Why Do Fishing Boats 'Catch' Explosives?

✩ABOUT THIS VIDEO✩
In this video, we investigate why fishing vessels sometimes catch explosives, and what happened to one vessel in particular when she did.

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[alas]

Sadly the skipper, Lewis Mulhearn passed away on the 21st of January of this year. The explosion caused him a serious head injury, three broken vertebrar, a broken sternum, knee damage, a fractured orbital bone ans mulitple face lacerations. His actions after the explosion led to a commendation for bravery and in 2021 he was awarded the Emile Robin Award. He was 39 and left a wife and three children.

[TheClintonio]

That they could figure out which bomb it was from a metal fragment is impressive.

[silvesby]

When I was learning navigation, I was amazed by how many "unexploded ordnance danger" areas were marked on various charts. Pretty fascinating!

[Skalatsosse]

Not about bombs in the sea, but here in germany there are around 5000 bombs found every year and often detonated when they're uncovered in fields or more commonly during construction in urban areas. It's surprisingly common that people need to be evacuated from large areas in cities because yet another one was found and needs to be taken care of.
There's still enough undetonated ordnance in the ground to last us another several decades.

[HATECELL]

Reminds me of incidents were people who found amber suddenly burst into flames: Somewhere in Norther Germany they had the problem that phosphorus from the airforce training with incendiary bombs ended up in the water, formed these yellow clumps, and sometimes washed up on a nearby beach. These clumps looked like amber, so some tourists picked them up and put them in their pockets. But once the phosphorus was dry it self-ignited and caused serious burns

[zilviasful]

I have experience myself with unexploded ordnance at sea. Last Summer i was in the Phillipines working on a Dredger, and one operation we sucked in a phosphorus bomb inside our pipe. When we had finished loading the ship, we were lifting the pipes and dragheads up. Just as the draghead was lifted above water, smoke and fire started coming out of it. Fortunately no one got injured and there was no explosion due to that phosphorus does not explode, but it rather burns when in contact with oxygen.

[mfaizsyahmi]

The scariest horde of unexploded ordnance is the one carried on SS Richard Montgomery. She's still there under the Thames Estuary beside a busy shipping lane.

[whyjnot]

Stuff like this and the iron harvest on the continent are really some of the most terrifying aspects of all things post-conflict. Years, decades even a century later and unexploded ordinance is still a very real threat.

[baileywright]

It still always surprises me how many explosives dumping grounds and unexploded ordinance locations on our charts (Canada). I can't imagine what it would be like in the UK. Thanks for the video!

[Thesm]

There's an area in the north Irish Sea known as the Beaufort Trench, sometimes called Beaufort Dyke, it lies between Northern Island and Scotland. After WW2 the British military dumped 15.000 tonnes of explosives, poison gas, rockets and much more.

[derHutschi]

former sailor on a minehunting vessel here
there are marked areas on navigational maps where a fishing vessel can cut the nets of if they have mine or bomb in it
then report the position and the bomb/mine gets destroyed later by local authorities
for the Baltic Sea that is done by local countries through for WW2 bombs or mines Germany is doing that (for reparation and for training of the crews of course)

[mikenunney]

One was found in Great Yarmouth (uk) recently where they’re currently building a new bridge. It was a 500kg ww2 bomb. The bomb disposal unit built a barricade around it and when they were trying to make it inert, it blew up. No one was hurt as there was a huge exclusion zone around it. I found it amazing it hadn’t already gone up as they’d been pile driving for the foundations of the bridge for weeks beforehand and the vibration from that could be felt a quarter of a mile away!

[mka]

Reading the MAIB report you linked... wow those guys got a rough ride, I had no idea from your video how badly injured they were.

[Roytulin]

Okay, the cartoonish representation of a cute boat jumping out of the water at 0:22 was oddly funny

[P-Nokota]

Those fishing nets give some explosive results!

[flyboy]

On land the problem is much worse, since there are tons of stuff left over from both wars, and people are digging all the time. In northern France, some of the UX shells contain fun stuff like mustard gas & phosgene.

[YoungGandalf]

The next time I buy fish, I'll be sure the label says it's certified "Bomb Safe".

[CatFish]

:eyepop: wow, that MAIB report linked in the description is a pro read. That is one tough built hull to soak that hit and not crack open.

[MajSolo]

i like the artistic design of his fishing boats 😀

[chrisbynum]

When I was in the U.S. Coast Guard I was stationed in Freeport, Texas. That is west of Galveston on the Gulf of Mexico. Sometime in 1989 or 1990, we had a shrimp boat call us because they had pulled up their net with a 500lb bomb in it. We called a bomb disposal unit from an Army base a couple of hours away to remove it from the boat and detonate it in a field away from any building s or people. It was pretty scary bringing a boat with a bomb hanging in the nets into a port that is full of chemical plants. Lots of precautions were taken and it was handled safely.