Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · wreck · The Var coast and the Îles d'Hyères

🇫🇷 Le Rubis

Cap Camarat, Ramatuelle, Var, France

A Free French minelaying submarine with 22 ships to her name and the Ordre de la Libération on her conning tower, scuttled as a sonar target in 1958 and sitting upright at forty metres.

Dives here
2
Deepest
38.4 m
Water
salt
First · last
2019 · 2019
Also known as
Le Rubis (u-boot)

Revision 2 · changed 18 Oct 2026

History
  1. r2 18 Oct 2026 Photo of a different submarine removed · Dennis Bakhuis
  2. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

Rubis, Saphir-class minelayer, 66 x 7.1 mStern blown open, propellers gone↓40 mWide side decks with rail↓37 mMine-well hatches in the saddle tanks↓37 mConning tower, hatch open↓34 m75 mm gun mounting↓36 mDeck plating gone: air bottles, valves↓37 mForward hatch, half open↓37 mBow off the sand, towing cable; pass under the keel↓40 mN5 m
  • Wreck
  • Machinery
  • Other object
  • Wreck footprint
  • Depth
Site map · 8 objects · max 41 m

Plan of the Free French minelaying submarine Rubis (66 x 7.12 m), scuttled in 1958 and upright on flat sand at 40-41 m about 2.6 km SE of Cap Camarat, bow north and stern south (Atlas PALM, DRASSM). Position 43 11.301 N 6 42.038 E from the Port-Cros national park Neptune sheet; features from Joncheray and Brunner via nicoblon.free.fr and Atlas PALM: the stern was blown open and both propellers are gone, the bow overhangs the sand with the tow cable, the conning tower (about 34 m) and gun mounting sit amidships; positions along the hull are approximate. No fixed mooring is published; the site file's point is about 600 m SW of the wreck.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

The boat

Rubis was a Saphir-class minelaying submarine, built at the Arsenal de Toulon, launched 30 September 1931 and commissioned in April 1933: 66 m long, 761 tons surfaced, with vertical mine chutes in her saddle tanks instead of stern torpedo tubes.

When France fell in June 1940 she was at sea in the North Sea, operating out of Dundee. She kept going — she joined the Forces navales françaises libres and spent the rest of the war laying mines off Norway and in the Bay of Biscay.

Her record is remarkable. Twenty-two operational patrols. 683 mines laid. Twenty-two ships sunk — the highest score of any Free French unit. In October 1941 de Gaulle made her a Companion of the Ordre de la Libération, an honour given to only a handful of ships.

The wreck

Struck from the register on 4 October 1949 and sunk on 31 January 1958 to serve as a sonar target for the French Navy. She lies upright and largely intact at about 40 m between Cavalaire and Saint-Tropez, off Cap Camarat. The conning tower, the deck gun mounting and the mine chutes are all still recognisable.

Two dives, 7 and 8 July 2019, to 38.4 m.

Image: Rubis 02.jpg — unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dived here with

Kim

Nearby sites

2 dives at Le Rubis

  1. 8 Jul 2019 with Kim wreckdecoboat date8 Jul 2019 depth37.9 m time47 min water—
  2. 7 Jul 2019 with Kim wreckdecoboat date7 Jul 2019 depth38.4 m time44 min water16 °C

Sources