Welcome to  MV Trident’s website, the only dedicated Technical Diving Operator in Koh Tao, Thailand. This is all we do to try and make a living, when we’re not diving wrecks, we’re trying to find them or training new tec divers and instructors.

We run a variety of trips, some are perfect for the last stages of tec training and for new tec divers gaining experience, so please don’t be put off if you’re new to the game

We’re sorry if you’ve had to battle through similarly named websites to find us.

This site should make it easy for you to organise your own technical diving training and trips for the future. Please feel free to contact the team if you have any questions.

Trident’s wrecks  are laid out on the sites page - there’s also a ‘Rubbish Wrecks’  page; some of these wrecks are highly rated elsewhere, but only because they are close-by. We won’t be going to any of  them, promise.

Have a look at our ‘Divers’ Trip Report’ page and see what our divers say and then look at ‘Schedule’ page to see when we’re organising trips, we did 20 live-aboard expeditions in 2008 so I’m sure we’ll have a date to suit you.

If you’re unsure of how to get to us, see the ‘Getting Here ‘ page

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During Richie Kohler’s last charter he had the bright idea of one of us co-presenting his talk about USS Lagarto.

The talk went well, I think, and the show was great, no pink snorkels or tyrekickers.

It seems that though we don’t have a Britannic or Cocklebiddy cave here in Thailand ,  there’s a lot of interest in what we do have,clear ,warm water,virgin shipwrecks, caves, sunshine and Thailand topside.

The speakers were very interesting - I learnt lots about loads.

Thanks for the invite, Richie and Strikey.

Next show is 2011, we’ll be there

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We have a couple of trips coming up.

July 2-5th we are going to the HTMS Pangan and the Tanker Maru.

July 17th- 25th is expected to be a great trip. We plan to visit the Seacrest,Solimoes, USS Lagarto and Tairyu Maru,

July 29th- August 2nd , HTMS Pangan and Tanker, perhaps a vist to the pottery wreck if the sea is calm enough.

Let me know if you’re interested, or have any other dates in mind

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Our first charter with Submerged Productions from Belgium got off to a slow start due to passports, airports and luggage handling, we dived the Akela, then continued eastwards into Cambodian/Vietnamese waters to search for the Araosan Maru.

The first mark 5 miles from the US submarine’s numbers produced nothing, but after radioing local fishermen , we got another mark, one digit out and got a good return on the sounder.

The wreck was the Araosan Maru, easily recognised by the shape of the stern and her size, 7000 tons. USS Hardhead put three torpedoes into her midships so she’s very broken up and twisted.It’s also obvious that  Japanese wartime materials and construction methods weren’t very good, she’s a mess! She lies mainly on her port side in 55m, less than 40m to the top of the wreck.

On the way back to Samui we dived the Tottori Maru, built in good old Scotland 30 years before Araosan, she’s in much better condition,despite Hammerhead’s torpedoes.

Here’s a video that has the Akela last year,

http://vimeo.com/2451767

In mid-March we took Richie Kohler and Co. again for a 7 day charter to look for Akita and Tairyu Marus, 4000 and 5000 tons, sunk by Dutch Sub 0-19in 1942. 

After diving the Solimoes for a shake down dive we dived the first of our unknown marks . The wreck was a large freighter,sitting upright and with everything intact, but she wasn’t a WW2, so they’re still out there.

We stopped off at the Tottori Maru on the way home to make sure we had a little WW2 history and then one more unknown mark which turned out to be a large steel trawler - you can’t win them all, I suppose.Here’s a  Full trip report

http://www.richiekohler.com/trip_report_thailand2009.htm

Next confirmed long range trip is leaving 18/05, diving USS Lagarto, Tottori and new Marus, this time please. Places available.

This trip was a good one, by popular decision known wrecks were passed by and we looked at new marks, the first few were rubbish and then we found Kinrei Maru upright but severlely torpedoed in 80m, our deepest wreck yet.

Next was the USS Lagarto for Memorial Day. We attached a new flag and cleared the wreck a little more. Always an honour to dive this wreck

The next day we travelled further south nearly into Malay/Vietnamese waters and found the Tairyu Maru, a 5000 ton NYK line passeger cargo ship sunk by Dutch sub 0-19.

