SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm.
SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm was a König-class dreadnought battleship that fought at Jutland and was scuttled in Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919. She lies almost upside down, heeled to starboard, with her hull rising to about 12 m and the seabed at about 38 m. She is the shallowest of the three surviving battleship wrecks.
What's down there.
- Upturned hull within sport-diving depth
- Main gun turrets, including a 12-inch barrel on E turret
- Forward mast and spotting top on the seabed
- 5.9-inch casemate guns in their housings
- Twin rudders at the relatively intact stern
- Anchor chain wrapped around A turret
- Starfish
- Anemones
- Scallops
- Crabs
- Lobsters
- Varied fish, especially around the shallower hull
Upturned hull from c. 12 m (other sources 14–16 m); seabed and main guns at 34–38 m
Sheltered with generally little current; visibility typically 3–9 m, better light on the shallow hull. The hull can be dived by competent sport divers on air, but the turrets, guns and seabed features at 34–38 m make this a deep dive best suited to technical, mixed-gas or rebreather divers. The wreck is collapsing and silty inside.
How it got there.
Built as SMS Kronprinz by Germaniawerft in Kiel, she was laid down in November 1911, launched on 21 February 1914 and commissioned in 1914. The König-class ships were about 175 m long, displaced about 25,800 tonnes normally and 28,600 tonnes at full load, and carried ten 30.5 cm (12-inch) guns in five twin turrets. At Jutland on 31 May–1 June 1916 she was the rearmost ship of the III Battle Squadron's V Division and came through unscathed. On 5 November 1916 she was torpedoed by the British submarine J1 near Horns Reef, and in March 1917 she was accidentally rammed by her sister Grosser Kurfürst. In October 1917 she took part in Operation Albion in the Baltic, engaging Russian warships. She was formally renamed Kronprinz Wilhelm on 15 June 1918. Interned at Scapa Flow, she was scuttled on 21 June 1919 and sank at about 13:15. Because the three surviving König-class battleships sank in deeper water, they were never raised. The wreck was sold to Metal Industries in 1936, salvors worked on her in the 1970s, removing engines, boilers, propellers, shafts and armour, and the salvage rights passed to diving contractor Tommy Clark in 1981. In 2019 he sold her, with König and Markgraf, to a company in the Middle East for £25,500 each. Her pre-1945 steel has been cited as a source of low-background steel for scientific instruments.
2 dives.
From the reconstructed log — the dates follow the pattern I dived, so read them as representative rather than exact.