Merseyside Sub-Aqua Club (MSAC) was founded in 1954 as Branch 5 of the BSAC and one of the first diving clubs to be formed in the UK. The club has excellent facilities including: 2 expedition equipped boats, a clubhouse, weekly pool sessions, and a nitrox mixing facility.
From our nearby launch site at New Brighton, we can reach many ancient wreck sites within minutes. Some examples include the confederate ship Lelia, in just 20 metres of water and slightly further out, the famous City of Brussels. Most of the wrecks visited are in the Nitrox depth, but there are also deeper wrecks requiring helium.
A group of our members carry out extensive research on the wrecks of Liverpool bay, including historical background research and survey work. Another group has carried out research on aircraft that have crashed in the mountain lakes of Snowdonia. The MOD has granted a permit to this group to search Llyn Melynllyn for the wreck of a Canberra which crashed into the mountain Foel Grach in 1957.
For over 4 years there has been a growing interest in the DIR style of diving, and as well as continuing with BSAC qualifications, members have also gained cave and technical qualifications from GUE, NACD, TDI and IANTD.
Most of our diving is done on wrecks off the North West coast of Britain, in particular Liverpool Bay, where a silt bottom is the norm. Precision finning and trim have enhanced our diving by preserving the visibility. Being able to manoeuvre in all planes, including moving backwards is a massive advantage, particularly for the photographers amongst us.
The GUE approach to equipment and skills removes the voodoo around ‘Tec’ diving. We now just use the equipment appropriate to the dive. Scooters are often used by junior members to enjoy shallow reefs whilst other ‘recreational’ divers have taken stage cylinders to add safety and bottom time in the 20m range.
A well as the 20 GUE trained divers, many other members have started to adopt the Hogarthian style equipment set up broadly in line with the GUE standards. The modular approach means we are not only intimately familiar with our own set up – no matter what the type of dive – we are also utterly familiar with rest of the teams as it is identical to ours! This significantly lowers stress in challenging conditions. The advantages of the standardised equipment configuration were exemplified this summer when 6 members of the MSAC spent a week with the Red Sea Explorers onboard the MV Tala. During the trip they were able to enjoy dives in the 6m-86m range, simply by adding or taking away some equipment yet not making any changes to the core set up or procedures.
Perhaps most importantly of all, the GUE team approach to diving has radically changed the way we dive. With three-diver teams becoming common, all trained in the same techniques and method, even the most challenging outing has become significantly less stressful. This is allowing us to push our diving around the Isle of Anglesey (another of our main hunting grounds) and explore some of the fantastic wartime wrecks there.
To find out more about MSAC and our activites, please visit Merseyside Sub Aqua Club