RMS Alaunia
36 mpassenger liner
No wreck anywhere on the Sussex coast is larger. The RMS Alaunia, a Cunard Line ocean liner of over 13,000 tons, was designed for the transatlantic trade and had room for more than 2,000 passengers, at a time when going by sea was the only way across. War gave her a first in 1914: no Cunard ship before her had carried Canadian troops over to fight in Europe. Two years on, on 19 October 1916, she was outward bound from London for New York when she hit a mine off the Royal Sovereign Lightship, and two of her crew died in the sinking. Off Eastbourne she rests on her port side in around 36 metres, the 159-metre hull rising 10 metres above the seabed in places. Her bow is canted at a striking 45-degree angle, the port anchor still hanging from its hawsehole, and lines of portholes are still fitted along the riveted plating of her hull.
Lost: October 19th, 1916 — mine