City of Rayville

Meet the site

The City of Rayville was a 5,883-ton American steel freighter built in 1920 at Tampa, Florida, for the United States Shipping Board and operated in 1940 by the Pioneer Line. On the evening of 8 November 1940, bound from Adelaide to Melbourne with a cargo of lead, she struck a mine laid across the western entrance to Bass Strait by the German auxiliary minelayer Passat, working with the raider Pinguin. The explosion blew off the foremast and opened the forward holds; the ship sank in about 40 minutes some 6 miles south of Cape Otway. Thirty-seven of the 38 crew got away in the boats and were brought into Apollo Bay by local fishermen; the third engineer, who went back for belongings, drowned. The same minefield had sunk the British steamer Cambridge off Wilsons Promontory the day before. The City of Rayville has a place in history as the first American merchant ship lost in the Second World War, more than a year before the United States entered it, and a memorial stands on the Apollo Bay foreshore.

The wreck was located by sonar in the early 2000s and lies upright on sand in about 82 m, with the hull and superstructure standing 5–6 m clear of the seabed. Survey imagery shows the steering house, hatch coamings, ladders, railings and deck winches still in place, and the hull largely intact apart from the mine damage forward. It sits within the Commonwealth Apollo Marine Park and is protected under the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act. For divers this is one of the deepest and least visited wrecks in Victoria: a trimix or rebreather dive with a long run offshore, cold water, poor weather odds and no regular charter, undertaken only by well-equipped technical teams. It is included here as the outstanding deep wreck of the Otway coast rather than as a practical dive for most readers.

What you might see

Deep-reef fish over the hull, schooling butterfly perch and boarfish reported on similar Bass Strait wrecks, sponges and hydroids on the upperworks; little documented

Location

American freighter mined in 1940, lying upright on sand in about 82 m roughly 14 km south of Cape Otway, inside the Commonwealth Apollo Marine Park.

Facilities nearby

Apollo Bay harbour ramp, fuel and fishermen's co-op; no technical gas in Apollo Bay – bring all gas from Melbourne.