Tufi · Papua New Guinea · Wreck
SS 's Jacob
A 99 m wartime steamship at 49 m, found in 1986
Area photo: Larry V. Dumlao · CC BY-SA 4.0
A Dutch passenger steamship of 1907, sunk by Japanese bombers near Porlock Bay on 8 March 1943 while running troops and supplies to Oro Bay. Divers found her in 1986, nine nautical miles off Porlock Harbour, at 49 m — a depth that puts the 99 m hull below recreational limits and makes this a planned decompression dive.
Also known as S'Jacob Wreck, 's Jacob, MV Sjacob.
Where it is and how deep
8.8912° S, 149.0757° EApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
The depth sets the shape of this one before anything else does. 's Jacob was found in 1986 lying at 49 m, nine nautical miles off Porlock Harbour, which puts her below the recreational limit and turns any visit into a single planned dive with decompression rather than one of two on a morning trip. Bottom time is short, and the descent is the part of the dive that has to be right.
What is down there is a 99.2 m steamship with a 13.4 m beam that took three direct hits and at least fifteen near misses before sinking in eighteen minutes, so expect bomb damage rather than an intact hull. Beyond that, honesty is better than a route description: no operator publishes a dive plan, a condition report or a marine-life list for this wreck, so treat it as an exploratory deep dive and plan it from the depth up.
The wreck
- Vessel
- SS 's Jacob
- Type
- Passenger steamship
- Length
- 99.2 m (325 ft)
- Built
- 1907
- Sunk
- 1943
- Cause
- Bombed by Japanese aircraft near Porlock Bay while carrying troops and supplies to Oro Bay
- Lies
- Nine nautical miles (17 km) off Porlock Harbour at 49 m; found by divers in 1986
Launched at Rotterdam on 25 July 1907 and completed that October, 's Jacob was on Operation Lilliput under escort by the corvette HMAS Bendigo when nine high-flying Japanese bombers and twelve fighters attacked her near Porlock Bay on 8 March 1943. Three direct hits and at least fifteen near misses sank her within eighteen minutes, at 13:16. Bendigo rescued 158 men, two of whom died on the way to Milne Bay; five were killed in the sinking itself, among them Private George Watson, later awarded the Medal of Honor.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Good |
Season follows Tufi: Apr–Jun and Oct–Dec are calmest for the offshore reefs; the fjords stay divable year-round whatever the weather does.
Know before you go
- At 49 m this is a decompression dive well below recreational limits, on a war grave whose condition — collapse, silt, entanglement — is not documented anywhere we could verify.
Dive videos
The SS S.Jacob · Liquid Jungle Media on YouTube
Questions divers ask
How deep is the 's Jacob wreck?+
The only published figure is the discovery depth: divers found her at 49 m in 1986, nine nautical miles (17 km) off Porlock Harbour. No operator publishes a recreational profile for the wreck, so 49 m is the number to plan from.
Sources
- SS 's Jacob — Wikipedia
In The Logbook
- WWII wrecks you can dive, by theatreWrecks · 7 min read
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