Richard Larn

Richard James Vincent Larn, OBE (1 September 1931 – 14 January 2026) was a British Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, businessman and maritime history writer who was widely regarded as one of Britain's leading historic shipwreck experts.

Life and career

Early life and career at sea Larn was born in Norfolk on 1 September 1931. He was raised in Great Yarmouth before being evacuated to Oxford during the Second World War, Larn taught himself to dive in 1947, using a German-made Dräger U-boat escape set in the River Thames. He then joined the Merchant Navy where he served his apprenticeship as a deck-officer with the South American Saint Line and eventually became 2nd Mate. One of the club's first major projects, initiated by Larn's extensive research into the Scilly naval disaster of 1707, was to send a team of Royal Navy divers, based on board the minesweeper HM/XSV Puttenham, to the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall to find an historic fleet of sunken Royal Navy ships, led by HMS Association, a 90-gun Second Rate Ship of the Line lost in the 1707 disaster. In 1964 about ten NACSAC members, including Larn, arrived on Scilly – thought at that time to be only the second group of divers ever to come there. Their initial dives sparked off a long chain of navy visits that continued for four years.

After the Navy In 1972 Larn left the Royal Navy as a Chief Petty Officer/ Weapons Electrical Mechanician to pursue a career in private business. After two years as Works Director for Partech Electronics International Ltd, Charlestown, helping the Company to move to Cornwall from Wellyn Garden City, he then founded a commercial diving training centre Prodive Ltd. initially in the Long Store, Charlestown, then in Falmouth Docks, Cornwall, Larn was among the principal organisers and also gave public lectures, as did Dava Sobel, author of Longitude, and Sir Arnold Wolfendale, the 14th Astronomer Royal.

Larn died after a short illness on 14 January 2026, at the age of 94.

Honours Besides receiving awards from diving and maritime history associations, Larn was made a Cornish Bard by the Gorsedd of Cornwall at Redruth in 2006, taking the Bardic name 'Gonyas an Mor' Servant of the Sea. He started a company Shipwrecks.UK.Ltd, and has a web site www.shipwreckphotographs.com, still being developed. In the Birthday Honours 2009 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for "services to nautical archaeology and marine heritage". He was awarded the prestigious USA's 'Knight of Mark Twain' (1970). Larn, one of the original founders, has been the President and News Letter Editor of IMASS (International Marine Archaeological & Shipwreck Society) since 2010, an organisation which holds the prestige Shipwreck Conference annually at Plymouth University, now in its 35th year.

Publications Note: this list is not complete Admiral Shovell's Treasure and Shipwreck in the Isles of Scilly. Peter McBride & Richard Larn. Shipwreck & Marine, 1999 Charlestown – the History of a Cornish Seaport. Villiers Publications, 1994 Cornish Shipwrecks – the Isles of Scilly. David & Charles, 1971 & 1979 (2nd ed.) Cornish Shipwrecks – the South Coast. Richard Larn & Clive Carter. David & Charles, 1969 & 1971 Pan paperback editions, 1973 & 1976 Devon Shipwrecks. David & Charles, 1974 & 1977. Pan paper-back editions, 1974 & 1977 Goodwin Sands Shipwrecks. David & Charles, 1977 & 1979 Ships, Shipwrecks and Maritime incidents in the Isles of Scilly. Museum Pub. No. 3 (for the Isles of Scilly Museum Council), 1999 Shipwrecks at Land's End Richard Larn & Edwin Mills Clark. Doble & Brendon, 1970 Shipwrecks of Devon. Countryside Books, 1996 (2nd ed.) Shipwrecks of Great Britain & Ireland. David & Charles, 1981 Shipwrecks of the Goodwin Sands. Beresford Books, 1995 (2nd ed.) Shipwrecks of the Isles of Scilly. Shipwreck & Marine, 1999 (4th ed.) Shipwrecks of the Isles of Scilly. Thomas & Lochar, 1993 (3rd ed.) Sir Clowdisley Shovell's Disaster in the Isles of Scilly Richard Larn & Peter McBride. Western Litho Plymouth, 1985 The Cita – Scilly's own 'Whisky Galore' wreck. Shipwreck & Marine, 1997 & 1998 (2nd ed.) The Commercial Diving Manual. Richard Larn & Rex Whistler. David & Charles, 1984, 1989 & 1993 (3rd ed.) The Diver Guide to South Cornwall. Underwater Publications, 1983, 1987 & 1996 The Diver Guide to the Isles of Scilly & North Cornwall. Underwater Publications, 2002 The Wrecks of Scilly, Shipwreck & Marine, 2010 Shipwreck Index of the British Isles – Lloyd's Register of Shipping Volume 1 'The West Country', 1995 Volume 2 'The South Coast', 1996 Volume 3 'The East Coast', 1997 Volume 4 'Scotland', 1998 Volume 5 'Wales & the West Coast', 2000 Volume 6 'Shipwreck Index of Ireland', 2002 Tor Mark Press Series: Shipwrecks around Land's End, 1989 Shipwrecks – St. Ives to Bude, 1990 Shipwrecks Around Mount's Bay, 1991 Shipwrecks Around the Lizard, 1992 Shipwrecks – Falmouth to Looe, 1993 Shipwrecks of North Devon, 1999 Shipwrecks of South Devon, 2000 Charlestown – a Visitors Guide, 1994 Shipwreck & Marine Publishing Poor England has lost so Many Men, 2007 Cornwall's Shipwrecks – the North Coast, 2009 Cornwall's Shipwrecks – the South Coast, 2009 Henry Trengrouse – a biography, 2006 Wreck & Rescue round the Cornish Coast, 2006 Augustus John Smith – a short biography, 2013 Built on Scilly – a history of ship building on the islands, 2013 The Wrecks of Scilly - 1971, 1979, 1985, 1992, 2010 The Isles of Scilly in the Great War 1914-1918 Sea of Storms - Shipwrecks of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Mabecronbooks.co.uk/seaofstorms.html