HMS Thames (1947): Shipwreck Map, Location & Facts

Name	HMS Thames	Wikidata label
Year lost	1947	English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed)
Era	Modern	derived from year
Ship type	training vessel, protected cruiser	Wikidata P31 instance of
Cause of loss	Scuttled	Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence
Nationality / flag	United Kingdom	Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country
Operator	Royal Navy	Wikidata P137 operator
Conflict	World War I	Wikidata P607 conflict
Sea / ocean	South Atlantic Ocean	Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon
Nearest coast	South Africa	Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 17 km from land
Position	-34.2300, 18.6300	Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0)

About the wreck

HMS Thames was a Mersey-class protected cruiser built for the Royal Navy (RN) in the 1880s. The ship was placed in reserve upon her completion in 1888 and was converted into a submarine depot ship in 1903. She was sold out of the navy in 1920 and was purchased by a South African businessman to serve as a training ship for naval cadets under the name SATS General Botha. The ship arrived in South Africa in 1921 and began training her first class of cadets in Simon's Town the following year. General Botha continued to train cadets for the first several years of World War II, but the RN took over the ship in 1942 for use as an accommodation ship under her original name. She was scuttled by gunfire in 1947 and is now a diveable wreck.

Location

Recorded position: -34.2300, 18.6300 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
Sea / ocean: South Atlantic Ocean
Nearest coast: South Africa

Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.

OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Thames (1885) (revision 1375008086), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.