AN ANCHOR believed to have belonged to the Second World War battleship
HMS Hood has been found off Bute. Mr Ivan Cowie, skipper of the Level
Morr, snagged his nets on it when he was half a mile off Craigmore
Point, on the east coast of the island.
Mr Cowie brought the anchor partly to the surface but had to let go
because of its size and weight. Two local boats then dragged the huge
four-five ton anchor into 15ft of water in Rothesay Bay.
Local diver Ian Woolcott, who went down to inspect the anchor, said it
measured 16ft by 14ft and was still in excellent condition.
Mr Cowie previously has snagged two nets in the area on what he
thought was the remains of a wreck.
HMS Hood, the then flagship of the British Navy, was sunk, with the
loss of 1419 lives, by a single shot from Germany's battleship Bismarck
in a battle off the north of Scotland in 1941.
She had been anchored in Rothesay Bay when she had to ''slip'' her two
giant anchors to set off in pursuit of the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen
in the Baltic.
One of her anchors was located by former fishing skipper Mr Jim
Campbell, more than 10 years ago, in the same area off Bute. It was
removed by the Admiralty but the second anchor has never been found.
Mr and Mrs Cowie, who now own a hotel in Rothesay, are hoping to have
the anchor formally identified.
Mrs Cowie said: ''We only hope that we can persuade the Admiralty to
let it stay here on Bute. It would do the island so much good to have it
here for visitors to see rather than stuck in some museum.
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