SS Dunraven 1876
Marker: recorded wreck position (Steam era).
Key facts
| Name | SS Dunraven | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1876 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Steam era | derived from year |
| Ship type | recreational dive site, steamship | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Foundered | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Sea / ocean | Gulf of Suez | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Egypt | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 12 km from land |
| Position | 27.7033, 34.1217 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
SS Dunraven was built in Newcastle upon Tyne at the C. Mitchell and C. Iron Ship Builders and was launched on 14 December 1872. The ship was owned by a Mr W. Milburn. Powered by both sail and steam, she was planned for the route from Britain to Bombay.
Three years later, in January 1876, she set sail from Liverpool loaded with steel and timber bound for Bombay. There the cargo was sold and she was reloaded with spices, cotton and muslin for the return journey. It was generally an uneventful journey and she reached the Red Sea approaches to the Suez Canal on 25 April. Thinking they were further up the Gulf of Suez than they actually were, Captain Care and the 25-man crew sailed the ship straight into a reef. The ship stuck fast south of Beacon Rock at the southern end of the furthest reaches of what is now the Ras Muhammad National Park on the outside of Sha'ab Mahmoud. The crew worked frantically to dislodge her, and 14 hours after striking the rock she slid off. This motion upset her balance and she capsized.
She sank quickly in 25 metres (82 ft) of water, leaving the crew to be rescued from the life boats by local fishermen.
Diving & visiting
The Dunraven wreck was known to local fishermen for generations, as the shallow depth would cause their nets to snag, but it was only rediscovered for the world at large in 1977, either by a German oil company employee or by several local scuba divers based at Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, including Howard Rosenstein, owner and manager of the Red Sea Divers center in 1977. The ship was dived on soon afterwards, and many wide theories appeared — for example, that it was a World War I ship that operated on behalf of Lawrence of Arabia. Then a piece of porcelain was found with the name SS Dunraven.
Location
- Recorded position: 27.7033, 34.1217 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Gulf of Suez
- Nearest coast: Egypt
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.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article SS Dunraven (revision 1323836790), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Dive site”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- The Yolanda 1980 · 14 km
- SS Thistlegorm 1941 · 23 km
- Sha‘ab Abū Nuhās 24 km
Browse more: Africa wrecks · wrecks off Egypt · Gulf of Suez · Steam era