The team has been called to remove two large posts.
The remnants of an old pier,
which are sticking up from the sea bed and catching fishermen's nets.
The strong tide here makes cutting them away underwater too difficult.
So the diving squadron is going to blow them up.
But the Solent is a particularly busy part of the Channel.
Not the ideal place to carry out an explosion.
Simon needs to coordinate with the coastguard to set up a safety
exclusion zone around the site.
For your information we are going to commence diving
operations in accordance, without our local notice to mariners. Over.
RADIO: Roger, many thanks.
The plan is for divers Jeremy Osborne and Joshua Spivey to
carry out a recce of the pillars, before any explosives are set.
The obstruction is approximately 100m to the east of us.
We deploy from here in the dive boat and the rib.
Depth here is about 11m of water.
We're on a lowering tide as well. OK. Remember what we're looking for.
two 6m-high posts and about
1m apart from each other.
Remembering at the bottom, safety. There's some fishing nets, etc.
Keep away from those.
Imperative we want to find out it's that make-up of it
because we believe it is part wood, part concrete. OK?
Simon needs to confirm exactly what the pillars are made of,
so he can decide how much charge to settle. Oz, have a good recce around it.
Yeah. Wood or concrete.
The aim is to use the lowest amount possible, as more explosives
means a bigger safety cordon around the area.
For the explosive we are going to use on this
we need a safe distance of 350m all the way around the area...
where we are going to do this controlled demolition.
Diving operations are usually planned around the slack tide,
the short period between changing tides
where divers aren't pulled by the current.
But in the Solent, due to a double high tide,
the slack water period is shorter than normal,
giving the team just a 40-minute window to set up all their explosives.
All right. Yeah. What is it? Concrete?
Do we reckon you'll have any issues attaching all that? No.
What we want to do now is go back, secure onto it, up and down,
nice and taut, and get the rib alongside.
Working with explosives underwater in very limited visibility
is a highly skilled and potentially lethal job.
It's dark, it's cold
and the sea bed is littered with shopping trolleys, etc.
A lot of it will be by touch and feel
and it can be pretty miserable at times.
The team first needs to attach a line
to keep the boat anchored to the pillars.
MUFFLED EXCLAMATION
Four sets of explosives will be placed strategically
to take out the pillars in one hit.
That's sat on the sea bed like that.
There's two of these.
They've dived down on the first dive
to about two metres, a metre and a half off the bottom,
and connected an explosive charge here on the side
and they've dived down again and connected the second
explosive charge on this side, about two metres from the top of it.
And then when we initiate it,
the expected explosives force will push that way at the bottom
and the top will push that way, therefore collapsing it.
All right, lads.
With the lifeline attached,
the first set of explosives are ready to be sent down to the divers.
Both divers ready? OK. Leave the surface.
They are diving as a pair
so they're physically joined by a length of rope.
In the tide here at Solent, even in this state now,
they will physically have to hold on to a degree,
probably with one arm, and then be working as a pair
with their free arm, trying to attach the explosive to the obstruction.
MUFFLED SPEECH
In total, the team will be setting 45kg of plastic military explosives,
enough to blow up a double-decker bus.
Right. Is that the first one attached, is it? Yeah?
The tide's turned already, hasn't it?
Slack water out here is literally never totally slack, slack.
That's the Solent tide for you.
There are still three more sets to place
and they're rapidly running out of time.
Cos it starts building up again now and we've got 30 minutes to do it.
Can I leave the surface? Leave.
The Fleet Diving Squadron is just one of the many
organisations at the disposal of the Marine Coastguard Agency.
Say again, where are you again? Sat at the rotunda at where, sorry?
We have the coastguard rescue officers,
Royal National Lifeboat Institute
and four helicopters to assist us in search and rescue.
For those using the water there are three grades of distress call,
with Mayday being the most serious.
Depending on the type of emergency and the location,
the coastguard will then decide who to send.
Today a Mayday call is coming from a vessel just outside
Newhaven Harbour and the lifeboat has been scrambled.
Radio: Do you copy this, mate? Yeah, we have copied.
Mayday could be someone in the water, someone on fire,
someone sinking. It's classed as a proper emergency.
The Newhaven lifeboat is one of 346 operating
from stations throughout the UK and Ireland.
Founded in 1824, the RNLI has saved over 140,000 people
at a cost of more than 800 lives lost in service.
The crew are actually brilliant
when you bear in mind that they are volunteers.
They come from all walks of life.
The Mayday call has come from a yacht which is stranded
directly in the shipping channel at the entrance to the port.
