City of Rayville

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

I've just added the City of Rayville to our dive locations database. This shipwreck lies in 82 metres of water approximately 14 kilometres off the coast of Cape Otway. See https://www.scubadoctor.com.au/divesite ... f-Rayville

The City of Rayville was the first US vessel lost due to enemy action in World War II.

The GPS mark for this dive site comes from the Australian National Shipwreck Database and may not be very accurate. If someone has a known to be good mark, I'd love to hear from you.

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

[packo]

Hello Lloyd,

As you say the Nat Shipwreck Database coords of: 38 58.800's 143 30.600'e show this is most likely a "roughie position" as hinted at by the trailing "00"s in both coordinates.

I can't add much to your post other than to say an American eChart I use (which does seem to know a bit about Oz waters and does eventually get updates from AusHydro) shows a wreck indicator (presumably the City of Rayville) about 340m northwest of the above mark at around: WGS84 38 58.705's 143 30.431'e. A second eChart has it closer to 38 58.753's 143 30.442'e.

(If, as has happened for some graveyard wrecks, the numbers were actually to AGD66 datum but weren't corrected before charting, then maybe the adjusted WGS84 locations 38 58.615's 143 30.511'e and 38 58.663's 143 30.522'e should also be sounded around if the earlier marks are duds.)

In probability none of any of the above marks would be reliable enough for a 14km offshore "specie boat trip". My post is purely just to try and temp someone who actually does know what they are talking about to either post here, or contact Scubadoctor, with a verified and reliable mark.

Being that far offshore and being logistically quite difficult to get to, they can hardly be worried about hordes of "outsiders" gate crashing a favourite dive site on a sunny weekend.

cheers,
packo