HISTORY
The EGADI was a small passenger steamship of 861 gross tons, which operated the mail service between Sicily and its smaller southern islands. It was built by the Breda shipyards of Marghera in 1929 and belonged to the Società Anonima di Navigazione La Meridionale. It measured 62,7 meters in length and 9,05 meters in width.
In service since 1929, it covered the Trapani, Marsala, Mazara del Vallo, Favignana, Marettimo, Linosa, Lampedusa, Pantelleria routes, and did not interrupt its service during the war.
On the night of August 31, 1941, while sailing from Lampedusa to Pantelleria with 109 crew and passengers aboard, most of whom were military personnel from various armed forces, the EGADI was spotted by the radar of a Swordfish reconnaissance aircraft taking off from Malta, which immediately reported the discovery. Five torpedo bombers from the 830th Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm took off from Malta to intercept the vessel and struck it with a torpedo on the port bow. The Egadi sank several hours later. Forty-four people lost their lives in the sinking.
Main sources:
L. Colombo, http://conlapelleappesaaunchiodo.blogspot.com/2015/05/egadi.html(2023).
Photo: ISEC Foundation, Sesto San Giovanni – Ernesto Breda Historical Archive, photographic section
THE WRECK
The wreck of the EGADI was found in 2009 by a team from the SDSS (M. Arena, M. Cottafava) at 35°37'N, 012°11'E, approximately 22 miles NW of Lampedusa, on its keel, in a 76-meter depth. The wreck is a single section with two large gashes on the sides of the hull at the beginning of the forecastle, which is almost completely detached from the rest of the hull. The two small cannons with which it was armed remain in place, with their barrels pointing skyward toward the stern.
Many of the hull's sheet metal panels have detached and fallen to the bottom. The structure that housed the bridge has been demolished and covered by one or more large fishing nets. The engine room deckhouse is standing and retains a stub of the funnel, as is the deckhouse at the stern of the ship.
The propeller is in place. The ship's bell was found, knocked to the ground and placed under the bow gun, in 2019. The bell was recovered on behalf of the Superintendency of the Sea of the Sicilian Region for display in a museum.
By cutting and partially removing a large net, a characteristic compass binnacle, knocked down and half-buried by the wreckage, and the steering column were discovered, both of which were recovered on behalf of the Superintendency of the Sea for restoration and display in a museum.
In 2020, during an operation in collaboration with the Ghost Divers organization, a large trawl net covering the stern of the wreck was recovered.
The spectacular wreck of the EGADI has been placed under protection by the Italian authorities.
THE MODEL
The three-dimensional model of EGADI was obtained using approximately 9000 photographs taken in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Its development required many days of computation and work.
Photographs: S. Gualtieri, M. Giaretta, F. De Gado, M. Arena.
Elaborations: S. Gualtieri, K. Beemster Leverenz, NS Arena
JOURNEY INTO THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL WRECK
3D photogrammetry of the wreck, freely accessible
Immersive 360° video up to 8K resolution in 3D viewable with smartphone, laptop or
head set “A tour of the Egadi with SDSS”
The 3D file to print it with a 3D printer
Virtual tour of the wreck in a virtual reconstruction
Cargo manifest
Ship's plan sheet
Bonus video of some wrecks from the Battle of the Convoys