His rudder is jammed.
He's quite close to the rocks so we need to get on the way.
We've received a Mayday.
The yacht's rudder has snapped
and the sailor on board has lost steerage.
Can you confirm where he is?
Yeah, we believe it's the furthest yacht away from us now. OK, mate.
We'll nudge our bow in and have a chat with him.
Mayday is a distress signal used when loss of life could be imminent.
Paul can see there's no immediate threat
but also notices that the sailor is only a teenager.
All the panic in putting a Mayday out,
it probably shouldn't have been a Mayday to be honest.
But the guy is obviously panicking, as you can see,
sitting in the centre of the Channel in Newhaven
and just wants a tow in.
I'll put the bow in and just have a chat with him.
And then we'll get a line on him. No problem. All right.
I mean, you get these people coming down for the weekend
in the summer, going out on their boats.
There is no licence, apart from fishermen
and commercial people on the sea.
Anyone can get a boat, take it out and not know the correct procedures
in putting in a distress call out or even using the radio properly.
Hi there. Can you hear me? Yeah. I'm new to this.
Did you put the Mayday out? Yeah. Yeah? Roger that, Paul.
Despite the potential dangers of being out on the water,
under current UK law, boating for pleasure around the coast
or out to sea is open to all and doesn't require a licence.
What's the problem? Is your rudder broken?
It's snapped in half and I've got no steering. You've got no steerage?
No. OK. Is your anchor down at all, or... No, I'm drifting.
You're just drifting. OK. Standby there. All right.
The lifeboat crew needs to get this stricken sailor
out of the shipping lane.
What we're going to do is get a line to you. Right.
Get that lying around your bow, the front,
then we'll take you on the tow.
Are you all right going up onto the bow?
But the teenager is shaken
and is reluctant to go to the bow of his dinghy to tie on the tow rope.
Are you there, Mike? RADIO: Yeah, go ahead.
Just to let you know, he's not happy being on his own
and he wants someone else on with him.
But getting the lifeboat alongside such a small vessel
creates a challenge for Paul.
We've got 44 tonnes of boat here and there's not an awful lot of sea
but obviously, we don't want to cause any damage.
OK.
With the towing line attached, the lifeboat crew can bring
the vessel safely back into Newhaven port.
Just want to call him, make sure he's all right.
But it turns out the dinghy's radio has stopped working
and the distress call was made just in the nick of time.
RADIO: They're going to stay put until you turn up.
Until they turn up. Yeah, affirmative.
Safely in the harbour, Paul lands the vessel in the marina
and calls the Coastguard to take over.
The Coastguard, being a government-run service,
they will have a chat with him to educate this young man
about his radio procedure and putting a Mayday out
and what channel to put it out on.
We can point out but we've got no right to do that.
We just go out and bring people in.
The Coastguard will have a chat with him and put him right.
He was a young lad and he was, I guess,
a bit embarrassed at having to call the lifeboat out.
First time he'd ever done that.
And he was very, very grateful for the help.
I think he was a bit scared and didn't know quite what to do.
He was a little bit flustered so he appreciated the help.
And he's safe now.
The Channel plays host to everyone from young,
inexperienced seafarers to seasoned sea dogs.
And while its waters offer some the opportunity for fun
and adventure, for many others, it's the source of their livelihood.
Further out to sea in deeper waters, trawler skipper Mike Young
is midway through a three-day trip
to catch the first of the season's cuttlefish.
Yesterday's catch was disappointing and Mike lost precious time
when he was boarded by the Navy's Fishery Squadron.
Plus, another boat has moved onto his patch.
He desperately needs today's haul to be good.
Feeling lucky, Kevin. I think there'll be a wedge.
First impressions are it looks OK on the cuttle.
As the day goes to night, Mike and Kevin are continually lowering
and hauling up the nets. We'll see what this one brings us.
Here it comes. Here's our gear now.
I'm hoping there'll be a few cuttles here.
A couple of turbot and a few brills. Turbots and brills.
If we're shy on cuttle, you know, if we are not finding the cuttle...
I'm not 100%-sure of it
cos it's still only mid-October and we are a month early.
The other trawler we saw today, he stayed around here.
Andy, old friend of mine,
we'll have a yap tonight and see what he's got to say.
Tell each other a few lies, I should imagine!
With fishing over for the day, Mike radios the other skipper.
Cockburn and Lady Lou. Hello, Andy. Good evening.
Yeah, it's been an OK kind of day, mate.
But anyway, who cares? Aye-aye, Skipper! Yeah.
It seems neither skipper is giving much away.
