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Macbeth

This wreck is a side trawler about 35m long which hit a reef and then broke in two. Locals say that the ship's name is the Macbeth wrecked around 1955, but I have no further details on her history. Hellyer Brothers of Hull built at least four trawlers named Macbeth, and an armed minesweeping trawler HMS Macbeth was launched in 1941 and sold in 1947; but I can find no record of any of them being lost.

The stern section is broken off cleanly in front of the wheelhouse. It lies on its port side at 36m on a sandy bottom at the foot of a vertical wall, 5-10m out from the wall. The top of the stern section is at about 30m. The hull and internal frames are intact but much of the decking has gone and the wheelhouse and plates have fallen away from the superstructure, making it easy to explore inside the wreck. A mast lies on the seabed just abaft the wheelhouse. The propeller is still in place. The rudder has broken off and lies on the sand. There were many fish and spider crabs on this part of the wreck.

The bow section of the wreck is on the opposite side of the reef in 12-14m, more or less vertically above the stern. The best way to find the bow is to swim diagonally up the wall from the stern to about 12m then contour round the end of the reef until you are above the stern but behind the reef. This route avoids going over the top of the reef - which is very shallow - and having to redescend, which would be provocative of DCI. The bow section is very broken.