Rosalie Moller

The mast comes first, topping out at about 18 metres. Below it the deck slopes across 30 to 35 metres, and the 108-metre hull stands upright on an even keel with the bow resting around 40 metres.1 The sandy seabed lies deeper still, reported anywhere from 45 to 55 metres. Guides have set a line at the stern and another at the bow, joined by a connecting line, so the dive can run from one end of the wreck to the other and finish on the line back to the boat.

A natural route starts at the stern, works forward along the starboard side past the galley, the engineer's accommodation and holds three and four, enters the bridge, rounds the bow and ends up the mast. The bridge is stripped and the captain's safe has been forced open, yet the bridge is penetrable and keeps its basic structure.2 The funnel is broken, and the Moller Line emblem still adorns it.1

Glassfish shoals blanket the deck and bridge while lionfish hunt through them, large groupers favour the bows, bigeyes sit on the stern deck, and anemones, crocodile fish and torpedo rays decorate the structure.

Most of the original artefacts have long since been removed from the hull, and the holds are not packed with cargo the way the Thistlegorm's are. What remains is steel, coral and the life that has moved in, from glassfish shoals to large groupers in the bows.

The water here is a little murkier than elsewhere on a Red Sea trip, and the wreck lies deep.

Barclay Curle & Co. built her in Glasgow around 1910 as the Francis for the Booth Steamship Company, a cargo steamer of 108.2 metres with a 15-metre beam.1 In 1931 she was sold to the Moller Line of Shanghai and renamed Rosalie Moller, working the China route.3

Her tie to the Thistlegorm is the raid itself. She is sometimes described as that ship's sister, but the two were different vessels, a Glasgow collier of about 1910 and a freighter built in Sunderland in 1940. Two days after the destruction of the Thistlegorm, the Rosalie Moller suffered a similar attack.2 Two bombs were released, one striking No 3 hold at 0045, and she sank at 0140 on 8 October 1941 with two crew missing.1

The funnel was damaged in 2001 in a deliberate attempt to remove its copper steam whistle.2

The liveaboard itineraries that include her ask for Advanced Open Water as a minimum, and one operator grades the dive very difficult. Reaching her is part of the challenge: an almost constant current and wind make the descent to depth hard work, so the set lines matter, and a surface marker belongs on the ascent.

Engine-room penetration is described as a technical dive needing training and equipment. Gas is the rest of the planning: EAN28 reaches its limit of about 40 metres at roughly the depth of the bow, and the deeper stern toward the seabed belongs to divers equipped for it.