This deeper offshore wreck dive heads beyond the usual inshore marks to a more serious Channel site, where depth, tide and distance add real commitment. Expect mystery, machinery, wreckage and the chance to help piece together a story that still refuses to surface politely.
This deeper offshore wreck dive heads beyond the usual inshore marks to a more serious Channel site, where depth, tide and distance add real commitment. Expect mystery, machinery, wreckage and the chance to help piece together a story that still refuses to surface politely.
This deeper offshore wreck dive heads beyond the usual inshore marks to a more serious Channel site, where depth, tide and distance add real commitment. Expect mystery, machinery, wreckage and the chance to help piece together a story that still refuses to surface politely.
The SS Sabac wreck dive takes you to a Yugoslav cargo steamer lost in thick fog after a brutal collision off Dover in 1962. She sank in less than five minutes with bauxite in her holds and 33 crew aboard.
Only five men survived. Twenty-eight died in the freezing Channel, and ten were never recovered. This is a deep Dover Strait wreck with a dark story, real history and no shortage of atmosphere.
On 24 May 1953, Andaman collided with the Panamanian steamer Fortune about 3 miles south of the South Goodwin Lightvessel. She began sinking, and her 38 crew abandoned ship into two boats. The Dover lifeboat launched, but the crew had already been picked up by the SS Arthur Wright, before being transferred to the lifeboat and landed at Dover. No lives were lost. For divers, Andaman is a fine post-war Channel wreck: a substantial Swedish cargo ship, lost in fog near the Goodwins, with a clean rescue story and enough size, structure and atmosphere to make her far more than a name on a chart.
SS Luna survived the First World War, then sank after the peace, because the Dover Strait apparently keeps its own diary of grudges. Join this SS Luna wreck dive to explore a Dutch cargo steamer lost to a mine near the Goodwin Sands in 1919, with all hands saved and a ship's bell that helped reveal her name nearly 90 years later.
SMS G-85 came hunting in the dark, then met HMS Swift and HMS Broke in one of the Dover Strait's fiercest night actions. This wreck dive explores the remains of a German torpedo boat lost in 1917, after torpedoes, gunfire and ramming turned the Channel into a steel argument nobody was walking away from cleanly.
On 13 June 1963, Carmen was caught in thick fog in the Dover Strait and collided with the Turkish steamship Sadikzade, about 4.5 miles east of the South West Goodwin light buoy and 9.6 miles east of St Margaret’s Bay. She sank with the loss of two crewmen, while the collision set off an absurdly grim chain reaction: Sadikzade then collided with the Greek motor vessel Leandros, which in turn collided with the British tanker Clyde Sergeant. Today, Carmen lies upright and largely intact in around 44 to 45 metres, with her funnel around 30 metres and superstructure rising into the low 30s. For divers, she is a superb deeper Channel wreck: intact, dramatic, well identified, and carrying the unmistakable scar of a fog-bound collision in one of the busiest seaways on Earth.
SS Cuvier was carrying cargo for Brazil when SS Dovre tore into her near the Dover Strait in 1900. Within five minutes she had gone, leaving three survivors clinging to a capsized boat and at least 26 men lost in one of the Channel's sharpest civilian wreck tragedies.
HMS Flirt went to help stricken drifters during the 1916 Battle of Dover Strait, then German torpedo boats caught her at point-blank range. This wreck dive follows a Royal Navy destroyer lost in minutes, with sixty dead, nine survivors and one of the Dover Patrol's sharpest night-fighting stories.
At 05:55 on 18 April 1945, only weeks before the end of the war in Europe, Filleigh was torpedoed by U-245, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Friedrich Schumann-Hindenberg, while in convoy off the North Foreland / Dover Strait area. The same attack also sank the Norwegian ship Karmt. Filleigh went down with the loss of five crewmen, while her master, 37 crew, 10 DEMS gunners and a Belgian pilot were rescued and landed at Dover. For divers, this is a powerful late-war wreck: a large cargo steamer, military cargo, a U-boat attack in the final days of the Battle of the Atlantic, and a site lying in about 50 metres. Not a casual potter, then. More a proper Channel wreck with teeth.
SV Carron crossed the Atlantic from New Orleans with a cargo of oilcake, only to be lost almost within reach of home after a collision near the Goodwin Sands. This SV Carron wreck dive follows the trail of a Victorian barque, a Spanish vessel called Bilboa and one of the Dover Strait's busiest nineteenth-century traffic zones.
