City of Waterford

The City of Waterford is a wreck in the English Channel, to the west of Beachy Head. She was a 1,334-ton British steamer built in 1921 at Dundee, 270 feet (82 metres) long with a beam of 37 feet (11 metres), and was originally called the Skerries 2. She worked from Liverpool to Waterford carrying passengers and general cargo, and in the Second World War she fought off a German plane in the Irish Sea while carrying a cargo of cattle, which earned her captain an MBE.

On 14 April 1949 she was heading down-Channel from Antwerp to Cork when she ran into thick fog. She collided with the 5,500-ton Greek steamer Marpessa and sank.

The wreck is still recognisable as a ship. The stern and bow sections are upright and fairly intact, while the mid-section is badly broken. She sits on a sand scour in 30 metres, and looking up at the bow with the anchors in place is an impressive sight. She is covered in dead man's fingers and many species of anemone, scallops lie on the seabed around her, and there are dense shoals of bib, pollack, wrasse and bass, along with conger eels, lobsters and edible crabs.