Description: Ocean liner / passenger-cargo steamer
Built: 1930
Propulsion: Quadruple-expansion steam engines with five boilers
Weight (tons): 6809
LengthxWidth (m): 140 x 19 (459ftx61ft)
Reason sinking: Air raid
Date sunk: 27/03/1941
Position: 55°34’073N 01°36’094W
GPS: N 055 34 134 W 001 36 097
Max | Min Depth: 28 | 19

The wreck today: Upright. Lies approximately N-S, the stern being to the north. Extensively salvaged. Stern gun in place. The seabed is sand/shale with small reefs. The vessel is well broken, the engine and boilers being the biggest identifiable parts. Cargo, particularly bicycles, in clear view. Many bottles. Some coins, but most carried onto nearby beaches. Dive at slack. Beware of strong spring tide currents. There can be around 15 metres visibility

History:
The Somali was a big cargo ship, with the power to go with it. Quadruple-expansion steam engines with five boilers pushed her along at more than 15 knots on her passenger and cargo voyages for P&O to and from the Far East. The Somali, armed with a 12-pounder 4 inch A.A gun on the stern, was heading from London for Hong Kong (via Firth of Forth) for convoy assembly when she fell victim to a squadron of Heinkel 111 bombers on 27 March, 1941 off Blyth. She was the commodore ship of Convoy FF442. She sunk two days after being bombed. At the time she was carrying 9000 tons of general cargo, including non-ferrous metals, shoes, gas masks, cosmetics, horses, bicycles, jeeps and tyres, hay, batteries, medical supplies, bicycles, heavy lorry tyres, several 4x4s, some coins for Hong Kong banks, Chinese coins, a small quantity of mercury, photographic film and tons of toy lead soldiers.

Following unsuccessful attempts to control the fire in her holds, while under tow, an explosion broke the ship in two off Beadnell. There were no casualties.

She was found in 1973 and lying upright in 30m of water off Beadnell Point, about 1800 metres offshore, due east of Beadnell village. Easily accessible from Beadnell and Seahouses, the Somali is today a popular dive site. Local dive boats maintain at least one buoy on the Somali, often two. These only surfaces at or close to slack water – often too late to get two waves of divers in. They are typically tied on close to the boilers near the starboard side of the hull and also at the stern. Most of the 450ft hull is still intact and is visited by many divers each year. The bow section is missing. This is a slack water dive and local advice should be sought before diving.

The wreck is now owned by Stan Hall, but this has not prevented some indiscriminate salvaging. Never the less there is still much to see. The boilers are still there, and just forward, scattered on the seabed are many small jars containing hand cream along with, Pyrene hand pump fire extinguishers, and reels of film. It takes dives to fully appreciate this wreck, even after all the salvaging.

The engine stands about 40 metres away across piles of girders, pipes, gas cylinders, plates and what seems to be a cement bag reef (cargo?). The areas east and south of the engine are good for rummaging – producing assorted bottles (medicine?), jars (cosmetics?), film, cutlery and ceramic electrical fittings. Rumour has it that a microscope was found here some years ago. South & west of the engine are the five huge boilers – still intact, beyond these the wreckage is well scattered and less piled-up, it’s easy to swim off the wreck and loose it in this area if the vis is poor so don’t venture too far. The wreck is home to large pollack, cod, bib and shoals of saithe during the summer. As a result it’s popular with anglers so beware of discarded line and hooks.

The wreck is easy to find, just look for the half dozen ribs parked over her. The best time to dive the wreck is on a neap tide at low slack water, which is 1 – 1 & 1/2 hours after low water Seahouses. Theoretically, slack water occurs about one hour after the tide turns at Blyth/Tynemouth, so during the summer simply add two hours to the GMT table times for Blyth/Tyne and that’ll give you a close enough time for slack at Beadnell, Newton and The Somali in BST. If you’re using Seahouses (North Sunderland) tables, the tides are about 40 minutes earlier, so you only need to add about 80 minutes.

Wreck Tour

Beginning at the starboard side of the boilers (1), the first area of cargo immediately beneath the bulkhead contains the remains of drums of cement (2). The depth here is typically 29 to 30m, depending on the tide. This hold is pretty much flattened (3). Divers rummaging here have found bottles of cold cream, canisters of celluloid photographic film, silver salt cellars, printing stamps, shaving kits and lead soldiers. Nevertheless, with so much wreck to see, don’t spend too long here yet. See as much of the stern section as you can and fill in any spare time at the end of the dive by searching around here.

Forward of this hold, the wreck ends. The Somali split apart when it sank and the forward part is some distance away. The bow section is rumoured still to contain the ship’s safe. A safe would normally be in the captain’s cabin or somewhere else close to the wheelhouse, but the Somali was unusual in that its safe was located in the forecastle, so that anyone approaching it would be seen by the officer on watch from the wheelhouse. This has given rise to stories of hidden treasure to be found by any diver managing to locate the bows.

Back at the skeleton of the bulkhead and following it across the ship to the port side, there are three large boilers across the width of the hull. At the port side, a gap between the boiler and the hull and deck above makes a nice swim-through (4). This comes out next to a second row of two similarly sized boilers, making five overall (5). All this capacity was put to use in one of the largest steam engines I have ever seen on a dive. The four enormous cylinders tower above the wreck, rising as shallow as 23m (6). Towards the base of the engine the rods and crankshaft are exposed and it is possible to swim though the middle of the engine beneath the pistons. A large shoal of pollack can often be seen swimming above the engine.

