HMS Southwold
A Hunt-class destroyer broken cleanly into two off Marsaskala, the bow on her starboard side around sixty eight to seventy two metres and the stern sitting upright at seventy three. Two very different dives on one ship, and probably the most dived of Malta's permitted deep wrecks.
WreckSea conditions
Stay dry right now
Sea is up (3.1 m NW) · Fresh W wind (33 km/h) · Gusts to 47 km/h
Done for today. Tomorrow: not looking good. Best it gets is 18 at 17:00: Sea is up (1.3 m NW)
Forecast for the site, updated 19:45 · Models disagree
Measured at Delimara (8.4 km away, 20:29): 25 km/h from W, gusts 40. The next hours lean on it.
- Waves
- 3.1 m
- from NW, biggest 4.7
- Wind
- 33 km/h
- W, gusts 47
- Swell
- 1.0 m
- 9 s period
- Sea temp
- 22 °C
- air 19 °C
Hour by hour
Next 7 days
0 3.1 m53 W
0 3.0 m50 WNW
49 0.9 m20 WNW
81 0.5 m16 ESE
66 0.6 m15 E
61 0.6 m25 NNE
66 0.5 m25 ENE
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°). Open water off the southeast coast with no shelter. The gregale and any easterly component make it undiveable and also build swell quickly. Pick a light southwesterly and a settled forecast. Current is the real variable here: it can run hard enough to make the swim back along the hull genuinely tiring, so brief a drift plan and carry a good marker. Best season: May to October, with the calmest and clearest conditions typically from late summer into early autumn..
The dive
Southwold is the deep wreck that Maltese technical divers keep going back to, and with reason. She broke into two sizeable pieces on the way down, which means you get a forty metre bow section lying over on its starboard side and a twenty eight metre stern section sitting bolt upright, three hundred metres apart on clean sand. Two dives, two moods, one ship.
The bow is the bigger and more dramatic half, running back to the engine room, and it has the recognisable destroyer shapes: the stem, the forward deck, the mounting positions. The stern half is smaller but arguably more photogenic, because upright wrecks always are, and its clean lines rise off the sand with the screws and rudder gear still in place. Both are well grown over now and both are full of fish, especially the swallowtail sea perch that seem to come with every deep Maltese wreck.
She has also been surveyed in detail and there is a published three dimensional model of the bow section, which is a genuinely useful thing to study before you go. Do that. It turns fifteen minutes of confused metal into a dive you can actually navigate.
- Two substantial wreck sections from one destroyer, three hundred metres apart
- Upright stern half, which photographs beautifully
- A Second Battle of Sirte veteran lost two days after the action
- Published three dimensional survey of the bow section to study beforehand
- Reliably heavy fish life on both halves
Typical plan
Normoxic trimix is usually sufficient. Pick one section. On the bow, drop the shot forward, work aft along the starboard-lying hull to the break, then return to the line, around twenty to twenty five minutes on the bottom. On the stern, a slow circuit of an upright twenty eight metre piece fits comfortably in twenty minutes. Around an hour of decompression on fifty percent nitrox and oxygen, and plan a drift deco if the current is running.
What the bottom looks like
- 1Bow section on its starboard side, about forty metres long66 m deep · under the boat
- 2Forward deck and gun mounting area68 m deep · 17 m from the boat
- 3Torn break aft of the engine room70 m deep · 40 m from the boat
- 4Open sand between the two sections72 m deep · 162 m from the boat
- 5Stern section sitting upright, about twenty eight metres long73 m deep · 282 m from the boat
Flat, clean offshore sand, pale enough that the two dark sections stand out against it from several metres away.
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 centre or club on a licensed boat, booked through the Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit. Boats generally run out of Marsaskala or Sliema depending on sea state. The bow and stern need separate shots, so decide which half you are diving before you leave the quay. Standard conditions apply: no penetration, no touching, war grave, no collecting. Marsaskala has parking, cafes and toilets at the quay, which makes the surface interval civilised.
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.
- Seventy metres plus on trimix with a substantial decompression obligation
- Strong currents are regularly reported over this site
- War grave with unexploded ordnance on and around the wreck
- Torn structure at the break, with sharp edges and entanglement points
- Snagged fishing line, this ground is worked by local boats
- Three hundred metres of open sand between the two halves, do not try to swim it on a deco schedule
- Exposed offshore position with a long open water ascent
Marine life to respect
Common stingray · Boll Can hurt you
Whips a barbed tail if stepped on or cornered. Stay off the sand and give it room.
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
Southwold was a Type II Hunt-class escort destroyer, roughly eighty five metres long with a nine and a half metre beam, completed in October 1941 and sent to the Mediterranean Fleet. She fought at the Second Battle of Sirte on 22 March 1942, escorting the convoy ship Breconshire towards Malta. Two days later, on 24 March, while working to assist the disabled Breconshire off the southeast coast, she struck a mine. The explosion killed one officer and four ratings and flooded her engine room. She was abandoned, sagged badly and went down in two pieces around two and a half kilometres off Marsaskala. Her sister ship HMS Oakley, later transferred to Poland as ORP Kujawiak, is another deep Maltese wreck lost the same year. Southwold came under Heritage Malta management on 1 May 2019 and diving her now requires a permit.
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Further reading: Heritage Malta: HMS Southwold · Calypso Sub Aqua Club dive notes and coordinates for HMS Southwold · Wikipedia: HMS Southwold (L10) · Three dimensional model of the bow section