Santos (Wreck)

The dive

The wreck catalogued here as the Santos is the dredger known variously as Santo, Sante, Sente and other spellings, a 217-ton vessel built in 1900 by Lobnitz & Co of Renfrew for the Japanese government at a cost of £20,000. She sailed from the Clyde on 22 December 1900 bound for Formosa, met a south-westerly gale in St George's Channel, developed a list to port and ran for shelter in Cork. She capsized and sank by the stern within sight of the Daunt lightship on Boxing Day, taking most of those aboard with her; five men in a lifeboat still under tow cut the rope and were picked up by the pilot boat Maid of Erin. The Shipwrecks of Cork Harbour record places the loss off Cork Harbour near Power Head.

What is left is a machinery dive rather than a ship. John Liddiard's survey for DIVER's Wreck Tour series describes a hull barely recognisable but all the heavy gear intact enough to be mentally reassembled, spread in three trails that do not line up — he suspects she broke her back as she capsized. In the middle is a debris mound rising about four metres above the general seabed. Around it: the upturned engine base with its gearbox, the main dredging drive gears with the biggest at roughly 2.5 metres across, a cable-drum winch standing on end with its brake lever nearby, a small windlass-type anchor winch, the propeller shaft running down the slope to 29 metres, a four-bladed iron propeller at 30 metres with one blade buried, the rudder post lying to starboard at the southern extremity, and away to the north-east the bucket chain itself, running out to a giant sprocket and looping back 180° up to the drive gears. The tour ends at a single boiler.

The published depth range is 20 to 35 metres, which makes it, in Liddiard's words, a wreck sized for a no-stop dive on the appropriate nitrox mix. Slack water coincides with high and low water at Cobh and is only really needed on springs; the tides are forgiving enough to ascend on the shotline or a delayed SMB provided that is agreed with the skipper first. The stated qualification is PADI Advanced or BSAC Sports Diver.

One thing to know before you go looking: the position recorded for this pin does not match the published one. Liddiard gives 51°44.674'N, 008°10.440'W, which sits about four kilometres north-west of where this site is plotted, and fits the contemporary account of a loss near Power Head. Use the published GPS and Admiralty chart 1765 rather than the catalogue coordinates. No marine-life account of the wreck has been published, and the biological records around this pin are too sparse to describe.

• Bucket chain running out to a giant sprocket and looping back on itself
• Main dredging drive gears, the largest about 2.5 m across
• Four-bladed iron propeller at 30 m with one blade buried
• Cable-drum winch standing on end with its brake lever alongside
• Upturned engine, gearbox and a single boiler
• Published survey drawing with nineteen numbered features to follow

Conditions

An offshore Cork wreck dive: a shot into a debris mound rising about four metres off the bottom, machinery scattered in three directions, and tides that are forgiving except on springs. No visibility figure has been published for the site.

On current: Slack water on the wreck coincides with high and low water at Cobh, but according to the published wreck tour it is only really necessary on spring tides. On neaps the tides are forgiving enough to decompress on the shotline or on a delayed SMB, which the same source says should be agreed with the skipper before the dive rather than decided in the water.

Best months: May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep