Commissioned in June 1911 the U8 a rare pre War sub with no deck gun.
This sub had some success in the early part of the war but on her 3rd patrol on the 4 March 1915 she was located after getting snagged and setting off an alarm, she was spotted on the surface in heavy fog near the north end of the Varne bank by the officer of the watch on HMS Viking which was commanded by a legend of the Dover Patrol in Lieutenant-Commander Evans (Who later earned immortality when he used his Destroyer to attack 3 German Destroyers attacking 1 with Gunfire, a 2nd with Torpedoes and laying alongside and boarding with cutlasses and small arms a 3rd).
Attacked by the Dover Patrol, after sustaining a lot of damage the Captain ordered abandon ship and they surfaced to do this, becoming the first U-Boat to be photographed sinking as the crew were taken off in lifeboats.
The Sub was taken in tow but as the seacock’s had been opened she sunk off the south end of the Varne Bank.
Diving: Today the wreck sits in a scour of 35m with the decks at 32-33m, i did however get a depth of 37m under the stern.
Upright she is very intact with her prominent conning tower, the stern is intact although the props have been salvaged and there is a large net hanging down off the stern, this is easy to avoid as it’s been rolled up by the tide.
She is 60m long and quite clean of obstructions and having covered the length the impressive bow is very intact. There are however a lot of fishing weights hooks and lines on her.
The site is very silty and although we had some nice Viz of 3-4m it did stir up a bit with the 11 divers on site and we had a few areas of virtually no viz.
