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The Wrecks of Sydney: Valiant
Although Sydney has a great variety of wrecks in varying depths from the surface down to 80m, most of the more intact ones are in deeper waters - mostly 40 - 50m. Most of the ones in the “recreational” depths are wrecksites, and consist of mostly broken up, scattered wreckage.One of the exceptions to this is the wreck of the Valiant, lying in a nice depth of about 27m off Barrenjoey Head, Palm Beach. The Valiant had originally been a tug operating in Melbourne, and in the early 80’s was bought by a Sydney operator. Unfortunately, she failed to gain survey by the Maritime Services Board (now the Waterways Authority), and could not be used as a commercial vessel. The owners then decided to sell her for scrap metal.
Whilst using explosive charges in an attempt to remove the prop, the hull was damaged and she started taking water. It was decided to tow her out to the 3 mile zone and scuttle her. On the trip out from the Pittwater, the towline broke, and she was swamped by a large wave, sinking in minutes. This was in 1981, thus the Valiant is ones of Sydneys most recent wrecks.
The Valiant lies with a tilt to the port side on a sandy bottom. The wreck has a lot of growth, with various anemones and sponges becoming food for a variety of fish life. Although not as prolific as the fish life on the Southern wrecks, its quite impressive. Visibility can range from very good to lousy.
This wrecks serves as a great training spot for budding wreck divers, as the depths allow a reasonable bottom time on air (even better on enriched air), and there are some simple penetration points allowing practice of penetration techniques, without ever being more than a few metres from an exit point. The inside of the wreck has silt, thus being realistic, without dangerous.
The Valiant is served by several operators in Sydney, who schedule boat dives from time to time. At this time, to the best of my knowledge, there is no dive centre in the area serving the wreck regularly. The dive boat Explorer operates charters to the Valiant and other local sites, and is now operated by Bottom Dwellers Dive Charter .