Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · wreck · The Cape Peninsula

🇿🇦 SS Maori

Hout Bay, Cape Town, South Africa

A Shaw Savill steamer that ran onto the rocks north of Duiker Point in fog in 1909 with a cargo of railway lines, crockery and explosives — thirty-two of her fifty-three crew died.

Dives here
1
Deepest
20 m
Water
salt
First · last
2006

Revision 1 · changed 10 Oct 2026

History
  1. 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

SS Maori (126 x 14.7 m), brokenRails scattered over the reefKelp and granite bouldersPropeller shaftBoat anchorage (40 m off the split rock)Split rock↓3 mSternpost and stern gland↓7 mTriple-expansion engine↓6 mThree Scotch boilers↓10 mBoiler fallen alongside↓11 mCast-iron pipes, 1.2 m, stacked↓13 mRailway lines stacked on starboard↓15 mSwim-under beneath the hull, 1 m↓12 mSmall steam engines with flywheels↓17 mOffshore end of the wreck↓21 mN20 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Point of interest
  • Wreck
  • Pipe / tube
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Site map · 10 objects · max 21 m

The SS Maori (1893, 126 x 14.7 m, Wikipedia) wrecked in fog on 5 August 1909 in Maori Bay north of Duiker Point, lying stern inshore with the remains running about 112 m out along 314 degrees magnetic from 7 m at the sternpost to 21 m at the reef off the offshore end. Wreck ends, engine position, anchorage off the split rock and the layout of boilers, pipes, rails, flywheel engines and the 1 m gap under the hull come from the Wikivoyage 'Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay/SS Maori' guide; coastline from OpenStreetMap (the BOS 400 wreck, visible above water about 580 m south-west, is left off). Depths between the published 6, 7 and 21 m are interpolated along the hull, the split rock is placed inshore of the stern, and the Oakburn (1906) in the south-east corner of the bay is left off because its position was not found; all positions are approximate.

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

The ship

A British steam cargo vessel of the early 1890s, owned by the Shaw Savill line and commanded by Captain G. Nicole, on passage from London to New Zealand with a crew of fifty-three and a mixed cargo of British manufactures — explosives, railway lines, crockery and water piping.

The wreck

On Thursday 5 August 1909, in thick fog and drizzle, she ran onto the rocks in the bay just north of Duiker Point on the Atlantic side of the Cape Peninsula.

A boat with fifteen crew made for Chapman's Bay and capsized in the surf; six of them drowned. Altogether thirty-two of the fifty-three aboard died — a death toll that has as much to do with the water temperature and the surf on that coast as with the wreck itself.

The dive

She lies in about 20 m in the bay that now carries her name, Maori Bay, a little north of the Oakburn (1906) in the south-eastern corner. She has been heavily salvaged over the years for non-ferrous fittings, and a great deal of intact crockery has been recovered — her ship's bell is in the Hout Bay museum. What remains is a broken but very legible iron hull in a kelp forest, with the railway lines still lying in it.

One dive, 5 March 2006, to 20 m — the second dive of the day, after Vulcan Rock.

Dived here with

Dylan

Nearby sites

1 dive at SS Maori

  1. 5 Mar 2006 with Dylan wreckboat date5 Mar 2006 depth20 m time32 min water10 °C

Sources