Maldives Victory Wreck

The Maldives Victory was a cargo ship coming from Singapore with general cargo. On the night of 13/02/1981, she was manoeuvring toward Malé harbour through the Gaadhoo Kolu channel; entering the channel after dark was prohibited, but the captain decided to follow a larger ship. A miscalculation while steering around an island threw her onto Hulhulé reef. With the hull breached and the ship listing, the captain tried to run her aground. The 30 crew and 7 passengers were rescued, and the ship was towed clear of the reef before sinking to the southwest of it; there were no deaths.

A team led by Hassan ‘Lakudiboa’ Manik salvaged the cargo, starting with the cars, and the goods were auctioned. Until 2000, divers took portholes, doors, the anchor and the steering wheel, and ‘a metal skeleton’ was left. In March 2016 the site was closed for the construction of the China–Maldives Friendship Bridge, about 500 m away. Anchors from construction vessels destroyed both wings of the wheelhouse and crushed cabins, including the captain’s. The wreck reopened to diving in 2019, after three years.

In almost 40 years the wreck has become an ‘artificial’ reef. A 2019 survey recorded 18 genera of coral and 46 species of fish here, and the position near an atoll entrance guarantees nutrients all the time. There are large groupers, batfish, large puffers and schools of fusiliers, with turtles resting on the ledges and, at the bow, lionfish, soldierfish and hawkfish; on the outer hull there are nudibranchs and pipefish. The hull is covered in coral and sponges and attracts giant trevallies, batfish, barracuda, lionfish and stingrays.