The Borgny must have initially settled on its starboard side, tilted over and supported by upper parts of the ship. As these decayed some parts settled upside down and others collapsed without turning further.The Borgny must have initially settled on its starboard side, tilted over and supported by upper parts of the ship. As these decayed some parts settled upside down and others collapsed without turning further.
The basic shape of the stern is intact, though upside down, with plates missing and an easy view inside. Following the keel back to the stern, a 4-bladed steel propeller and the rudder are still in place, the propeller blades covered in small anemones with dead men's fingers near the tips.
In the opposite direction the keel and propeller shaft bend and twist towards the seabed where the stern has settled upside down but the central part of the ship has collapsed onto the starboard side. Huge shoals of pouting shelter beneath the keel, writhing out of the way as we swim forward.
The strain has broken the shaft at the join between two sections, with the shaft continuing a few metres further away from the keel. This section of shaft leads beneath broken plates to the remains of the steam engine, a crankshaft with connecting rods leading to badly broken pistons. Even so, there is enough structure to support an overhanging section of the hull above.
Forward of the engine is a tight cluster of broken tubes. At first I thought this may have been part of a condenser, but now think it more likely to be the remains of a second boiler, possibly a small donkey boiler. Immediately forward, the main boiler is intact and partly buried in wreckage. Though the tubes appear the same size, this is obviously a much larger structure than the broken tubes would ever have formed.
The wreck is now a mass of flattened plates, still retaining some curvature near the keel and rising a metre or so from the seabed. Towards the deck side of the wreck the first notable items of wreckage are a partly upside-down winch and nearby mast. This is soon followed by the anchor winch, completely upside down and partly obscured by its mounting plate.
Following the edge of the wreckage, an anchor has fallen from the bow still in its hawse pipe, resting on the gravel along the side of the wreck. There are no signs of the corresponding starboard anchor, which is presumably buried beneath the bow.
Like the stern, the bow itself is upside down, the line of the bow rising just off the vertical from the seabed with keel uppermost. There is enough structure left to support a space worth exploring inside the bow.
Returning across the broken forward hold to the deck/port side of the wreck, level with the engine room there is a thick section of mast just off some upright ribs poking out of the gravel. There are traces of coal amongst the gravel in this area, more likely from the ship's bunkers than from the cargo. A ship of this size with a single boiler would have had bunkers in a saddle configuration, either side of the boiler and engine room. The Bretagne off east Devon illustrates a similar but more intact example of such a configuration.
Staying near the seabed there is plenty of room to swim under the cavern formed by the overturned stern of the wreck, a gloomy light penetrating through rectangular holes where plates have fallen from the hull.