All right then, Andy. OK. I wish you all the best.
You have a good night. I'll speak to you soon. Ta-ta.
He seems happy enough with what he's done.
A lot of competition, I suppose, amongst skippers, you know.
It's always better to come out on top.
You know, it's good to be on top. You don't want to be the underdog.
This is 36 hours have just gone by on this bit of the trip
so we're off down to the fish room
to have a quick look at what we've got and have a little count up.
Everything here is all looking great. Everything...it's all nice and cold.
Everything's perfectly iced.
In the corner here, next to the monk, it's the elusive Dover soles.
Once that's filleted, skinned, that's the perfect size for the plate.
You see, that's our biggest quota restriction is the Dover sole.
We stringently police ourselves more than anything
on what we can catch of them.
Like you see, we haven't got many of those at all.
We've nearly got a dozen boxes of cuttle.
My mind now is telling me this could be a good season, you know?
They're coming early and they're a decent size already.
We get a few more of them, we'll be OK.
I'm pretty sure we'll stay put where we've been
and just try and top up what we've got of the nice, prime fish
and maybe a few more boxes of cuttle.
It's all going the skipper's way and even better -
after their radio conversation last night,
his rival has decided to head back to shore.
Yeah, Andy, the skipper who was just over, he's gone in.
He went in this morning at five o'clock.
He's done his full trip and his time is up now
so what fish he's left here maybe we will catch.
But just when it looks like the gods of fishing are on Mike's side...
The main engine. We've just lost the main engine.
I'm hoping we can fix it.
Right. Going down, are you? Yeah.
That there.
I've just been down to look.
I can see oil, oil at the side of the engine so I don't know yet.
I think it might be home time.
Lady Lou is 26 miles from Brixham.
An hour later, they still haven't managed to fix the engine.
If it's badly damaged, it could cost thousands of pounds to repair.
When you are at sea, you're not close to anything
and you have to know how to fix things at sea.
You know, that, it's not good.
Very unexpected. Very unexpected.
Mike thinks he's discovered the cause of their sudden bad fortune.
As luck would have it, when we got the gear back,
we did unfortunately see a dead gannet fall into the pound,
which I believe is always bad luck.
If you believe in that sort of thing, there you are, there is your proof.
One dead gannet equals one broke engine.
Despite all their efforts, they can't get the engine going again.
Mike has no other option but to call a fellow fishing boat for help.
Yeah, give this one, mate.
INDISTINCT RADIO
We've got a bit of a dilemma here, bud.
We've broken down. Our fuel pump has failed.
Our current position is four-nine degrees,
five-nine decimal one-seven North.
All right mate, yeah.
Our gear is on board and we're heading towards you.
We'll be there in about an hour and three quarters. Yeah.
Much appreciated. I'll see you shortly, OK.
So much for my lucky T-shirt! Erm, yeah.
I maybe might throw this one away now, after this.
After a few hours' wait, help arrives.
He's come alongside us now so we'll get the crew ready
and get connected up to him.
With the towing rope connected, both boats can start the long,
slow journey back to Brixham.
Just off 14 hours.
It's eerie running through the water without hearing the engine running,
which I can't quite get my head around yet.
This boat has been fishing in the area for two days
but is cutting its trip short to tow the Lady Lou back in.
Who would be a fisherman?
It's an awfully close-knit community.
If it had been him broken down,
I wouldn't have hesitated to board my gear and go and give Carl a tow.
He's lost eight hours but there'll be a pint in it for him, you know?
And if he ever needs a favour, I'll be first to step up.
But first they face a six-hour journey back to shore.
As the light fades, all Mike can do is be a passenger on his own boat.
Doesn't look very good being towed into the harbour, does it?
You know, you always want to get in there yourself.
He can only hope that the boat can be quickly fixed
as every hour it spends in port is fishing time lost.
We'll have it fixed. We'll be back to fight on next week.
That's the way it is. You've just got to roll with it.
Keep catching fish.
Start pulling up the stern rope, John, can you?
It's always nice to be home.
Unfortunately not under the best circumstances, but...
We're here. We're all here and smiling.
It's midnight but the crew need to quickly get their catch
off the boat and into the market.
Mike's lost a day of fishing but their early return has given them
an unexpected advantage - their catch is still incredibly fresh.
Bearing in mind our fish is only two days old. Still nearly alive.
What it all comes down to now is off me boat and out of my hands now.
The fish will be auctioned at dawn in a warehouse on the quayside.
It's all done, it's in there now.
Getting sorted and hopefully after an hour's time,
it'll be bought for a reasonable price to make it all worthwhile.
