The Madiana - Shipwreck Diving Bermuda
The Madiana was a Canadian-owned steel-hulled passenger steamship built in Scotland in 1877. She was 345 feet long, 39 feet across the beam, and displaced a little more than 3,000 tons. She was launched as the Balmoral Castle, changed owners and names in 1882, was sold again just before the turn of the century and reverted back to her original name; then was purchased by the Quebec Steamship Company and renamed Madiana.
She was en route from New York to the West Indies when, on February 10th, 1903, negotiating the channel into Hamilton Harbour, she ran onto the reef just northwest of North Rock, 10 miles north of the Royal Naval Dockyard. The crew fired distress rockets and tugs were sent to help. Unfortunately, bad weather and heavy seas made it impossible for them to get closer than a mile from the ship. Lifeboats were launched and the passengers and crew hauled through raging seas to the relative safety of awaiting boats. Today, the wreck lies on the bottom where she went down, a mile west of the wreck of Caraquet, in about 25 feet of water.
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