Argyll Wreck Map
7 wrecks in Argyll, United Kingdom. Recorded depths: 25–50 m. View on map
MV Akka
Built in wartime Gothenburg in 1942, this Swedish motor vessel was undone not by conflict but by a mundane steering failure in April 1956 that put her hard onto the rocks. The Firth of Clyde location means she is reachable from multiple launch points, and she provides a welcome alternative to the west-coast circuit centred on the Sound of Mull.
MV Tapti
Reaching the Tapti takes commitment — a 35-nautical-mile boat ride from Lochaline through some of Scotland's most scenic coastal waters — but those who make the journey find a wreck that rewards the effort handsomely. Built on the Clyde in 1945, this cargo motor vessel met her end in January 1953 when a storm drove her onto the rocks of Gunna Sound between Coll and Tiree. She broke into four distinct sections, and today the bow piece is the star of the show, lying on its port side and towering 15 metres off the seabed. Devonshire cup corals, soft corals and plumose anemones smother every surface, while the boiler, mast and winches remain clearly identifiable. The site is exposed and weather-dependent, giving it an adventurous quality that the more sheltered Mull wrecks lack.
SS Breda
Bombed by a Luftwaffe Heinkel in the Firth of Lorn in December 1940, this Dutch cargo steamer was beached in Ardmucknish Bay — only for winter gales to drag her back into deeper water where she settled upright on the seabed. The superstructure sits between 11 and 19 metres, with the seabed at around 30. Marine growth is lush, with dahlia anemones, soft corals and shoals of pollack patrolling the companionways.
SS Hispania
In December 1954 the Swedish cargo steamer Hispania ran onto Sgeir Mor reef in the Sound of Mull, and she came to rest upright with hardly any list, just inshore of the channel marker. More than sixty years under water have turned her into a garden of marine growth: plumose anemones, dead-man's fingers and bright, jewel-like tunicates cover every surface of her. Her holds still stand open, with what is left of her cargo of sheet metal and rubber lying inside, and her engine room survives.
SS Rondo
There is nothing quite like dropping onto the Rondo for the first time. This former wartime standard cargo ship — originally launched as War Wonder — sank in a January storm in 1935 and came to rest on a steep cliff face at an angle of roughly 35 degrees. Descending along her hull feels like walking down a tilted skyscraper draped in white plumose anemones and orange soft corals. Every surface pulses with life. Normally buoyed, she is the showpiece of any Sound of Mull trip.
SS Shuna
Built in Holland in 1909 for a Scandinavian owner, she was carrying coal and iron from Glasgow to Gothenburg when she struck Grey Rock in a storm. Sitting upright less than 200 metres from shore, her position in a small mainland bay shields her from the worst of the Sound of Mull's notorious tidal streams, making her a more relaxed proposition than many neighbouring wrecks. Non-ferrous salvage in the years after her rediscovery opened up the structure, but there is still plenty to see between 16 and 32 metres: deck fittings, coal remnants in the holds, and a resident population of wrasse and conger eels that have made her framework their home.
SS Thesis
Small but full of surprises, the Thesis has a story unlike any other wreck in the Sound of Mull. This iron screw steamer went down in October 1889 carrying pig iron, and for decades she lay forgotten on a sloping shingle seabed. In the 1970s, salvors arrived not for treasure but for her hull plates — pre-nuclear iron, free from the background radiation that contaminated all steel produced after the first atomic tests. That salvage stripped her bare, but in doing so it created an unusually open wreck where framework ribs, deck beams and cargo holds are all exposed to exploration. The pig iron remains scattered throughout.