Captain of  TERNEN

Since the early 1960s, Dynamite-Aage has discovered and explored in hundreds of wrecks together with the crew of adventurers, historians and divers onboard the divingship Ternen.

He visited his first wreck nearly 50 years ago, and the search has been financed by recovering copper, tin, brass, coal or other kinds of valuable scrap from the bottom of the ocean. Even cobblestone is worth salvaging if there are a lot of them.

Findings have been sold and the money invested in diesel and fresh supplies for the next adventure in the old Swedish patrolboat Ternen.

Dynamit-Aage – or Aage Jensen – got his nickname in a time when hobby archeology didn’t mean as much, as it do today.

- The name is from back in the days, when we had to blast ship propellers etc. to get them up. Its pretty difficult to saw a ship in to tiny peaces that can be salvaged, so often we just blew the whole thing up instead. This was the fast way of working, Aage tells.

Aage has a particular interest in wrecks of World War II. Also the very first discovery was an old stranded German ship which had gone aground on shallow water. Valuable copper pipes was stripped from this, by taking a deep breath and then work as long as possible on the wreck. The money from the sale of copper piping was invested in real diving equipment, and so the unusual career started.

The search for new wrecks often took place in cooperation with fishermen who had lost their nets on the sea. In Danish waters, there is typically a flat and sandy seabed, which means that when a fishing net was lost in the sea, it is probably stuck on a wreck.

Therefore Aage began to collect and examine the interesting positions from the fishermen, who in return for information had their valuable nets recovered. Up to today Åge and the diving team has tracked and dived on more than 500 wrecks.

In addition to salvaging ordinary cargo from ordinary tradingships, Aage and the rest of the team behind Ternen also has a interest in the historic wrecks from the World War II. This interest has so far resulted in the salvage of the legendary German Nazi submarine U-534.

U-534 didn’t contain gold or silver in large quantities, but it provides a unique insight into life aboard one of the war’s most feared and deadly weapon platforms.

Right now a project to raise the newly found wreck of the U-2359 is taking form around Aage and the crew of Ternen. This submarine, hidden in the Kattegat, is the only known of Hitler’s unique Type XXIII electro U-boots.