RMS Lusitania.
The Cunard liner Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 on 7 May 1915 and sank in 18 minutes, some 11.5 nautical miles south of the Old Head of Kinsale. Around 1,200 people died; published totals range from 1,191 to 1,201. She lies on her starboard side in about 93 metres of water, badly collapsed and draped in lost fishing net. She is a war grave, protected since 1995 by an Irish Underwater Heritage Order, and she may not be dived without a licence from the Irish State.
May 2006 was a fortnight of dreadful conditions and aborted dives. We went back in July and made three successful, very respectful visits, most of them more than eight hours in the water.
What's down there.
- Bow section, the most intact part, still proud of the seabed
- Anchor chain and windlass on the foredeck
- Boxed .303 rifle ammunition in the bow (recorded in 2006 and left in situ)
- Rows of boilers, photographed intact in 2024
- Round portholes and rectangular bronze windows of the first-class cabins
- Collapsed bridge area with scattered fittings and Cunard china
Seabed 92–93 m (INFOMAR gives 93 m). No least depth has been published. Sonar shows the wreck standing over 14 m proud, which implies about 79 m at the highest point, but divers reported the deck at 86–88 m between 1994 and 2008. The wreck is still collapsing.
An exposed open-sea site about 11.5 nmi offshore in the Celtic Sea, open to the Atlantic's prevailing westerlies. Teams report that weather often interrupts operations and that conditions change quickly. The wreck is dived at slack water only. Pilotage notes describe tidal streams on this coast as weak offshore, with spring rates seldom above 1–1.5 knots, but divers report strong and unpredictable currents on the wreck. Visibility is dark and variable, typically about 5–8 m and at times close to nil. Reported bottom temperatures range from about 7–8 °C (45–47 °F) to 12 °C. The main hazards are the 92–93 m depth, extensive lost fishing net, a collapsing structure, reported unexploded depth charges, long open-water decompression and distance from recompression treatment. A diver injured in 1994 was flown to the naval chamber at Haulbowline, and a 2019 casualty was taken to Cork and then flown to Galway for treatment.
How it got there.
John Brown & Co. of Clydebank built Lusitania for Cunard. She was launched on 7 June 1906 and sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 7 September 1907. At 787 ft (239.9 m) overall and 31,550 gross register tons, she briefly held the records as the largest and fastest ship afloat. On her second voyage, in October 1907, she took the Blue Riband with a westbound average of 23.99 knots. She and her sister Mauretania traded the records until 1909, after which Mauretania held the westbound record until 1929. Lusitania made 201 crossings in all. In wartime Cunard closed her No. 4 boiler room from November 1914, which cut her top speed from over 25 knots to about 21. On 7 May 1915, near the end of a voyage from New York to Liverpool, a single torpedo from U-20 (Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger) struck her starboard side at 14:10, under or just aft of the bridge. A second explosion followed, and she sank in 18 minutes. Of the 1,960 people aboard, about 1,200 died, among them about 128 Americans. The salvage steamer Orphir located the wreck by echo sounder on 6 October 1935, and on 26 October 1935 Jim Jarrett reached it in the Peress 'Tritonia' one-atmosphere armoured suit. The former US Navy diver John Light worked on the wreck between 1957 and 1962, using air–helium mixtures, and bought it in 1967 for £1,000. Gregg Bemis bought into the wreck in 1967–68 and became sole owner in 1982. That year Oceaneering International, working with saturation divers and an ROV, removed three of her four propellers and recovered anchors, the whistle and the bell. Robert Ballard surveyed the wreck in 1993 with a manned submersible and remotely operated vehicles. He reported the magazine intact and attributed the second explosion to coal dust; its cause is still debated. Technical divers have visited the wreck on trimix since 1994 and on rebreathers since 1997, and Ireland placed an Underwater Heritage Order on the site in 1995. Licensed teams recorded boxed .303 rifle ammunition in the bow in 2006 and recovered Remington .303 rounds in 2008. A 2011 expedition raised the bridge telemotor and portholes, and telegraphs were recovered in 2016 and 2017. Bemis gave the wreck to the Old Head of Kinsale Lusitania museum group on 7 May 2019 and died in May 2020. The hull has collapsed markedly, a decline attributed to salvage, depth-charge practice, fishing gear and corrosion.
18 dives.
15 of them abandoned attempts. From the log — the dates follow the pattern I dived, so read them as representative rather than exact.