It'll pay for our fuel and our standing charge etc
and hopefully the lads get a half decent wage for it, for our troubles.
350 a tub!
Three pounds by price. Ones or twos.
The buyers are looking for top quality fish at a knock-down price.
£8, number one!
£8, £8.10. £8.10?
Now the large... 80, 90?
11 boxes on the Lady Lou.
44, 45.
45, 46.
245.
Piece on the Lady Lou, at 245, 28 kilos.
Mike's targeting of premium fish and cuttle has paid off.
The catch made a total of £5,700.
After costs, Mike and the crew have earned about £100 a day each
for the trip.
As a fisherman, that's what we do,
when you're at sea you feel it is where you should be.
They say a lot of respect for the sea, it gives us our living,
we've got to give it a little bit back, we've got to respect it,
it'll be back with a vengeance.
The Channel offers the chance to earn a living for those brave
enough to risk its hazards.
And the dangers don't just lie at the surface.
Thousands of unexploded bombs and other obstructions are
gradually being revealed by storms, fishermen's nets and dredging.
And it's the Royal Navy's Fleet Diving Squadron who are called out
to dispose of sea mines and hazardous structures underwater.
Out in the Solent, a team from the Southern Diving Group is
getting ready to blow up the remnants of an old pier
that has been causing a hazard to boats in the area.
The divers still have three more charges to place
but their time is rapidly running out as the tide is about to turn.
OVER RADIO: A controlled explosion will take place...
CHATTERING
When the explosives are detonated, it is vital
to keep any craft well away from the blast site.
The coastguard are broadcasting details of the operation
on channel 16,
the international marine channel, to alert all shipping in the area.
Chief Petty Officer Simon Crew, who is leading the dive, also needs
to keep a watchful eye on the many lines going down to the dive site.
It's key now and imperative that the detonating cord that leads down
to each cord doesn't get entangled or twisted,
which could lead to the wave of detonation maybe cutting off
the det cord prior to it getting to the explosives,
it's got a tight turn.
And also the hazards of the divers getting entangled with the detonating
cord and also the light line, which is the line attached to the diver.
At the same time.
And finally, when we detach, we initiate our fuses, I want to make
sure that the boats pull clear and don't get entangled around the lines.
Ready? Ready when you are. Good.
One more charge to go.
But they are almost out of time before the tide will make it
impossible.
OK, leave surface. Left.
When the divers come up, they get into the boat, attach the final joins
together, so we lead it all into one what we call cradle
of the det cord, so we can fit our detonators to that.
When working with explosives, it's...
The more dangerous part of it really on that last bit,
so on that we'll get in the RIB,
and just drop back to our safety exclusion zone of 350 metres.
Right, 16 minutes. Stand by.
Right, come on then.
The last charge is in place
and with it comes the most dangerous part of the operation.
The divers must attach detonators to the charges.
The most sensitive part of the explosive chain.
Once the fuses are lit, they will have five minutes to get clear
before 45kg of high-grade military explosive goes off.
But just as the detonators are being set by the divers,
the team is alerted to a breach in the safety cordon.
Do you want them to turn?
Two sailing dinghies have wandered into the 350-metre exclusion zone.
The safety boat needs to get them out of the way fast.
Excuse me!
Can I ask you both to head due east, please?
We are about to carry out an underwater explosion.
Right now you are in the safety zone.
We need to ask you to turn round and head the other way, please.
That way there? Yes, please.
Although the Coastguard has been broadcasting a security notice
for the last hour, these small dinghies aren't
equipped with radios and are blissfully unaware
that a large underwater explosion is about to take place beneath them.
Most people are helpful. And...
But you do get the occasional awkward person.
With the dinghies now out of harm's way, the safety boat
can give the divers the all-clear to light the fuse.
So, the safety fuse has been lit,
in approximately five minutes' time...
there'll be an explosion.
INDISTINCT RADIO TRANSMISSION
Jeremy and Joshua have one final dive to make to check that
all the explosives have gone off and that the pillars are gone for good.
It went down, smashed to bits.
The explosive device has worked perfectly,
as we intended it to, and it's now lying flat on the sea bed,
and it will no longer be a hazard to shipping.
Our window of opportunity was up to five o'clock this evening
and the initiation took place at one minute to five,
so, yes, happy, good day's work.
With this part of the Channel now clear of the obstruction,
Simon's team can head back to base.
But with a never-ending stream of traffic using these waters,
the team has to be on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
One of the many dedicated
and skilled agencies tasked with keeping our national waterway safe.