SS Nunima (1918)

The SS Nunima was a British steel screw cargo steamer built in 1903 by William Gray & Co. Ltd of West Hartlepool for Trechmann Steamship Co. Ltd. She was a sizeable working tramp of 2,938 gross tons, measuring about 99.1 metres long, with a 14.3 metre beam and a 6.7 metre draught. Her triple-expansion engine, built by Central Marine Engineering Works, drove a single screw. In other words, proper Edwardian cargo iron: built for work, not glamour, because shipowners had clearly not yet discovered the marketing department.

On 4 January 1918, Nunima was on passage from Bilbao to Middlesbrough with a cargo of iron ore when she sank after a collision off Folkestone, reported variously as with P19 or an unidentified Royal Navy torpedo boat. UKHO-derived wreck data places the wreck at about 50°58.304’N, 1°08.678’E, lying upright and largely intact in roughly 32 metres, with a least depth of around 19 metres over the wreck. No lives were lost, which is a rare mercy in these Channel stories and frankly suspiciously decent of history for once. For divers, Nunima is a big, upright First World War merchant steamer with cargo history, scale, structure and a proper Dover Strait collision story. A solid wreck with presence.