UNEXPLODED · public companion
When a landmark becomes a falling weight
For generations the masts warned people away. Then corrosion turned them into tall steel levers poised above a wreck full of ammunition.
Chapter 05 · Three masts · two attempts · one changing horizon
When a landmark becomes a falling weight
For generations the masts warned people away. Then corrosion turned them into tall steel levers poised above a wreck full of ammunition.
Warning and hazard
The masts marked the wreck, carried warning signs and gave Sheppey its strangest landmark. They also transmitted their weight into weakening decks. Keeping them and removing them both carried risk.
The seabed says no
The first £4.6 million programme planned to cut one mast, learn, then continue. Surveys found eighteen potential ordnance targets around the working positions. The stable platform needed safe ground; investigating that ground created another danger. No blade touched the wreck.
Watch the second attempt
A new £9.5 million operation was announced for 2026, with an underwater platform and cutting below sea level. This site's live webcam keeps looking across the water as that next chapter unfolds.
Evidence records
The full intervention story is told in Chapters 10–13 and the dated epilogue.