Dunraven wreck

What was the Dunraven, launched in 1872?

The Dunraven was launched on December 14, 1872, in Newcastle upon Tyne, at the C. Mitchell and Co. yards, for the shipowner W. Milburn. Just over 80 meters long, she ran on sail and steam, and was built for the route between Britain and Bombay. In January 1876 she left Liverpool loaded with steel and timber; in Bombay the cargo was sold and replaced with spices, cotton and muslin for the return voyage.

How did the Dunraven sink on April 25, 1876?

On April 25, 1876, the ship reached the approaches to the Suez Canal. Captain Care and his twenty-five men believed they were farther up the gulf than they were: the Dunraven ran onto the reef, south of Beacon Rock, on the outer face of Sha'ab Mahmoud. The crew fought for fourteen hours to free her; when the hull finally slid off the reef, she lost her balance, capsized and sank in 25 meters. The sailors, in the lifeboats, were picked up by fishermen. The Board of Trade inquiry found the captain negligent, and his certificate was suspended for a year.

How was the Dunraven wreck found in 1977?

Fishermen had known the wreck for generations, because their nets snagged on it. Divers only rediscovered it in 1977: a group from Sharm el-Sheikh, including Howard Rosenstein, who then ran the Red Sea Divers center. In the early years, theories ran wild: some made it a World War I ship working for Lawrence of Arabia, until a piece of porcelain stamped with the name SS Dunraven settled the matter. The legend of a quarrel between a drunken captain and his wife has never been confirmed.

How do you dive the Dunraven wreck?

The hull lies upside down, badly broken up, but three large openings let you enter and swim through the wreck from end to end. You descend the mooring line to the stern, at 30 meters, where the propeller and rudder are still in place, then work back up toward the bow inside, between the two big boilers and a heap of fallen metal, in a cloud of glassfish. You exit on the reef side, at about 18 meters, and end the dive on top of Sha'ab Mahmoud reef, so rich that the safety stop is worth a dive on its own. Because it is shallow, the wreck is one of the fishiest in the north: groupers, trevallies, scorpionfish and crocodilefish hang around the openings in the hull.