THE sea deserves a lot of respect, says Ron Young, "because it doesn't respect you". He should know.

For 35 years he was a diver, and spent much of his time underwater exploring the wrecks of ships swallowed up by the vast ocean.

After completing his last dive three years ago Ron, 66, a retired ambulanceman, turned to writing about his passion instead. And his latest book has as much interest for maritime historians as for those who fancy a deep sea dip.

The Comprehensive Guide To Shipwrecks Of The East Coast Volume One (1766-1917) does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a remarkable reference work which pinpoints the last resting place of ships in coastal waters from Robin Hood's Bay in the north to Skegness in the south.

So what is the appeal of exploring a shipwreck? "It's hard to explain," says Ron, who lives between Newcastle and Durham.

"Most wrecks are just heaps of scrap. People envisage them as a ship sitting on the sea bed."

Seeing a wreck for the first time can be unsettling. "It's quite an eerie feeling, especially when you are down deep.

"Anything more than about 50ft down is always very dark. When you are going down that last few feet, getting nearer the wreck, and you see something loom up in front of you, lit by your torch - that makes the hair stand up on your neck a bit."

Many of the wrecks in the book are from the very end of the date range. They were sunk by submarines in the First World War.

So many vessels were holed off the East Coast in this way that Ron has separated the two volumes of his shipwreck catalogue bang in the middle of the war, to ensure both had the same number of entries.

In his introduction to the book, Ron writes that U-boats first engaged in 'unrestricted' submarine warfare in March 1915.

"The policy became a permanent one from October 1916 onwards, when Germany became willing to pay the inevitable price of this policy - the involvement of America in the war - for a chance at victory."

Most heavily targeted were ships coming into the Channel and Irish Sea ports from America.

"However, operations off the East Coast were an important element of German strategy. Relatively simple to conduct, such patrols could significantly cut into the Scandinavian trade, coastal shipments, as well as trade for distant destinations from the Humber and Tyne ports in particular.

"Unrestricted warfare also contained an element of terror - it created a perception of high-risk sinking, the hope was to scare shipowners and captains into avoiding British ports entirely."

Ron is full of praise for the men who sailed such dangerous waters. "A terrific number of ships sunk up to 1919 off the east and north east coast.

"I have a lot of respect for the merchant seamen. They took probably more risks on a merchant ship than a Royal Navy one: it was more likely to be torpedoed."

A typical example of a shipping casualty of the First World War is the Sapphire. Built by Cochranes shipyard in Selby in 1912, the steam trawler was on a return fishing voyage from Iceland and Hull when she detonated a German mine.

The Sapphire sank four miles north east of Filey Brigg on March 1, 1915. One crew member was lost.

Today the wreck is "totally collapsed, broken up and partially buried, standing two metres high amidships, with her boiler engine exposed".

Such wrecks are officially classed as war graves and 99 per cent of divers respect that, says Ron, although there are cases of plunder that have ended in court.

Every shipwreck in his book tells a story. The Mandalay, another steam trawler registered in 1890, had a close escape while fishing in Dogger Bank with other Hull ships in October 1904. The Russian Navy's Baltic fleet, on route to the Pacific, attacked them.

It was said that the Russians, at war with Japan, mistook the trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats.

The Mandalay was damaged but survived, only to run aground at Ravenscar in thick fog four years later. She was wrecked but her crew were saved. It must have been a foggy winter, because a month earlier the Magneta, an iron-hulled sailing smack later converted into a trawler, ran aground in fog just off Hayburn Wyke near Burniston.

One of the oldest and most fascinating tales in the book concerns the USS Bonhomme Richard. It was a wooden 900-ton American man-of-war sailing vessel built in France in 1766.

John Paul Jones, a Scottish merchant captain had fled to America after killing a Tobagan seaman in a fight. The British-American war was an ideal opportunity, and he took up service as a captain in the US Continental Navy, soon capturing a Royal Navy sloop.

Jones knew he would be hanged as a traitor if the British caught him, but craved adventure.

The King of France offered a warship as a gift to the rebellious Americans, to plunder the British fleet. Jones was given the job of fitting the ship out.

He renamed it the Bonhomme Richard, as a tribute to the US ambassador in France, Benjamin Franklin, who had written a book with the same name. It became the flagship of Jones's French-American squadron.

He set out on what Ron describes as "his trail of havoc" around Britain and Ireland in August 1779, capturing various vessels and plundering them.

When he learnt of a valuable Baltic convoy carrying timber and tar for shipbuilding due into port, he waited to ambush it off Scarborough.

The Bonhomme Richard sustained heavy casualties in the exchange of cannon fire. And one of its own large cannons blew up, killing yet more seamen.

After the ship collided with its attacker, HMS Serapis, Jones ordered his men to lash the two vessels together with rope.

"While the two ships were lying almost broadside to each other, gun crews of both sides kept blasting away.

"By now, both ships were very badly damaged, with fires raging around the men embroiled in hand-to-hand fighting with swords, knives and muskets. It was like Dante's Inferno."

After the Serapis was disabled by a grenade, frantic efforts were made to save the battered Bonhomme Richard. But she was doomed.

The remaining crew transferred to other ships, and she sank, about 50 miles east of Flamborough Head.

Jones later went on to transfer to the Russian fleet and fight the Turks.

The wreck of the Bonhomme Richard has never been located.

The Comprehensive Guide To Shipwrecks Of The East Coast Volume One (1766-1917) by Ron Young is published by Tempus, price £17.99

Updated: 10:24 Monday, March 17, 2003