Behind the engine and a broken bulkhead is more cement cargo, this time in sacks (7). Past another broken bulkhead and you’ll see a pile of large truck tyres (8) with the remains of a cargo winch lying on the centre line of the ship among the tyres (9). Behind the winch and tyres are more drums of cement (10). The final hold was refrigerated. Tubes from the refrigeration system lie clustered like a scout’s campfire over a pile of debris (11). To the starboard side lie a large number of empty gas cylinders, all rotted through (12). I suspect that these were used to run the refrigeration machinery.

The large fallen box structure with a post sticking out to starboard is the gun mount. Still attached, the 12-pounder anti-aircraft gun rests on the seabed with its barrel nestling between a pair of bollards (13). Looking up from the breach of the gun you will see the remains of the stern resting on its starboard side. Even in poor visibility you will be able to pick it out by its shadow. Broken free of the stern and resting on the bottom at either side are the stern anchor chutes (14). A large anchor lies nearby on the port side of the wreckage.

In the centre of the ship, the rudder post sticks out of the debris with small bits of mounting plates attached at intervals along its length (15). Towards the bottom of the rudder post, the outline of the propshaft tunnel can just be picked out among the general debris (16), pointing forward beneath the remains of the refrigerated hold. Returning towards the boilers along the starboard side, forward of the gas cylinders, you can see the spare propeller (17), partly obscured by a section of a mast. Level with the engines, but off the starboard side of the hull, are the remains of another cargo winch (18). A bit further forward, roughly level with the boilers, is yet another winch, this time with a large pile of chain just in front of it (19).

Ascending the side of the hull here puts you back at the starting point (1), but if you still have bottom time and air, now is the time to spend a few minutes examining the remains of the forward hold (3) to make up for the cursory visit at the start of the dive. As mentioned at the start of the tour, this hold is largely flattened, but it is also the one that contained most of the diverse general cargo. With such a selection of trinkets to be found, this must be one of the most rummaged holds on any wreck, but divers still occasionally find something new.

Over the years, the Somali has been worked for salvage a number of times, each time breaking the wreck up further. Even recently the overall structure used to be much more intact, but a smash-and grab-salvage operation in the early ’90s reduced the wreck to its current state. It was only a few years ago that I first dived the Somali. Though it is still a magnificent wreck, I just wish I could have dived it earlier.

The Sinking – The Heinkel 111 bombers slid out of cloud hanging over the Northumberland coast to score three direct hits on the hay-filled No 3 hold of the Somali. The result, on that afternoon of 25 March, 1941, was a ship on fire.

The two Naval gunners did their best with the old 12-pounder on her stern, but the Heinkels zoomed untouched back into cloud cover. As the Somali drifted, her 72 crew and 38 passengers did their best to fight the fire. An armed trawler called Pelican bravely took her in tow. At 11 the following night, as the fire gained ground and the weather worsened, the flames clearly visible from shore, the order to abandon ship was given. The trawler took off all aboard and slipped the tow and warnings broadcast by the local Coastguard station. However, the Somali was stubborn and refused to sink she drifted again until, in the early hours of 27 March, a salvage crew from the large salvage tug Sea Giant came aboard with the idea of saving her by beaching for salvage as the fire had not completely damaged the cargo.

At exactly 1pm, when the ship was about a mile off Beadnell Point, there was a small bang, followed by a colossal explosion. So powerful was the blast that the bow section was ripped away and sent into the air before splashing down several metres away. The bow has never been located. Many divers claim to have discovered it, but there has been no verification of such claims.

The salvage crew standing aft were hurled into the air and out over the boats alongside. Amazingly no one was hurt, though red-hot coins sizzled on the beaches of Beadnell and other debris rained down on a local hotel. The force of the explosion has led many to believe that the Somali was actually carrying munitions to the Far East, though this has never been proved. Five minutes later the Somali went down upright.

To add some fuel to the story, the Somali’s safe, it is said, was located in the bow. If that is the case, does it still contain the ship’s purse and any valuables placed in it by passengers? Doubtful. The crew of the Sea Giant had several hours to clear the safe, and that’s if the ship’s captain didn’t do just that before he ordered the ship to be abandoned.

It’s a good element to the lost bow story, however. I’m quite surprised that no one has mounted an expedition to discover the bow’s whereabouts in the past 40 years. Whenever you dive the main wreck, skippers always recount the bow’s mysterious disappearance and the fact that no one has found it. So how likely is it to be discovered? Well, the seabed in the general location is around 30m, so it is well within diveable depths. Yet the area is also washed with fierce currents and the dive window is very short – even during a neap slack – so time is not on any diver’s side.

I think you would need a sidescan sonar to help locate the bow wreckage, which is an expense out of the reach of most divers, especially when all you’re looking for is a twisted hunk of metal. The Somali’s bow is there somewhere, but finding it won’t be easy. As a challenge, it’s a worthy exercise, but there will be no reward at the end of the day – except perhaps an article in a diving magazine.