SMS Karlsruhe.
SMS Karlsruhe was a Königsberg-class light cruiser completed in 1916 and scuttled in Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919. She lies on her starboard side in about 25–27 m and is the shallowest of the German wrecks. Heavy salvage blasting has left her the most broken of the cruisers.
What's down there.
- Bow section with anchors, chains and two anchor capstans
- Two forward 5.9-inch guns fallen one on top of the other
- Armoured control tower with four-inch walls, lying on its side
- Exposed boiler rooms and steam pipes
- Single large rudder and steering engine at the stern
- Engine-room salvage breach that has almost halved the wreck
- Scallops (the site is noted for them)
- Crab
- Lobster
- Sea urchins
- Starfish
- Varied fish life
Shallowest of the German wrecks: least depth c. 12–16 m by source; seabed 25–28 m
Shallow and sheltered, so it offers more light and is often used as a second or shallower dive; visibility typically 3–9 m with little current. Well within sport-diving range, but the wreck is very broken and collapsing, so navigation among the debris and any entry require care.
How it got there.
Karlsruhe was built at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Dockyard) in Kiel, launched on 31 January 1916 and commissioned on 15 November 1916. She was about 151.4 m long and displaced 5,440 tonnes normally and 7,125 tonnes at full load. Joining the II Scouting Group, she took part in Operation Albion, the German seizure of the Baltic islands in September–October 1917, covered minelaying cruisers off Norway in April 1918 and guarded the Flanders coast during the evacuation of the U-boat bases in October 1918. She was assigned to the planned final fleet sortie of late October 1918, which was cancelled because of the mutinies. She was the only ship of her class to be successfully scuttled at Scapa Flow, sinking at about 15:50 on 21 June 1919, one of the last ships to go down. She was never raised; instead salvors worked on her in place, and according to scapaflowwrecks.com she was sold in 1962 and partially broken up underwater between 1963 and 1965, with explosives used to reach high-value metals in the bridge, turbine room, propellers and torpedo tubes. In 2019 the wreck was sold on eBay by its private owner to a buyer in the south of England for £8,500.
2 dives.
From the reconstructed log — the dates follow the pattern I dived, so read them as representative rather than exact.