We all know that it is pretty stupid to sit on the same branch we are in the process of cutting off the tree.

Why then, I was asking myself, am I here with my cameraman filming someone inside the Tui cutting even more holes in a ship that already looks like a Swiss cheese?

Well, the answer was that we were filming for a documentary about the Tui, and these shots were just too great to miss.

Our friend with the blowtorch, who had a smile as bright as the torch itself, was happily cutting one of the last access holes into the engine room, just above the water line. It could have seemed like a shot from any shipyard, but things took a different turn as he knocked the 1.5x1.5m steel plate out and it disappeared into the blue Pacific. Out there was a myriad of boats waiting for something exciting to happen.

It was February 20, and the ship we were aboard was going to the bottom in less than a couple of hours.

Right then and there a huge blue wave rose outside and a cascade of water came in through the newly cut hole.
"Does it worry you?" we asked the guy.
"No, I can swim and there’s lots of boats out there" he replied with a grin, as he got drenched yet again from an even bigger wave.
Had he had the benefit of being able to watch the shots we were to get later, he might not have thought it was so funny. Because apart from filming topside, our mission was also to install cameras which would record what it looks like inside a ship as she goes down. And I can confirm that’s not funny at all.
We had filmed the preparations of the Tui for several months and for someone who loves ships she really was a sorry sight. Stripped as she was, holed and totally cleaned of anything, which could endanger divers, she was now rolling heavily just over the site where she was to be scuttled.
Some weeks before I had been to Whangarei to decide where our on-board cameras should be mounted and how. In co-operation with Jeroen and Malcolm from Tutukaka Promotions we decided on two positions inside the ship and one outside.
Of the inside cameras one was amidships looking out from a cabin onto a corridor. Here ladders up and down to other decks had been removed and thus created a vertical "hole" down through the ship. There was plenty of light, both from above and from the access holes in the side of the ship.
The other camera was mounted in the engine room, looking down on the two main generators from just about the top of the room. The funnel above had been cleared of all fittings and provided good light right down on to the bottom of the huge engine room.
The third camera, was mounted outside, on "monkey island" looking forward across the bow from atop the wheelhouse.
Jeroen’s team had welded steel plates in the correct positions and angled towards the shot we wanted to get.

Right when we were getting the underwater cameras ready near panic broke out somewhere and we thought, "Oh, this sounds interesting" and went to have a look. Water was continuously entering the former officer’s mess room from a newly cut access hole on the port side; the problem was that the water had nowhere to go. As the ship rolled the water rushed to the port side, and the ship took more water on board. It was a self-reinforcing process, which had to be stopped. As Jeroen said: "We want the ship to sink, but not right now… " We almost felt how she was having trouble righting herself until our man with the blowtorch arrived and cut a hole in a panel into the engine room.
The water disappeared into the bilge, and people got on with the job.
Our underwater camera housings were strapped to the welded plates with "100-mile-an-hour" gaffertape. Then we would just have to get to the camera and cut the tape, and we could retrieve the cameras.

We had two Sony VX1000 digital video cameras inside and a Hi8 camera outside.
My main concern was that the DV cameras use tape which has a maximum of only 60 minutes. So, from the moment we hit the record button till the ship went down, we only had 60 minutes of recording time.

Jeroen came to tell us to start the cameras and get off the ship when they opened the sea cocks. I told my cameraman to wait. I wanted to be absolutely sure that we started those cameras as late as possible. So we hung around for another 5 minutes pretending to be just about ready to go. Jeroen came back, and was now a bit tense with all the pressure coming to a peak. "What the hell haven’t you started those cameras yet" he shouted. The ever polite Dutchman almost seemed to have lost it.

We said "sorry, yes, OK, we’ll do it now" and we trundled off to our camera on top of the wheelhouse. They were still off-loading the last tools to the tiny tug from Whangarei. Once that was finished we started the outside camera, then went to the one amidships and finally the one in the engine room.

We were then hoarded out and on to the tug.
Moments later Jeroen and Norm opened the sea cocks and got off together with a pyrotechnics guy.
The last people had left the Tui.

We waited. And waited. And waited. 20 minutes went past. I imagined my cameras, now 1/3 through the tape, quietly rolling. 30 minutes. 40 minutes. Nothing seemed to be happening. The crowd in all the boats was thinking "is she ever going to go, or what?"

50 minutes had passed, 10 minutes left on our tapes. Nerves on the outside I noticed the ship now had a heavy list to port side.

Then, suddenly, at 54 minutes the bow seemed to give in. Slowly she dipped more and more.
Now the big forward access holes were under water and there she went.
As the stern disappeared 56 minutes had passed since we started the cameras rolling.

Soon after we dived on the Tui . Visibility was miserable. We spent half the dive just finding the ship. But what we saw was awesome. She was lying on the port side and still settling in. Only Jeroen went inside the ship, and he recovered the midship camera.

The footage was incredible.

The water slowly builds up on the deck below. Then suddenly a maelstrom of water appears, clearly from the access holes. The water comes up, covers the guard rail, rages through the corridor. The light disappears from the sides, the hull is now under water. But light is still coming from above as the water now rushes to the camera. Suddenly it all goes dark. Game over.

The following day we recovered the outside camera. There was a strong current and again it was Jeroen who did the job.
This camera was looking at the horizon, and it was very clear that already as the Tui went down she had a heavy list to port.
It was trickier to get hold of the last camera. It was too dangerous to dive inside the Tui on those first days.
We had to leave our $14K worth of high-tech gear at a depth of 32 m, until conditions improved.
It would be another 8 days before diving was possible, but then we finally got the housing camera back.
Yes, we were nervous. But astoundingly the Gates Housing had kept the camera dry as a desert and the footage was sensational. Once the engine room started filling with water it happened really quickly. Water came in from everywhere, rushing from the fore end of the ship to the aft.

Again all went black and we thought that was it.
But the last 5 minutes of the tape had a very spooky feeling to it. There were sounds. Sounds of Something. Things moving, cracking. Like steps. Then silence. Then more sounds, like someone picks up a dishwasher and pours the dishes, pots and pans on a concrete floor. Then silence as the tape runs out.