SS Egypt

SS ''Egypt'' was a P&O ocean liner. She sank after a collision with on 20 May 1922 in the Celtic Sea. 252 people were rescued from the 338 passengers and crew aboard at the time. A subsequent salvage operation recovered most of the cargo of gold and silver.

Early career

Caird & Company built ''Egypt'' at Greenock on the River Clyde, launching her in 1897. She generally ran between United Kingdom and India, but also was a hospital ship in the First World War.

Final voyage

''Egypt'' left Tilbury, Essex, on 19 May 1922 carrying only 44 passengers and a cargo that included gold and silver bullion and gold sovereigns worth over £1 million (around £200 million at the 2012 gold price).

The voyage proceeded normally until the early morning of 20 May when fog was encountered. As a safety measure Captain Collyer greatly reduced the speed of the ship. ''Egypt'' remained in fog until the afternoon when the navigator was able to sight landmarks on the French coast and fix the ship's position.

After continuing the voyage for several hours a dense fog bank was suddenly encountered at around 7 o'clock. The engines were stopped but almost immediately afterwards a fog whistle was heard. The steamship ''Seine'' emerged through the fog and within seconds struck ''Egypt''s port side in the Celtic Sea off the Ar Men Lighthouse, Finistère, France. ''Seine'' had a strengthened bow for ice-breaking, which penetrated deeply into ''Egypt''′s hull before the ships drifted apart.

An SOS distress signal was transmitted and replies were received from the steamers and RMS ''Andes'' but ''Egypt'' sank in less than 20 minutes before either ship arrived. Most of the passengers and crew were able to abandon ship in the lifeboats which were picked up by ''Seine'', but 86 of the 352 people on board ''Egypt'' died.

Salvage

Because ''Egypt'' had such valuable cargo, it was not long before salvage attempts began. However, the ''Egypt''′s wreck was not found until 1930. She was found lying upright in a depth of , 70 fathoms, making the recovery very difficult with the technology of that time. Giovanni Quaglia from the Genoese company ''Società Ricuperi Marittimi'' (So.Ri.Ma.) was in charge of the operation and decided to use his salvage fleet with the main ship '' Artiglio'' in which they were embarked a famous group of expert hard hat divers under the command of the chief diver Alberto Gianni, who was also an inventor of special diving equipment. Thanks to the great skill and inventiveness of the diver chief Alberto Gianni, the point where the ship sank was found and with the use of his specially-built armoured suit, called ''Torretta Butoscopica'', with a diver inside who was able to direct all the salvage operations at that depth, and the placing of explosives to blast through the ship to expose the strong room. The diver then directed a grab which picked up the gold and silver. The salvage continued until 1935 by which time 98% of the contents of the strong room had been recovered.
All the phases of the recovery were reported by the Times reporter David Scott, who sent the cables every day to the newspaper, and who then published two famous books on this adventure, the first very deep recovery by divers, "''Seventy Fathom deep, with the divers of salvage ship Artiglio''" and "''The Egypt's gold''" also translated into Italian.

Diving

During June 2001 a team of British technical divers known as the Starfish Enterprise left Plymouth, England aboard the 24m long Royal Navy fleet tender 'Loyal Watcher' in search of the wreck. The research position gave the wreck to be 150 nautical miles across the English Channel and into the Bay of Biscay. They discovered and positively identified the wreck laying 25 miles off the French island of Ushant, a place noted for those famous images of treacherous seas totally engulfing cliff top lighthouses.
The divers had conducted their exploration mainly on the upright bow of the wreck but noted that the remaining sections although upright had considerably broken down to seabed level. Each of the divers recorded a maximum depth of 127 meters (420 ft). Deep wreck photographer Leigh Bishop was able to photograph sections of the bellied hull suspended upright, a spare prop on the forward deck, porcelain marked with the P&O and numerous portholes with drip trays and square fastening dogs, a trademark of P&O liners.

References

Sources

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External links

* - "SS Egypt" ship loss history
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* – illustrated description of the salvage of ''Egypt''
* – diving exploration of shipwreck ''Egypt''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Egypt, SS
1897 ships
Ships built on the River Clyde
Hospital ships in World War I
Maritime incidents in 1922
Merchant ships of the United Kingdom
Passenger ships of the United Kingdom
Ships of P&O (company)
Ships sunk in collisions
World War I merchant ships of the United Kingdom
Shipwrecks in the Celtic Sea