Hispania.
A Swedish steamer sitting upright, with a slight list to starboard, in the Sound of Mull, her bow pointing towards the Mull shore. She is famously intact, with companionways, handrails, holds, bridge and masts still in place, and every surface is thickly covered in marine life. Many divers rate her among the finest wreck dives in Britain.
My favourite of all of them.
What's down there.
- Upright, virtually intact hull
- Bridge, cabins and companionways with handrails
- Open holds
- Engine room
- Masts still standing
- Dense anemone-covered superstructure
- Plumose and other anemones
- Tunicates (sea squirts)
- Hydroids
- Peacock worms
- Sponges
Seabed about 24 m at the bow and 32 m at the stern; decks reported at roughly 15–20 m.
The Sound of Mull's tides run strongly here, so dive at slack water. Divernet puts slack between two hours and one hour before high or low water at Oban. Otherwise the site is sheltered and visibility is often good. Because of the depth and current, it suits experienced divers qualified to around 30 m or more.
How it got there.
Steel steamer built in 1912 by the Antwerp Engineering Co. at Hoboken, Belgium, with a triple-expansion engine by North Eastern Marine Engineering. About 236.8 ft (just over 70 m) long and 1,315–1,337 gross tons, she was owned by Rederi A/B Svenska Lloyd and registered in Gothenburg. She left Liverpool on 17 December 1954 for Varberg in Sweden, carrying steel, asbestos and rubber sheeting. At about 9 pm on 18 December 1954, in bad weather, she ran onto the Sgeir Mor reef near the Mull shore and was badly holed forward. She sank after coming off the reef. All 21 crew got away in the lifeboats, but her master, Captain Ivan Dahn, stayed aboard and was lost. The cargo was salvaged in the 1950s, and the wreck was wire-swept in 1957.
63 dives.
From the reconstructed log — the dates follow the pattern I dived, so read them as representative rather than exact.