In the Gulf of Megara and at a depth of 222 meters, the MINI LORD was found, a cargo ship that sank on November 20, 1976 after a collision with another ship.

As the researcher Costas Thoktaridis reports to APE – MPE, the wreck was located 7.67 nautical miles east of the Isthmus channel.

“It lies at a depth of 222 meters with an inclination of 4 degrees to the left. On the left side of the bow, a break in the reefs of the MINI LORD can be seen. Lines, nets and longlines have covered it over the past 48 years… It is a wreck with unusual shipbuilding lines that left an era in commercial shipping,” he says.

This type of ship was known in the 1970s as a MINI Bulk Carrier, which were very well equipped with sophisticated navigational instruments for the time. In addition, they were extremely flexible in maneuvers as they had two main engines and two rudders (rudders).

The MINI LORD story

The clock read 22:40 when, the evening of November 20 of 1976, had just left the Corinth Canal. The ship was traveling loaded with 2,545 tons of iron, from Trieste, Italy to Tartus, Syria via Piraeus where it would previously call for smelting.

Meanwhile, another ship, the COSTIS TAF, had sailed at 21:30 of the same day with a crew of 12, from Perama anchorage empty of cargo for Koper, Slovenia. At 23:50 the two ships that had crossed courses they collide. The COSTIS strikes the MINI LORD’s left bow with its bow causing it to rupture.

In no time at all the MINI LORD is sinking at bow speed as both of its engines continue to run normally at full speed ahead. They were lost forever with him eight members of his crew.

“Despite the rapid mobilisation”, reports the newspaper Makedonia of the time, “high-speed ships of the coast guard started immediately, all the tugboats left the Vardinogianni refineries, all the passing ships approached, lifeboats started from Piraeus and Eleusis, while a warplane threw flares, illuminating the area of ​​the wreck… everyone saw the same picture, wood, oil slicks, personal life jackets, scattered objects of the ship, the overturned lifeboat but not a trace of the eight men of the crew…”.

COSTIS suffered only minor damage to her bow section

According to the conclusion of the ASNA (Marine Accident Investigation Board) the responsibility for the accident was mainly borne by the master of the MINI LORD, who up to two minutes before the collision had telephone communication via VHF (the radio was on the left side of the bridge) and owing to the crane being amidships, he could not control the starboard side of it from where he stood.

When he finally finished his conversation and realized the existence of COSTIS a short distance from the MINI LORD he was taken aback and turned the rudder all the way to the right…