The S.S. Mohegan is one of England's most famous scuba diving wrecks, a wicked dive with a lot of historic facts.
| Name Dive Site: | S.S. Mohegan, Mohegan Wreck |
| Depth: | 59-91ft (18-28m) |
| Visibility: | 16-49ft (5-15m) |
| Accessibility: | Boat |
| Inserted/Added by: | lars, © Author: Lars Hemel |
| Rated: | Rated 1.0, 4 votes |
| Specifications: |    |
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Best dive-season / How to get there: Can be dived all year with good weather conditions. Boats available from Falmouth on a regular basis.
The S.S. Mohegan Wreck is now situated onto the treacherous Manacles Reef with a broken hull and its bow at a depth of 20 meter. You can spot 3 huge boilers, remains of its engine, cargo hatches and lots and lots of marine species. Occasionally, divers still find pottery, crockery and other artifacts. May and June are great months to dive here as you might spot orca whales, dolphins and basking sharks. A dive on the Mohegan is often combined with a visit to the in anemone encrusted wall near Maen Voes, slightly to the south-west of the wreck.
The history of the Mohegan started in 1898 when she was built as a passenger/cattle liner called the Cleopatra. Bought by the Atlantic Transport Line she first sailed from London to New York on the 31th of July 1898. Malfunctions, defects and a complaining crew sealed her destiny on the long way back. She was fully checked and renamed the Mohegan when captain Griffith took her under command on another voyage starting in Tilbury heading towards New York. They passed Falmouth on full speed, down the Lizard Coast, until they finally struck the Manacle Rocks, initially Vase Rock losing its rudder to continue drifting onto Maen Varses reef where a huge part of its starboard side was ripped apart. In 16 minutes she was down on the ocean floor taking with her the lives of 106 passenger and crew members.
As always with important ships, rumors and wild tales are soon to be told. Locals supposedly had seen captain Griffith in the first lifeboat that reached shore, running into the hills. He, as a shareholder, was setting up an insurance scam and had deliberately sunk the ship. Later research off course concluded that the ship was insured for less than it was worth and captain Griffith had never been seen again.
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Name: atlanticscuba
The Mohegan was a 6889 ton steamship that was on voyage to New York from London. It's heading past Cornwall was just a couple of degrees north and it ended up hitting Vase Rock on the Manacles at full speed, it lost it's rudder and crashed onto the rocks known as the Voices (Maen Voes). Over 100 people including crew and passengers lost their lives on the 147m long ship.Over the years it has had a lot of salvage work done, even the engine was salvaged. It lies quite broken but is huge and it takes a long time to swim from one end to the other. Most boats drop their shotlines around the boilers, they are huge and easily spotted on the sounder.There are actually four boilers, it looks like three boilers but one is two small boilers back to front. It is surrounded by rocks of the Manacles which are covered in anemones and corals. The wreck itself is a haven for life and you can see just about everything you could expect to see in the U.K.
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