Tony Backhurst Scuba Travel Red Sea Wrecks Million Hope

The shipping lines have always understood that the bigger the ship, the more cheaply it can deliver each ton of cargo, and Bulk Carriers are just about the biggest vessels afloat. The bulk carrier Ryusei Maru was launched in Japan in 1972. She was 175 metres long, 25 metres wide and had a draft of 11 metres, giving her a displacement of 26,200 tons. Her cargoes were carried in five huge holds and could be loaded and unloaded using the cranes set on the islands between them. Power came from a pair of equally big engines, two 6-cylinder 11,600 hp diesels giving her a maximum speed of 17 knots. Her bridge, superstructure and engines were set aft and housed her crew of twenty five.
She spent her first twenty four years carrying a wide variety of cargoes around the world. Like many other cargo vessels she was owned by a number of different companies and carried a number of different names until she was bought by the Aksonas Shipping Company of Limassol in May 1996 for £1.36m. They changed her name for the last time, calling her the Million Hope, and promptly insured her for £4.1m.
In the Jordanian port of Aqaba Million Hope took on a cargo of 26,000 tons of phosphates and potash, probably the cheapest bulk cargo available and used in the production of fertilisers amongst other things. She left Aqaba bound for Taiwan on 19th June 1996 and headed south down the Straits of Tiran.
Various accounts refer to deteriorating visibility and fire in her superstructure as she steamed south, but whatever the cause she ran headlong into the reef at Nabq, about 7 miles north of Sharm el Sheikh, sinking quickly. Her crew were recovered safely, and her Master was later blamed for the loss.
Inside Million Hope

Million Hope is an astonishing sight as the dive-boat gets closer. Much of her superstructure remains above water though she is beginning to collapse. She sits upright in a maximum of 22m with a pronounced list, her port rail is in six metres of water and her starboard rail only just submerged.
Divers are usually dropped to descend next to her stern, and the huge size of her propeller immediately reinforces the immense scale of this wreck. Swim along her starboard side in the canyon between her hull and the reef and you soon reach a point where all that is visible in front or behind is the smooth outer skin of that 175 metre long hull. About halfway along the wreck a huge v-shaped tear permits entry into one of the holds. All five holds are the same, vast underwater spaces far larger than a swimming pool. A tear on the opposite wall allows you to exit and turn right to continue toward the bow. Look carefully as you near the bow and you may be able to make out the remains of an earlier wreck, the Hey Daroma, completely flattened when the Million Hope struck. When you reach the bow of Million Hope you’ll see how much damage was caused by her collision with the reef, though if you ascend a little her Plimsoll markers are still quite clear and she looks undamaged. Ascend to the deck level and you can examine her colossal deck machinery as you swim back to her stern, usually occupied by very extrovert lionfish.
Million Hope is rarely dived.

Written and photographed by Mike Ward