Anniversary Dive
Thistlegorm was sunk with the loss of nine lives on 6th october 1941, and Rosalie Moller went down just two nights later with the loss of two more lives. Both were bombed by German Heinkel aircraft based on Crete as they waited at what had been safe anchorages for passage up through the Suez Canal. Neither was a particularly important vessel when they were afloat, they were freighters doing a job in wartime, but without them, and thousands of others like them, the outcome of the last war would have been very different.
This year a group of us dived both wrecks on the respective anniversaries of their sinkings, and dived Thistlegorm at the time she was attacked and sunk, 01.35 hours. At 01.40 hours, the time she would have been settling to the bottom and taking up her new place on the bed of the Red Sea, we gathered on her bridge, switching off our dive lights and marking a moment of remembrance for her crew and the many other merchant mariners who failed to return from the conflict.
It was a unique and moving experience.
Anniversary Divers: Left to right: Steve, Carol, Phil, Darren, Chloe, Peter, Jenny (Back), Janet and Mike
New Wreck!
Al Kahfein
In 1967 Cammel Laird Shipbuilders of Birkenhead, just across the River Mersey from Liverpool, built the Ulster Queen for the Belfast Steamship Company, whilst some fifteen miles away a small boy named Michael Ward was attending Whitby Heath Primary School, entirely unaware that he would never see her whilst afloat, and even less interested...
Al Kahfein - she's a big wreck!
The Belfast Steamship Company was originally established in 1885 and operated a successful business taking people and goods back and forth across the Iriah Sea for many years. Their first Ulster Queen operated from 1929 into the mid-1940's and was one of more than two dozen vessels they owned throughout their lifetime, until they were eventually bought out by P&O in 1971.
The second Ulster Queen was built just four years prior to the P&O takeover and was transferred to her new owners under her own name. As built she was 4270 tons, 115m length, 16.5m breadth and 4.1m draft. She had beds for 509 passengers and space for 140 cars, and her Pielstick diesels gave her a top speed of 17kts in good conditions.
No mistaking her name...
P&O sold her on in 1982, and she subsequently passed though the hands of a number of owners, being successivley renamed Al Kahera and Ala Eddin before she was purchased by Hellenic Mediterranean and renamed Poseidonia. In 2005 she was sold on again, either to a line named Al Kahfein or to be renamed Al Kahfein, the records aren't clear.
On 2nd November 2005 she was proceeding south down the Red Sea towrds Jeddah when an explosion reportedly occurred in her engine room, leading to a ship-wide fire that forced her crew to evacuate, with one crewman being hurt. Attempts were made to take her in tow but she capsized and was swept southwards until she struck the reef at Sha'ab Sheer and sank, eventually coming to rest completely inverted.
Props and rudder - did I say she's big?
She now lies in 24m of water beside Sha'ab Sheer, a patch of reefs just offshore from Safaga, and marked on Admiralty Charts as Hyndman Reef.
Her hull is striking, with the twin bulges of her propeller shafts and a pair of stabilisers the only metal standing proud of her smooth hull-bottom. Her last but one name, Poseidonia, is easy to read on her bow, and plenty of doorways and hatches leading into her interior stand invitingly open (Though the fire aboard has made her interior unstable, and penetration is not advised). Much of her machinery is clearly visible, and the elegant curve of her knife-bow is well woth the swim forward. One odd feature is the lack of a debris field, evidence she both capsized some way away and was not in passenger service when she sank.
Tempting, very tempting, but she's unstable...
With a maximum depth fo 24m and an average depth of 18m or less she's an ideal second or third dive of the day.
For a picture of her afloat see www.ferry-site.dk/ferry.php?id=6703317&lang=eng
For more on the Belfast Steamship company see www.simplonpc.co.uk/BelfastSS.html
Rosalie Moller
My favourite Egyptian Red Sea wreck. I prefer her to the more famous, shallower and more regularly dived Thistlegorm, though I can understand the fabulous cargo carried by Thistlegorm is more interesting than the coal that filled the holds of Rosalie Moller.
Two of Rosalie Moller's best known feaures are her masts, which start at deck level in about 35m of water and top-out at a depth of 20m, making them a pretty good bet for a deep stop if your computer doesn't mandate a depth, and they're covered in macro life so you've something to look at as you wait out your two minutes.
Broken aft mast of Rosalie Moller
The downside has always been that the masts are a convenient and easy place to moor a dive boat, and the inevitable has happened. The after mast has now been pulled over. It hasn't been entirely torn from the wreck but the starboard side of the cage support has been broken and the mast is now canted over to the port side of the ship and lies at an angle of around thirty degrees to the deck. The marine life probably doesn't mind very much, if at all, but it's a shame this fabulous wreck has been damaged by thoughless and incompetent mooring.
Some of you may remember my Diver article from last year, Respect For Rosalie (www.divernet.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?id=5977&sc=&ac=d&an=), written when the mast was first beginning to show signs of coming down.
Chrisoula K
CK has been showing signs of collapse for a year or two, and the bow are is more battered now than it was last year. Her decking above the after hold is also starting to show signs of collapse, with a huge flap of steel waving in the current just above where divers can enter the rear of her hull.
In years gone by this was the way in to the after holds...
The good news, though, is that she continues to be sound in the most interesting midships area, where the machine shop and engine room are found, and the stern section is equally intact.
Machine shop on Chrisoula K
Wreck Diving in the Red Sea - important note
Following an incident earlier this year the Egyptian Authorities have tightened up on both depth and penetration guidelines, often in the past honoured more in the breach than the observance. 40m and no penetration is now being enforced, with only suitably trained and equipped divers being permitted to penetrate deeper wrecks.