Divers identify vessel lost at sea for 46 years

The wreckage of a fishing vessel which went missing at sea 46 years ago has been identified by divers.

The 25m (82ft) steel Belgian ship Z.592 Hosanna, disappeared in February 1980 while on a voyage to the Netherlands from Plymouth, Devon.

Researchers said a wreck located nine nautical miles (10.3 miles) off the coast of Dover, Kent, has now been confirmed as the missing ship after two dives validated its identity.

British wreck researcher Mark Lewis, from Mutiny Diving, said "every dive is different, and every dive is different for a reason" but this one was "quite special" because of the time spent locating and identify the wreck.

Hosanna was built in 1965, but on 20 July 1979 it ran aground and suffered considerable damage.

Lewis said the European Court of Justice recorded that Hosanna had been declared unseaworthy following the incident and would only be lifted after approved repairs had been completed, yet the judgment stated those repairs were never carried out.

The vessel left Plymouth on 14 February 1980 with five crew members, skipper Germain Ackx, Piet Ackx, Hector Snauwaert, Pieter Guijt and Pieter Albertus Guijt.

A life raft was discovered from the ship on 16 February off the Kent coast but no survivors or wreckage were found.

Lewis who had studied the disappearance said it was "unknown" why the ship sank at that location.

He said there had been "alleged sightings in Morocco, Spain and Greece", while another theory suggested it had been involved in a collision.

Lewis said an international investigation was launched in 2026 to find and identify the wreckage, which included support from Dutch maritime researchers and a Dutch television production team.

During his examinations, Lewis said there were repeated references to a Channel Separation buoy known in 1980 as CS2, however he found the modern CS2 buoy in a different area.

He said the revised traffic separation arrangements introduced in 1982 meant contemporary references to CS2 could not be plotted against the modern buoy bearing the same name.

The group Mutiny Diving, which operates from Dover, said the Dover Strait contained "thousands of wrecks" and the unidentified fishing vessel wreck was first investigated on 10 August and was about 52 metres (170ft) deep.

Lewis said the vessel's wheelhouse was no longer standing but "observations and video from the wreck, its structure and evidence within the former wheelhouse and accommodation area" provided enough information to prompt a second dive.

That took place on 24 September with members of the Guijt family observing from a boat.

Divers concentrated on the areas identified during the first investigation and found enough evidence to confirm the wreckage was Hosanna.

After the dive, the Guijt family laid floral tributes on the sea above the ship.

Chris Webb, from Mutiny Diving said "the wreck itself wasn't newly discovered - what had been lost was its identity."

He said the research was about "taking records written in 1980, understanding what they actually meant geographically and then comparing that evidence with what we could see underwater".

"When those two sides of the investigation began matching, the case for Hosanna became increasingly difficult to ignore."

He added that "every unidentified wreck has a story" and this one had five people and their families at the centre of that story" so to play a part in confirming the identify was a "real privilege".

Lewis said "identifying it was the easy bit, while locating it was the difficult part".

He said to dive to those depths, meant it had to be a planned technical decompression dive, something he said they would not normally do for a ship so small.

"We all have buckets lists and I had a bucket list to try and identify a ship wreck and if can put a tick against that today then I've ticked that bucket list."

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