SS Laurentic
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | SS Laurentic | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | ocean liner | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | White Star Line, Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War I | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Inner Seas | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Ireland | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 7 km from land |
| Position | 55.3036, -7.5908 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
SS Laurentic was a British transatlantic ocean liner built in Belfast, Ireland, and launched in 1908. She is an early example of a ship whose propulsion combined reciprocating steam engines with a low-pressure steam turbine.
Laurentic was ordered in 1907 with her sister ship Megantic by the Dominion Line but completed for the White Star Line. Her regular route was between Liverpool and Quebec City.
In 1914 Laurentic served briefly as a troop ship, and then served for more than two years as an armed merchant cruiser (AMC). As an AMC she saw service off West Africa, Singapore, the Bay of Bengal and the Far East.
Diving & visiting
The gold bullion had been stowed in Laurentic's second class baggage room. A crew of Royal Navy salvage divers was deployed to try to recover it. It was led by Captain Guybon Damant, who was a specialist in deep-water diving. The crew included Laurentic's own diver, P/O Augustus Dent, who had survived the sinking. They found the wreck at a depth of 120 ft (37 m), listing 60 degrees to port.
Initially the wreck was intact. Damant and his team used guncotton to blow open a watertight door called the "entry port" mid-way down the ship's side, and an iron gate in the companionway leading to the baggage room. A diver called EC Miller used a hammer and chisel to open the baggage room door.
The wreck was noisy, indicating that parts of it were still moving. The companionway was beneath five decks and at risk of collapse. Damant abandoned this access route and directed his crew to use explosives to remove the mainmast and make a vertical shaft down through the wreck to where he expected the gold now to be.
Location
- Recorded position: 55.3036, -7.5908 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Inner Seas
- Nearest coast: Ireland
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 Laurentic (1908) (revision 1369028112), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Gold salvage”, “Digging a shaft through the wreck”; 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
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- U-1271 1945 · 25 km
- U-861 1945 · 25 km
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Other wrecks of the World War I
- HMS Aboukir 1914
- HMS Bulwark 1914
- HMS Cressy 1914
- HMS Good Hope 1914
- HMS Hawke 1914
- HMS Niger 1914
- HMS Pathfinder 1914
- SM U-11 1914
- SM U-13 1914
- SMS Emden 1914
All 163 wrecks of the World War I →
Browse more: UK & Ireland wrecks · wrecks off Ireland · Inner Seas