March 2004
Petaling- unidentified wreck in front of Kata Beach

Purpose of the project:
For future projects: to find out origin and exact location of the wreck.

Description of dive site:
We have heard many conversations about this Japanese boat, situated in a depth of 60 meters in front of Kata Beach. Janne and Jani, together with couple of Germans (Andreas & Joerg), English guy (Fred) and one Belgian diver, went to explore this location. Although the site is just on the border of diving with air, we still decided to use mild trimix, so we would not get nitrogen narcosis.

Details of the dive:
We found the wreck almost at once and continued down quickly to save time. It was a nice surprise to find absolutely different conditions than on the last wreck dive the Vestel. The visibility was not so good, and almost no current. This made the dive really enjoyable and we spent a nice 20 minutes on the bottom. We tried to look around the wreck for nice souvenirs, the only thing we could hoist to the surface was a neckpiece of an old broken ceramic pot. Fred from England had found a much nicer souvenir a brass nameplate from the ships side, from which we could find out more information about this “Japanese” ship.
After scraping off some of the corals, barnacles and sea-weed, we were disappointed to see, that it did not contain the name of the boat. Instead it had the building year, name of the port and the building company. It came out that this ship had northing to do with the Japanese, except possibly being torpedoed by them during the war…

The Hometown of the wreck had been Sungei Nyok and the owner Straits Steamship Company Limited who had built it in 1928. There was a lot on the internet about this company. After doing some research we found out that the name of the ship was Petaling and it had been working as a cargo ship between Singapore-Thailand-Burma. When the war started it was redesigned as a minesweeper and the only boat built that year, the place it sunk was a mystery till now.
The aim of the project was achieved and the GPS location was recorded for future dives.

Gases used:
Bottom gas trimix 19/15, deco-gas EAN 60

Equipment used:
Wetsuit 5mm + hood
2 X 12L aluminum 200 bar tanks
1 X 12L aluminum 200 bar deco-tank
2 X ScubaPro MK25 + S600 regulator
Diverite backplate, harness, wings
Reel + SMB
Diverite HID / Suunto dive lights