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Gosport, Wrecks and Sites
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Rather than reproduce whole sections of ‘Dive Wight and Hampshire’ or indeed David Wendes' excellent book 'South Coast Shipwrecks' our aim here is describe a just few of our favourites
HMS Prince Leopold
The ship was converted to an Infrantly landing troopship from a Belgian passanger liner of some 3000 tons with over 15,000HP from its 6 steam turbines in 1941
Sunk on 29th July 1944 on its way to the beach heads in Normandy
The wreck now lies upright with a starboard list in 30-35m standing up to 10m proud
Cuba
The S/S Cuba was another liner this time French and at over 11,000 tons almost 4 times the size of the Prince Leopold, she was taken over by the Royal Navey as a troop transport.
Sunk on April 6th 1945, when in convoy VWP 16 by the U-1195
Though salvaged and dispersed much of this very large wreck site stands up to 14m proud in around 35m
SS Wapello
This huge WW1 tanker of over 5500 tons and some 120m in length was sunk by the UC71 on the 15th June 1941 and now lies on her side in around 30m off the south east corner of the Isle of Wight
SS Donegal
The SS Donegal was an armed British merchant steamer of around 1800 tones, built in 1904 as a passanger vessel
Sunk on the 17th April 1917 by the UC21 she now lies intact on her port side in around 45-50m well offshore.
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