SS Lusitania 1911
Marker: recorded wreck position (Steam era).
Key facts
| Name | SS Lusitania | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1911 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Steam era | derived from year |
| Ship type | offshore dive site, passenger vessel | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Grounding or wreck on rocks | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | South Africa | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Sea / ocean | South Atlantic Ocean | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | South Africa | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 13 km from land |
| Position | -34.3900, 18.4942 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
SS Lusitania was a Portuguese twin-screw ocean liner of 5,557 tons, built in 1906 by Sir Raylton Dixon & Co, and owned by Empresa Nacional de Navegação, of Lisbon.
The ship was wrecked on Bellows Rock off Cape Point, South Africa at 24h00 on 18 April 1911 in fog while en route from Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique, with 25 first-class, 57 second-class and 121 third-class passengers, and 475 African labourers. Out of the 774 people on board, eight died when a life boat capsized. On 20 April the ship slipped off the rock into 37 metres (121 ft) of water to the east of the rock. The wreck has become a fairly well known recreational dive site, but at 33 to 40 metres, it is deeper than recommended for the average recreational diver, and the currents and breakers over the reef make it a moderately challenging dive.
The sinking of Lusitania spurred the local authorities to construct a new lighthouse on the Cape Point.
Location
- Recorded position: -34.3900, 18.4942 (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.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article SS Lusitania (1906) (revision 1346329851), 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.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- SAS Good Hope 14 km
- SS Thomas T. Tucker 17 km
- HMS Pelorus 1994 · 19 km
- HMS Thames 1947 · 22 km
- SS Oakburn and Bos 400 1994 · 43 km
- SS Maori 43 km
Browse more: Africa wrecks · wrecks off South Africa · South Atlantic Ocean · Steam era