In her operating lifetime
Rosalie Moller was never a significant ship, she was just another
small steamer, typical of hundreds, if not thousands, of small
ships that spent their time steaming all around the world taking
things from place to place. She was
built on the Glasgow slips of Barclay Curle and launched as the Francis
in January 1910. She boasted a covered bridge but her steering
gear was fully exposed except for rudimentary weather protection
provided by a canvas cover, and ser holds were spacious. She
was ideally built for the transport of coal, and that became one
of her regular cargoes.
The Booth Shipping Line of Liverpool took
her and put her to work carrying cargos around the coasts of Britain
and Europe. She survived the First World War
and worked around the world throughout the 1920’s. In March 1931
she was sold on to the Moller Line, another Lancashire based shipping company,
and they sent her to the China trade, where she ran a regular coastal route based
on Shanghai.
By the late 1930’s it was clear that war in Europe was inevitable and the
British Admiralty began to requisition ships, including colliers, so the Rosalie
Moller came home.
For the first months of the war she was based out of South Wales, and took loads
of best Welsh coal around the coasts of Britain, once going as far south as Gibraltar.
The intense Naval war in the eastern Mediterranean meant that additional supplies
of coal were urgently needed in Alexandria, so Rosalie Moller was ordered to
proceed independently to Alexandria with a cargo of 4,760 tons of Welsh coal.
Best Welsh coal was the firm favourite of the Royal Navy, it burns a little hotter
and a bit cleaner, delivering better speed or greater steaming range with less
smoke to warn an enemy relying on the human eye to spot your presence. Of
course, major units of the Royal navy were oil fired by this time, but there
were plenty of older ships still reliant on coal.
Rosalie Moller left Cardiff and made the trip on her own. By then she was an
old lady and so slow she would have endangered the safety of a convoy. Her
voyage, made at little more than walking pace, ended safely on 6th October 1941
when she dropped anchor in Safe Anchorage H, behind Gubal Island. Not long
after her anchor-flukes bit into the good holding ground her crew would have
heard, and perhaps even seen, the explosion as German bombers sank Thistlegorm. It
can’t have been the most comforting of welcomes.
Two nights later, on 8th October, the Heinkels were back. A bomb dropped
neatly between the hull of Rosalie Moller and her cargo of coal. The coal
absorbed all the inward blast and did very little damage to her fixtures and
fittings, but the outward force ripped a huge gash in her hull. The warm,
clear waters of the Red Sea flowed in, gradually filling the spaces between the
lumps of coal from bow to stern until her buoyancy had gone and she sank to the
bottom.
Two of her crew died, the rest were dumped ashore at the southern end of the
Suez Canal to fend for themselves in exactly the same way as the crew of Thistlegorm.
The Rosalie Moller herself was forgotten and left to lie alone and intact until
she was rediscovered by scuba divers.
Dive boats generally tie directly above her, bow to bow, so you’ll step
off the rear platform of your boat to descend a line to the wreck. Just
about uniquely for the northern wrecks you can get to a point where you’ve
lost sight of the surface before you can see the wreck below, the visibility
here is generally a little less than elsewhere. When the wreck does come
into sight you’ll see that she looks intact, and for once here is a wreck
that is intact. Her handrails still run around the entire deck, fixtures
and fitting remain in place, there are even pans on the range of her galley.
Depth is helping to protect her. Her decks lie at around thirty five metres,
and it is easily possible if you slip over her bow or stern to record forty five
metres, though her stern is so graceful it’s worth the reduction in time
you’ll have to endure. The rule is no-decompression, so dives to
this depth tend to be short.
One dive isn’t enough on this wreck, the depth will give you maybe twenty
or so minutes of bottom time, enough for a quick end-to-end swim and no more. A
better plan is to divide the wreck into front and rear halves, diving the front
section on one dive and the stern section on the next. It is possible to
swim at thirty metres and still see enough of the wreck if you want to give yourself
a bit more time.
The sheer quantity of fish you’ll see here is often staggering. The
bridge is easily entered, but can be so full of glassfish that it is possible
to swim into the walls without seeing them. The bases of her masts shimmer
with huge shoals of glassfish and other small fish, and hunting tuna and lionfish
can dart over your shoulder to take a snack in front of your eyes. Look
into the blue and the menacing shapes of barracuda are a common sight. Photographers
can find it tough to shoot the wreck with so many fish in the way.
When the time comes, and it comes all too quickly, ascents can be made up her
masts, both of which still stand. Their tops are in twenty metres of water,
just about perfect for deep stops, and they’re thickly covered in marine
life to keep you occupied as you wait your time out. When you get to the
line for your safety stop keep an eye open, batfish are commonly seen and the
occasional manta isn’t unheard of.
