SS Thistlegorm

Good to know

Best season

Year-round. Water 22-29 C; calmest seas and best visibility March-November, with the coolest water and strongest northerlies December-February.

Protected status

Egyptian Red Sea marine protected area; HEPCA-maintained mooring buoys, anchoring prohibited

Fees

No separate site fee published; environmental tax historically 3.5 LE/diver/day (Red Sea Governorate, 2001), collection suspended after January 2011 per HEPCA.

Wreck

ship_type: British armed merchant cargo steamship (Merchant Navy, Albyn Line), Ministry of War Transport service; builder: Joseph L. Thompson & Sons, North Sands, Sunderland, England; year_built: Launched 9 April 1940; completed 24 June 1940; length_m: 126.5; beam_m: 17.7; tonnage: 4,898 GRT / 2,750 NRT; date_sunk: 6 October 1941, about 01:30; cause: Bombed at anchor in Safe Anchorage F, Sha'ab Ali, by two Heinkel He 111 bombers of II./KG 26 flying from Crete; two 2.5-tonne HE bombs struck No. 4 hold, detonating the ammunition stored there. Nine died - four merchant crew and five DEMS Royal Navy gunners.; cargo: Bedford OY trucks, Morris and Ford vehicles, Universal Carrier armoured carriers, Norton 16H and BSA M20 motorcycles, Bren guns, .303 rifles, ammunition and shells, radio equipment, Wellington boots, aircraft spares (Westland Lysander wings, Bristol Mercury engine parts, Bristol Blenheim tailplanes), railway wagons and two LMS Stanier Class 8F locomotives with tenders; orientation: Sitting essentially upright on a sandy bottom on a roughly NW-SE heading (bow to the north-west); the stern section is broken and twisted about 90 degrees from the main hull. Deck around 16-20 m, main deck and hold openings 25-30 m, seabed at the stern about 32 m.; wreck_depth_m: 16-32; penetration: Yes. Holds 1, 2 and 4 are open and routinely penetrated on the second dive; the blown-open midships makes most of the interior naturally lit and easy to exit. Deeper engine room and stern spaces need wreck training. Torch, backup torch, compass and SMB are standard.; discovered: Located by Jacques Cousteau and the Calypso in 1955-56; rediscovered by sport divers in the early 1990s