The Twentieth Century Wrecks:
Kimon M, Chrisoula K and Giannis D at Abu Nuhas, Million Hope and Kormoran in the Straits of Tiran, Attiki, Laura, Birchwood and others toward Suez, Zietieh at Ashrafi, Miniya near Hurghada, Salem Express and al Kahfein near Safaga, Aida on Big Brother, the tug at Abu Galawa and many more...
The world was a different place when the Second World War ended. Technology had been given a massive boost, and the superiority of air-power over traditional warships had been demonstrated time after time, but civilian air travel was still a novelty. It took a few years, but slowly air transport of both people and goods became the norm instead of the exception.
Traditional shipping lines began to feel the pinch very quickly, but it was towards the 1970's that harsh economic realities began to hit home and shipping lines that had been profitable concerns for decades went out of business. They always, had, of course, but now they went under in droves. Those that were left needed to cut their costs drastically. Money that should have been spent on maintenance or repair was used to prop up the bottom line. Crews were cut to a minimum and cheaper crews were recruited from third world countries. Ordinary seamen always had been, of course, the stories of nineteenth century voyages are full of references to 'lascars', usually Chinese seamen, but now officers and men alike were recruited at minimum cost and ships found themselves re-registered in countries where the safety standards were lower than in Europe.
In the Red Sea a rash of sinkings began. At least three vessels, and possibly as many as six, struck Abu Nuhas for example, and nothing had struck Abu Nuhas for over a century. The stories of all these vessels, regardless of where they struck - and there are wrecks in the Gulf of Suez, at Abu Nuhas and in the Straits of Aqaba - are depressingly similar. A cargo, usually cheap, is taken aboard, and shortly after entering the reef-llittered confines of the North Red Sea the ship runs agound and becomes a total loss.
Some of the sinkings seem clear insurance jobs (Million Hope, for example, was bought for £1.4m, reinsured for £4.1 million, filled with phosphates for making fertiliser, and which is, oddly enough, just about the cheapest bulk cargo there is, and then hit the reef at Nabq, north of Na'ama Bay the following day, having first caught fire! Talk about making sure...), but others were probably simply the result of cutting costs too far (Dora Oldendorf was a clean, tidy and smart-looking ship when she was run by the German Oldendorf Line, but when she passed down the economic food-chain and into new ownership and eventually became re-registered as Chrisoula K she was clearly neglected, and it seems feasible that she struck due to general carelessness if the state of the ship is anything to go by).
During these same years the creation of the State of Israel brought the Middle East to simmering point, with regular boil-overs into open warfare, leaving a number of wreck sites for divers to visit, most notably the little Soviet built minesweeper Miniya that lies outside the harbour of Hurghada. Given the tendancy to low vis, her depth of 30m and her small size she's going to feel like home from home to British wreck divers. And she's still got guns on her.....
Of course, the trend toward ships being passed down the economic food chain as they aged hasn't stopped, and the latest trend is for European built ro-ro ferries to find themsleves re-registered to Egyptian lines. What's fascinating about this is that it's been going on since ships started to use the Red Sea regularly. Go back as far as mid-nineteenth century fleet lists and there are many examples of ships that were European built and owned that ended their working lives in Egyptian lines. In modern times a number of these ferries have come to grief in the Red Sea, at least two with massive loss of life. Some of the ferry wrecks are divable, some are not, and at least one, Salem Express, is the gravesite of many of her passengers and crew.
Finally, the Red Sea is now host to another phenomenon, the scuba diver. To cater for our needs there are now some superb dive boats working in the area, boats that offer hotel standard food and accomodation with the added benfit of allowing us to wake up on-site and go diving before breakfast. These boats spend their working lives close to wrecks and reefs for our convenience, and from time to time accidents happen and new wreck sites are born. Most dive boats are wooden built, so their wrecks don't last long, but they're important historically for the change of use of the sea-way they represent.
Also important are the purpose-sunk wrecks that are starting to appear. The better known wrecks, particularly Thistlegorm and the four wrecks at Abu Nuhas, are starting to show the signs of heavy diver traffic, and sinking new wrecks is one way to take the pressure off. These wrecks have no real intrinsic interest, but they do demonstrate very clearly just how important the scuba diver has become to the Egyptian economy.
