Interview: shipwreck hunter, record holder and IMarEST Fellow
David L. Mearns OBE, OAM, Director at Blue Water Recoveries Limited, discusses his career as a shipwreck expert and being honoured by Prince William.
When Mearns was studying for his master’s in Marine Geology at the University of South Florida, a career as a shipwreck hunter was far from his mind. “I didn’t want to become an academic. I wanted to go into the offshore industry. So, I put out my CVs to companies and landed a job at Eastport International,” he recounts.
With skills in high-resolution geophysics, Mearns was hired to support the company’s expansion into undersea search. “We got this criminal investigation for the shipwreck Lucona. It was my responsibility in a small project team to put together the search plan, a search vehicle, and search equipment for very, very deep water. I led the expedition, and we found the wreck. We photographed it, and then I was the expert witness at the criminal court. Right after that, we got contract after contract after contract. It basically built my career [in] deep-sea shipwreck hunting.”
That career includes breaking records and this element has fascinated Mearns since childhood. “When I was a kid, we had a Guinness [Word Records] book, and I loved looking through it. I remember trying to set a record with the world’s longest yo-yo when I was nine or ten years old.”
That early ambition foreshadowed a lifetime of achievements. While working at Eastport International in 1988, Mearns says: “We were the first to have broken the 6,000-metre threshold with an ROV (remotely operated vehicle).” Through his company, Blue Water Recoveries Limited, Mearns held five Guinness World Records, including for the oldest mariner’s astrolabe and the deepest shipwreck ever found. “They were set over 20 years ago, so some have been broken now,” he adds.
Over the years, Mearns has located some 29 major shipwrecks. His work locating and analysing the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney and hospital ship Centaur, both lost during World War II, earned him an honorary Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2010. In 2024, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and was awarded with their Quest and Joseph-Elzéar Bernier medals for his role in locating Quest, the polar exploration vessel which became the final resting place of Sir Ernest Shackleton. In 2025, Mearns was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the location and recovery of historic shipwrecks.
“It's all a bit surreal for me because I'm raised as an American, and we don't have a royal family. We don't grow up with the concept of royal awards. So, to be sitting here with an OBE and an OAM and to be honoured by the Canadian government as well, that's quite something. It is hard for me to accept that I'm the person that is deserving of that,” he says.
A touchstone for the Windrush generation
Today, Mearns is looking to use his OBE to bring attention to another project in the works – the recovery of an anchor from the HMT Empire Windrush, which brought over 800 British Caribbean people to the UK in 1948. The vessel is a symbol of the Windrush generation. “[Recovering the anchor] would be as important as anything else I have done,” he explains.
“I'm an economic immigrant to [England], but my experience was totally different to what [the Windrush generation] had. I think that it’s important to mark their stories, the challenges they faced, and the contributions they made to England.”
In 2023, the Windrush Anchor Foundation was set up to raise funds for the anchor’s recovery, which would be displayed as a monument to the Windrush generation. “Literally, it'll be a touchstone. People will come and touch it, and they will feel a palpable connection to that experience and history, and that, I think, would be very special,” concludes Mearns, OBE.
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Image: David L. Mearns is made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle; credit: Alamy.