The Egyptian liveaboard Seaduction took on water and sank in late October, at Elba Reef near the border with Sudan. JOHN BANTIN explains why special care has to be taken when using timber-hulled vessels in the Red Sea
Scuba divers and experienced ocean-going mariners would have you believe that the Red Sea is two entirely different places.
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The main shipping lanes that form the important thoroughfare between the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Suez and Suez Canal are positioned between the Arabian Peninsula and the North African deserts. The Empty Quarter of Arabia gets exceedingly hot, and the air consequently rises.
This draws air from the African side of the Red Sea, resulting in powerful winds, usually around force 8, with painfully uncomfortable short seas. Only during the hottest part of the year are the deserts on both continents in equilibrium, with consequently calm water for a period of a few weeks.
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On the other hand, those who go diving around Egypt’s reefs enjoy calm water sheltered by being in the lee of the land to its west. Not so those who venture out from Jeddah on the Saudi side, which suffers from an onshore wind.
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ETA: Never
Back in the early 1990s, I crewed a vessel that made its way south the whole length of the Red Sea. It was summer, and we hoped for calm weather. Nevertheless, we were not lucky with the weather coming north from Port Sudan.
The slim hull of our vessel was 60 years old but made of solid German steel and designed for the less-hospitable seas of northern Europe, so we punched onwards.
Although we had a notional cruising speed of eight knots, there were times when the recently fitted GPS displayed “ETA: Never”, because we were making no headway.
Years later, I made the same journey in the Egyptian m/y Royal Emperor. It was a steel-hulled vessel that had been pressed into service as a diving liveaboard. The journey north from Port Sudan was so tough that we needed to shelter for a time behind a reef while the crew bailed out the water from the cabins below decks.
The bilge pumps had not been able to deal with the onslaught. The violence from continuously head-butting the waves even caused some air-conditioning units to fall off the walls of the salon.
So you can enjoy a following sea, going south, but there’s only one way back.
Safety in numbers
Once the Egyptian diving industry took off, several Egyptian-built liveaboards would optimistically venture offshore to the Brother Islands. The journey back north was so intense that there were often casualties.
The Egyptian authorities then decreed that such boats had to travel in convoy, so that between them they would be able to effect the rescue of any vessel that failed during the journey.
The Egyptians make nice-looking boats, but they make them from timber. If they collide with the reef, it’s usually fatal for the hull, but if they stay in the calm waters around the reefs in the lee of Egypt’s shore, they should be OK.
Take one out into the main sea-lanes that are so notorious with ocean-going mariners and, punching into the sea going north, it will often result in structural failure and the possible loss of the vessel.
Wooden-hulled vessels not designed or intended for offshore use that attempt the journey suffer from the ignorance or hubris of the operator.
We know of only one Egyptian liveaboard vessel constructed and run in compliance with SOLAS regulations, suitable for the journey back from Elba Reef. It wasn’t m/y Seaduction. It is the steel-hulled m/y Royal Evolution.
- John Bantin is senior editor of Undercurrent
Also on Divernet: EGYPTIAN LIVEABOARD SINKS IN DEEP SOUTH, EXOCET DIVE-BOAT SANK AFTER HITTING RED SEA REEF, RED SEA LIVEABOARD SINKS AT ABU NUHAS, ‘OUR DIVE LIVEABOARD CAPSIZED: NOW WHAT?’, HOW WELL-COVERED IS YOUR LIVEABOARD TRIP?
