Today’s featured wreck is the Ulysses, a 95.1m long “Iron Screw Steamer”.
On 16 August 1887 she struck the northern side of Gubal Seghir and was hard aground. Upon first inspection, Captain Bremner estimated the damage to the ship to be slight and, as the ship’s pumps were easily handling the amount of incoming water, he decided to wait for assistance from any passing vessels.
Assistance in the form of 2 lighters, with the HMS Falcon didn’t arrive until the 20th of August. During those days between the grounding and the arrival of help, the ship had been slowly working herself on the reef in the building seas. This would prove to be the end of the ship.
By the time the ship’s cargo was offloaded the reef had done its damage. Soon afterwards she slipped slowly off the reef and quietly sank by the stern, settling on the reef below with only her bow and bowsprit remaining above the water.
She now lies on her port side on the northern face of Gubal Sheghir with her bow, or what is left of it, lying in 4-5 meters of water and the rest of the wreck descending down the reef to where her propeller lies partially buried in the sand at 28 meters.
Learn more at: http://www.redseawreckproject.com/red-sea-shipwreck-database/u/ulysses/
