Morehead City, North Carolina, United States

Naeco

The Naeco was a 125-metre US-flagged Pure Oil Company tanker torpedoed by the German submarine U-124 on the night of 23 March 1942 about 30 nautical miles southeast of Cape Lookout, North Carolina. The ship was carrying heating oil from Houston to Sewaren, New Jersey, and 24 of the 38-man crew perished, mostly from the burning oil that spread across the surface. The wreck broke into two large sections; the stern is the section visited by divers, sitting upright on the sand at 43 metres with the main deck at around 33 metres and the highest structure at about 28 metres. The Naeco is one of the deeper wrecks on the NC dive circuit and is run by Olympus Dive Center as an advanced trip. Resident species include large schools of sand tiger sharks in summer, almaco jack, amberjack, large queen angelfish, dense colonies of orange cup coral on the steel and the occasional cobia. Visibility 18 to 30 metres in summer; technical certification or doubles preferred.