to lift the battlecruiser which was upside down in shallow water with her keel at the surface at low tide. Adapting the advice of Italian salvage experts who had raised an upside down ship from the bottom of Taranto Harbour, Cox raised the ship inverted by filling it with air. It was then lightened and towed to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth for scrapping, Cox having sold the hulk to the Alloa Shipbreaking Company for its weight in scrap. This basic technique would be used repeatedly on many ships of the fleet. Divers would descend to each wreck and perform work such as closing and dogging bulkhead hatches and fastening timber backed plate-steel patches over holes. Then air would be pumped in from air compressors at the surface. In some cases where the hulls themselves could not be made close enough to air-tight, pontoons were used, similarly being filled with air, and ballast was sunk alongside the sunken ships and then secured to them to counterbalance them for lifting. It was during this stage of the project that his venture suffered a severe blow; the price of scrap metal collapsed, finally stabilising at a quarter of its previous value. Whilst sufficient profit remained to ensure a chance of breaking even, the sunken fleet no longer represented the cash rich harvest that it once had. Indeed, the price of scrap remained depressed until 1937, well after Cox had effectively retired from salvage. A plain spoken and often blunt man, Cox was known for his explosive temper; he was respected by his workers as being brilliant, hard working and stubborn to the point of pig-headedness. He did not spare either his workers or himself during the eight years he remained at Scapa Flow. He kept his business afloat by common sense and good judgement, such as the salvage of coal from the wreck of the Seydlitz to provide fuel for his machinery during the General Strike of 1926. This was balanced by acts of ego, such as the re-sinking of the Seydlitz after it had been successfully lifted early, as he had arranged for the press to be present on the day that it had been scheduled to be raised. Considered a 'showman' by his contemporaries, Cox was happy to allow the recording of some of the works in progress at Lyness on the Island of Hoy by reporters and photographers,