Researchers from Bangor University have found the broken remains of the SS Mesaba – the ship which sent the ill-fated Titanic an iceberg warning before the mighty liner hit one and sank – in the depths of the Irish Sea.
The SS Mesaba was sunk by a torpedo from German U-Boat U-118 in World War One in 1918 while making a convoy voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia. Twenty lives were lost in the sinking.
Now, using advanced multibeam sonar, the Bangor Uni team has been able to pinpoint her final resting place, some 21 miles off Tuskar Rock, southeast of Rosslare in Ireland.
The Bangor Uni vessel Prince Madog scanned an area of some 7,500 square miles, and cross-referenced the shipwrecks found against the Hydrographic Office's database of wrecks and other sources. A total of 273 shipwrecks were found, including trawlers, cargo vessels, submarines, ocean liners and tankers, as well as the aforementoned Mesaba.
Details of all the wrecks have been published in a new book by Dr Innes McCartney, titled Echoes from the Deep.
Photo credit: Bangor University
