Iona Wreck

A Victorian-era iron steamer that hit the reef at full speed around the First World War. Dishes and bottles were thrown forward and the whistle bent over. She now lies from 14 m at the bow down a reef slope that reaches 46 m.

14–46 mdepth range

~17 kmoffshore

1980found by divers

The guided dive lasts about 6 minutes. Tap Sound for regulator breathing. Take control any time with the joystick or by dragging to look.

Shermo Reef · off Yanbu · Red Sea

Iona Wreck

A 19th-century iron steamer that ran aground at full speed. Upright and nose-up on the reef slope: bow at 14 m, stern and propeller down past 35 m, sand at 46 m.

Depth

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DiveAir · 21%

0.0m

Time0:00

Max0.0 m

NDL--

Heading000°

Temp27°C

Tank200 bar

ASC

Illustrative only. Not for dive planning.

Drag to look · joystick to swim · ▲ ▼ to rise and sink

Swim

Dossier

Everything in this list comes from published dive-site descriptions and divers' accounts. It sets the model's depths, attitude and details.

Name: Known to divers as the SS Iona. A diver's letter says a recovered dinner plate reads "Ionia", and another account says the name was matched through engine numbers. The identification is still debated.
Location: Shermo Reef, about 17 km off Yanbu, Saudi Arabia
Type: Iron steamship with an English-built engine and gauges. A Chubb & Sons safe aboard was logged leaving the maker's stock in 1875.
Loss: Date unknown, probably around the First World War. One theory says the ship was captured by Germany and handed to the Ottomans before running onto the reef. The wreck was found by chance in 1980.
Impact: She ran aground at full speed. Dishes, bottles and other items in the dining room were thrown forward, and the steam whistle on the funnel was bent forward at about 45°.
Finds: Empty and sealed champagne bottles (the sealed ones held seawater), De Barza mineral-water bottles, engine gauges with Arabic numerals, a Liverpool shipping-line napkin ring, and the safe, which held only ash.
Depths: The dive spans 14–46 m. The wreck lies down the reef slope, bow shallow and stern deep. One guide puts the fantail at about 20 m.
Condition: Heavily covered in soft and hard corals, so it is a wreck dive and a reef dive in one. Penetration is possible with training. A shallow reef sits right beside it.
Life: Large schools of fish, barracuda, lionfish and moray eels
Divers: Advanced Open Water for the upper wreck. The deeper parts need deep or technical training. Visibility is often around 18 m (60 ft).

No plans, survey, sonar scan or photogrammetry of this wreck have been published. The ship is a reconstruction of a typical 1870s British iron screw steamer, fitted to the documented depths and details. Check it against your own footage.

Assumed

Hull: 68 m long, 8.6 m beam, 6.2 m depth, with a straight stem, an elliptical counter (fantail) stern, a short forecastle and a raised poop over the saloon.
Attitude: upright, bow jammed against the reef crest at 14 m, stern-down on the slope at about 15° with a slight list to port. That puts the fantail rail at about 30 m and the propeller at about 40 m, with the sand at 46 m just below. One published guide gives the fantail as 20 m. That figure implies an almost level wreck, which does not match the bow-shallow, stern-deep attitude divers describe or the 46 m maximum, so the model follows the slope instead.
Machinery: two Scotch boilers and a vertical compound engine amidships, a single four-blade propeller. The deck over the boiler room has collapsed, and there is a breach in the starboard plating.
The wooden main deck has mostly rotted away, leaving iron deck beams. The iron forecastle and poop decks survive.
The foremast is broken off short. The mainmast has fallen over the starboard side. The boats are gone from the davits.
Bottles, plates and the safe in the saloon are placed to match the account of items thrown forward. Their exact positions are illustrative.
The reef layout and compass headings are illustrative only.

Dive mode

The dive computer's no-decompression limit uses the recreational air table and a simple nitrogen-loading estimate. Gas use assumes a 12 L tank and 15 L/min surface consumption. It is for immersion only. Never plan a real dive with it.
Breathing cycles every 5 seconds. Exhaled bubbles rise and grow as they rise, as they do in real water. Regulator sound is synthesised in your browser.

How it's rendered

Water absorbs red light fastest, then green, then blue. The shader applies that per channel along both the sunlight's path down and your line of sight. That is why the reds are gone by the propeller. Switch on the torch to bring the colour back up close.
Moving caustics, light shafts, marine snow, ambient occlusion and bloom. Growth, rust, rivets and sand ripples are generated per pixel from position, so detail holds up close. Turn off Cinematic on slower devices.

What would sharpen it

A lap of the hull on video at a steady 2–3 m standoff, plus a few measured distances. That is enough for photogrammetry.
A compass heading along the keel, and depths at the bow, fantail, propeller and the top of the funnel.
Lloyd's Register entries for the Iona or Ionia (tonnage, builder, year) to fix the hull form.