This is a great dive , max depth 60m , top of the wreck less than 50m. She sits upright, huge torpedo damage amidships on the port side. The O-19 fired three torpedoes at the Akita Maru, two hit but one missed and hit the Tairyu.

On the way home we stopped at the Tottori Maru for a day’s diving and then back to Samui.

Here’s a link to a trip report from one of our divers.

http://www.rebreatherworld.com/trip-reports/27385-2009-gulf-thailand-virgin-wreck-expedition.html

We’re still looking for the Akita, she must be close by.

Next long range trip is leaving July 17th

Let us know when you’re free for a trip and we can normally put a trip together with our regulars.

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This year our first Lagarto trip fell on Memorial Day .

Conditions were perfect, clear water , no current, no waves.

We attached a new US flag to the periscope shears and removed some of teh smaller nets that have drifted on to the bow over the last year.

Next trip will bein July this year, along with some Japanese wrecks

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Recently we’ve attracted some bad press about the  above trips, it’s quite good reading and hopefully we’ll get some exposure out of it. I especally like the bits about lots of divers paying big money to dive with us.

The issue of artifact recovery has been around for ages and there’s no right or wrong. For example I understand exactly that  wrecks in the Great Lakes are well preserved and should be protected, but a wreck in warm salt water doesn’t last long - a lot of our wrecks will only be piles of steel plates in the next few years, and also a lot of our wrecks are non-descript 20 year freighters, hardly historical.

The one subject that has been mentioned that is clearly incorrect is our treatment of the USS Lagarto. Anyone that has been on one of our very special Lagarto trips know that artifact recovery is forbidden, and do you know what? no-one has ever expressed an interest in doing so.

Feel free to leave comments.

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The last time the Trident went to yard we were bored stupid, then when she came back the weather was horrible for another month.

This season, around November/December we plan to use our down time more constructively and do some cave training and hopefully see some of the caves we have in the south of Thailand.

Apparently these caves are impressive and rarely dived, a bit like our wrecks.

We’ve just come back from our exploratory trip.

the lake is huge and the water 90m at it’s deepest. this could be a great alternative to Trident live-aboards when the weather is bad . There’s apparently a  temple and school in about 50m which could be interesting.We,ve had a dive in the area recently and found clear cold water at depth so this will be an interesting search, never found a temple before.

The caves we saw were very pretty, maximum depth was about 30m but these are proper caves and need cave certification to dive. I was expecting terrible visability and crawling around tiny spaces but his wasn’t the case, the water was clear and the caves at least as big as a maru’s hold!

If you’re cave certified we could organise a quick trip before or after a Trident trip, if you’re not certified we can organise training too.

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We found our first new wreck in  March 2008, the Seacrest Drilling ship sunk in 1989.  We thought we had found this one   last year but it’s a nearly identical sister ship . see our wrecks page for details. The ‘real’ Seacreast is a great dive, she lies upside down in 74m but easily penetrated through the moon pool at 50m . The other wreck is on her port side in 48m.

 In 2009 we’ll be looking for the Arosan Maru, pictured above. she was a ‘2A Class Japanese Cargo Ship’, one of 131 built badly in as little as 35 days and easy prey for Allied submarines

This one was torpedoed by USS Hardhead, another Manitwoc submarine, in April 1945.

We’ve got several very promising marks  that line up nicely with the Hardhead’s. At 6886 tons and  140m x 18m she’ll be a great new dive in  50-70m.

We found this one in Feb 2009 in 55m, a big , big wreck badly broken up by Hardhead

On our April 08 search for the Araosan we found two new wrecks, the Akela and a wreck nicknamed the SS Carrie. both nice big virgin wrecks but not WW2 marus

We still haven’t dived the Kinrei Maru, a   fleet tanker sunk by USS Hammerhead, although we have a mark less than a mile from the submarine’s co-ordinate - we’ll get round to it this year hopefully.

We have over 90,000 square miles of water in the Gulf, all less than 80m so it’ll be a while before we run out of new wrecks, I’m sure.

A long term project is to find the I-351 Japanese submarine, sunk by USS Bluefish, and thoroughly researched buy our very own US historian,Jim Kilcullen. She’s a long way out and a long way down but perhaps one day we can put an expedition together, any CCR divers want to try?

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