An Odin-class submarine lying upright and largely whole at around a hundred and fifteen metres, holding the worst British submarine loss of the war. Eighty nine died, nine swam seven miles home.
WreckSea conditions
Stay dry right now
Sea is up (3.2 m NW) · Fresh W wind (41 km/h) · Gusts to 58 km/h
Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 17 at 17:00: Sea is up (1.3 m NW)
Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree
Measured at Fort St Elmo (7.7 km away, 20:29): 35 km/h from W, gusts 40. The next hours lean on it.
- Waves
- 3.2 m
- from NW, biggest 5.1
- Wind
- 41 km/h
- W, gusts 58
- Swell
- 0.9 m
- 10 s period
- Sea temp
- 22 °C
- air 19 °C
Hour by hour
Next 7 days
0 3.2 m54 W
0 3.1 m53 WNW
47 0.9 m21 WNW
82 0.5 m15 ESE
66 0.6 m14 E
65 0.6 m22 NE
72 0.5 m21 E
Sunrise 06:24, sunset 17:05
Waves: Copernicus Med-Waves 4 km + MFWAM 8 km + EWAM 5 km + ECMWF WAM 9 km. Wind: ICON-2I 2 km + ECMWF IFS 9 km + ICON-EU 7 km + UKMO 10 km + ARPEGE 11 km. Read a few km out on the side the site is open to, then blended.
Exposed to wind and swell from: N (0°), NE (45°), E (90°), SE (135°), S (180°). Deep offshore ground east of Valletta, so nothing protects you. A flat sea and a stable forecast are not optional here. Gregale conditions cancel it outright. On a good day visibility on the wreck is thirty metres or more, but the light is very low at that depth and you will want serious primary lighting to appreciate anything. Best season: June to September, when long calm windows make a multi hour dive defensible..
The dive
Olympus is the dive that quiets a boat down on the way out. She sits upright on the sand, eighty six metres of submarine, remarkably intact for something that was mined. Her deck gun is still there, trained upward, and her hatches stand open where men got out. It is not a subtle site and it does not need to be.
The damage is on the starboard side, which is where the mine caught her, and the rest of the boat reads as a submarine should: the long pressure hull, the casing, the conning tower rising off it. A memorial plaque left by a diving team marks the spot. She is a designated war grave under Heritage Malta and the rules are absolute. No penetration, no touching, no souvenirs. Those open hatches are not an invitation.
Practically this is a big trimix day. A hundred and fifteen metres gives you perhaps fifteen minutes to take in a boat you cannot see the ends of at once, followed by a couple of hours coming back up. Most people do one long slow pass from the conning tower forward and settle for that, then come back another year for the rest.
- An almost complete Odin-class submarine sitting upright on the sand
- Deck gun still in place, aimed at a sky she never signalled
- The heaviest British submarine loss of the war, and a survival story that beggars belief
- Only found in 2011, so still a relatively young site
- Memorial plaque left by the divers who located her
Typical plan
Hypoxic trimix or a well shaken down rebreather. Twelve to fifteen minutes at a hundred and fifteen metres, down the shot to the conning tower, forward past the gun to the bow, back along the casing, then up the line. Two hours or more of staged decompression on intermediate trimix, fifty percent nitrox and oxygen. Full redundancy, bail-out planning for the whole ascent, and a team that has done this depth together before.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Conning tower and open escape hatches105 m deep · under the boat
- 2Deck gun, still trained upward108 m deep · 8 m from the boat
- 3Bow section and forward casing112 m deep · 40 m from the boat
- 4Mine damage on the starboard side114 m deep · 60 m from the boat
- 5Flat sand around the hull115 m deep · 80 m from the boat
Flat, fine sand at the edge of the shelf, undisturbed and easy to silt out if you drop your fins.
Who you might meet
Sometimes
Marked ones can hurt you. What they do and what to do about it is under Getting in and staying safe.
Getting in and staying safe
Boat only, through a Heritage Malta registered technical centre with a licensed boat. Booking runs through the Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit system, which also notifies the chamber and other stakeholders, and you sign the conditions beforehand. Expect a shot line placed for you, a live boat throughout, oxygen and a proper surface team. Plan a whole day around it. Nothing about this one is casual.
Where the boat stops
Permit only. Dived only through a centre registered with Heritage Malta, from a boat with AIS and clearance from Valletta or Marsaxlokk VTS. Nobody else may stop inside the protected area around it.
A war grave. Touch nothing and take nothing.
Positions as charted (WGS84) in Transport Malta Notice to Mariners 02 of 2024, archaeological zones at sea . Check the latest notice before you rely on them.
- A hundred and fifteen metres: hypoxic trimix or closed circuit only, two hours plus of decompression
- Designated war grave with eighty nine men still aboard
- Open hatches that tempt penetration, which is forbidden and would be lethal
- Mine damage means torn, unstable plate on the starboard side
- Fishing line and nets snagged on the conning tower and periscopes
- Offshore position with shipping traffic and no shelter
- Long deco in open water, needing a marker and a boat that will follow it
Marine life to respect
Conger eel · Gringu Can hurt you
Crushing bite if a hand goes into its hole. Look in from a distance and keep fingers out.
Red scorpionfish · Ċippullazza Can hurt you
Venomous spines, and it sits still on the rock. Look before you kneel or hold on; hot water if stung.
A bit of history
Olympus was an Odin-class submarine built by William Beardmore and commissioned in 1930, eighty six and a half metres long on a six metre beam, displacing over seventeen hundred tons on the surface. She served on the China Station through the thirties, then with the 8th Flotilla at Colombo, and came to the Mediterranean in 1940 where she ran the Magic Carpet supply trips into besieged Malta. On 8 May 1942 she sailed for Gibraltar carrying not just her own crew but the survivors of the submarines Pandora, P36 and P39, all of them bombed out at Malta. A few kilometres out she struck a mine. Of ninety eight men aboard only nine lived, and they did it by swimming roughly seven miles back to the island. It remains the heaviest British submarine loss of the Second World War. The wreck was not confirmed until an Aurora Trust team relocated her in 2011, with the find announced in January 2012. She was opened to permitted diving on 1 May 2019.
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Further reading: Heritage Malta: HMS Olympus · Wikipedia: HMS Olympus (N35) · uboat.net: HMS Olympus · The Past: HMS Olympus, a tale of tragedy and heroes