SS Loanda (1908)

The wreck divers know as SS Loanda was an Elder Dempster Line steamer, built in 1891, not 1906, so the date in brackets looks like it may need checking before it goes live. She was a 2,702-ton steamship, powered by triple-expansion engines, and measured about 100 metres long by 12 metres wide. On her final voyage she was travelling from Hamburg to West Africa when she collided with the Russian steamer Junona off the Kent coast. The impact badly damaged her port side near the engine room, and although an attempt was made to save her, she sank under tow on 31 May 1908. Because apparently even being rescued wasn’t enough to stop the Channel having the last word.

For divers, Loanda is one of those wrecks that rewards curiosity as much as good buoyancy. She lies upright in roughly 17 to 23 metres, standing several metres proud, with exposed engine remains, an intact propeller, and a cargo story worthy of a Victorian dockside whisper. Reports mention gin and champagne bottles, clay pipes, perfume bottles, trading beads, and the persistent tale of newly minted shillings, although the shilling story is not supported by the manifest. It’s shallow, atmospheric, artifact-rich and very much a slack-water dive, the kind of Dover wreck where every broken bottle and clay pipe feels like it has been waiting 116 years to be noticed.