Oral History Gallery

Extract Text (Duration00.54)

Q:    So does it take much longer to drill a hole underwater?

It did, and the reason being is trying to get the pressure of the drill against the thing that you're actually drilling.  If you were above something you've got your weight to come down onto something, but as you will appreciate, if you're diving it's difficult to get the weight on something when you're in midair.  And so, it was difficult and we had, as I say, two to three people who would hold onto the diver, or even if The Mary Rose Trust divers were doing it, we were there so that we could hold onto them as well, to actually grab hold of 'em, so that the pressure of the drill would go through the wood. But it was, obviously, it was rather wet 'cause it'd been down there rather a while.  But, yeah, it took a few hours to do per hole.