Shipwreck Hunters Discover the Ruins of a British Destroyer That Split in Half During a Tragic Peacetime Accident 118 Years Ago

On a moonless night in 1908, a group of Royal Navy ships sailed into the darkness during a training exercise in the English Channel. To simulate a torpedo attack, one of the vessels set off a flare. The bright flash was “exceedingly dazzling,” Cecil Vinning, an engineer-lieutenant on the HMS Tiger, later recalled.

Because the night was so dark, “it was impossible to see anything afterwards for a moment.” As his eyes adjusted, he realized that the Tiger, a torpedo boat destroyer, had unexpectedly cut into the path of the Berwick, a 10,000-ton cruiser. When the ships collided, the Tiger split in two. More than half of the 57 crew members died on the night of April 2.

Vinning was one of only 22 survivors. When the Royal Navy searched the area for the wreckage, the Tiger was nowhere in sight. Now, 118 years later, divers and historians from ProjectXplore have finally identified the wreckage of the missing destroyer.

The Tiger’s final resting place is south of the Isle of Wight and 200 feet below sea level. In court-martial proceedings held weeks after the accident, some witnesses suggested that the flares may have impeded visibility. Even so, “the court made no specific finding on this point,” according to ProjectXplore’s report.

As one naval officer told journalists, “I do not suppose that the mystery will ever be cleared up.” The day after the collision, Edward VII sent a telegram to Britain’s first lord of the Admiralty expressing his sympathy “to the widows and families of those who lost their lives in the Tiger disaster.” The wreck made headlines, with the Daily Telegraph describing how the men tried to “save themselves as best they could by clinging to oars, spars and pieces of wreckage.” As a crew member from a nearby ship recalled, “The Tiger had as much chance as a sardine tin against a railway engine.” ProjectXplore has been looking for the Tiger since 2022, when researchers began analyzing telegrams, newspaper clippings, court-martial transcripts, logbooks and contemporaneous reports connected with the accident. Based on these findings, they started surveying sections of the seabed with sonar. The team identified the outline of the wreck in 2025.

Divers finally explored the stern section in June. The following month, they dove to the bow section. During these investigations, divers found “compelling evidence regarding the final moments leading to the collision, preserving details that have remained undisturbed for 118 years,” ProjectXplore writes in a social media post.