Book Explore Find Us
A visitor to The Loch Ness Centre, enjoying the immersive underwater Waters of the Loch experience in a wheelchair

Methods in Madness with Adrian Shine: Machan, a submersible camera hide. Loch Morar, 1974-5

20th Jun 2024

As we continue our journey of intrigue and discovery with Adrian Shine, a seasoned investigator of Loch Ness. Adrian Shine, renowned for his unwavering commitment to unveiling the truth, presents the second in a series of blogs that will delve into the artefacts within The Loch Ness Centre.

This month, our focus turns to the Machan, an underwater hide built by Adrian and used in the clear water of Loch Morar. It now sits in our the centre for you to explore. It’s in the Waters of the Loch room where we explore the depths beneath the loch’s surface to unveil its hidden mysteries.

Book your tickets in advance to save!

Adrian Shine in the Machan
Adrian in the Machan

Exploring the Machan

In the Waters of the Loch, we have Machan, an underwater hide built by Adrian Shine and used in the clear water of Loch Morar, the ‘other monster loch’, in 1974&5. Machan is the Hindi word for the hide from which you might shoot a tiger. This Machan was an underwater hide. Six sections, twenty fibreglass layers thick were bolted together by flanges.

To submerge, the observer let water into the two ballast tanks on either side of his seat. The two copper pipes at the front were for the hoses through which air was pumped down from a shore station and extracted. The two studs close by were for the telephone connection wires.

The cramped observer position limited observation periods to about two hours. To surface, he expelled a little water with just a few strokes of the ‘Stirrup Pump’ used to fight incendiary bombs during WWII. This double acting, low volume but high-pressure pump counteracted the external water pressure at depth. However, once level with the surface, the conventional high-volume low-pressure bilge pump was needed to quickly obtain working freeboard sufficient to open the hatch.

Because people reported large shapes moving close along the shore, the chamber was used to depths of 10m and baited to attract fish. The observer looked through the upward sloping plate glass windows towards the bright surface against which we hoped to see the entire silhouette of any large unusual animal.

In an extreme emergency, the observer could pull a lever at his feet, whereupon a small disc near the base of the sphere rotated to release a cage containing 1000lbs of rock ballast collected on site. Should even this fail, there would be no alternative to flooding the submersible to allow the hatch to be opened. The observer might then swim to the surface or drown in the usual way!

Waters of the Loch and the machan

As Adrian’s blog unravels another layer of the Loch Ness mystery, we invite you to take a closer look in the “Waters of the Loch” room at the Machan.

Stay tuned for the next blog in the series from Adrian.

Book your tickets in advance to save!

News.

The Pequod: A True Scale Replica in "Waters of the Loch"

Methods in Madness with Adrian Shine: The Pequod and Loch Morar, 1975

27th Nov 2024
Read More
View of Urquhart Castle from Deepscan.

October’s Mysteries and Sightings Unveiled

30th Oct 2024
Read More
Radar records unexplained disturbance on loch bed

Monstrous disturbance recorded at Loch Ness

10th Oct 2024
Read More