This is presented each year for the greatest blunder.
A list of all contenders is complied and read out at the club annual dinner. It is then up to those present to vote on what they consider to be the ‘greatest’ of that season.
This award is historic and goes back to an era long before the formation of the club when scuba diving was in its infancy.
In the summer of 1956, the Bay Hotel in Goodwick was closed to the public and rented privately to the film crew and cast of John Hustons new film ‘Moby Dick’.
The main character in the story, Moby, was a massive construction of wood and latex rubber in the shape of a massive whale. Moby was towed out of lower Fishguard by a hired tug to approximately 2 miles off the mainland between Dinas and Fishguard.
Due to a mishap when manoeuvring it around a ship during filming, it got damaged and to the horror of the Director and Producer … it sank. Now they had a film crew being hired on full pay and no set to film.
Immediately, work commenced on building a new set for the film while the cast sunned themselves on Goodwick beach. As for the first set, it is still out there … somewhere.
There are very little details of what actually happened but what ever it was – we are told that it was an unforeseen ‘spur of the moment’ blunder which brought about all round hysterical laughter except to the person responsible and the director.
The name MOBY DICK has become a legend probably for what went wrong rather than the film itself … A legend which got carried down from the first group of divers in the late 1950s who later formed the North Pembs Sub Aqua / Fishguard Sub Aqua Club.
