The 2,363 gross
tons dry cargo vessel Rondo was originally built as the War Wonder I by the
Tampa Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co in Florida in 1917. The order was
ostensibly for the Cunard Steamship Co. but in reality for the British war
effort. After America declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 the US
government requisitioned all vessels under construction for foreign powers and
this included the War Wonder I.She was immediately renamed the Lithopolis and was completed in September 1918 just two months before the Armistice halted the fighting. After the War she was sold off and eventually in 1934 was renamed Rondo.
In January 1935 the Rondo set off in ballast from Glasgow to pass round the north of Britain before heading to Dunstan in Northumberland where she would pick up a cargo bound for Oslo. On the northwards leg of the voyage up the west coast of Scotland she moored at the northern end of the Sound of Mull, the narrow stretch of water which separates the island of Mull from the mainland, to ride out a bitter winter storm. Such was the ferocity of the storm that she was driven from her moorings in the dead of night and drifted powerless before the storm in pitch darkness for several miles.
Frantic attempts to get her off
the reef in the succeeding weeks failed and she was eventually given up as a
total loss. She was stripped down in situ by salvors virtually to her
water line before the seas and wind conspired to push her skeleton off the reef.
She slid down the vertical cliffs of the islet, her bows ploughing into the
seabed in 50 metres of water as she came to rest. She now is perhaps the
most unusual dive in Scotland. She stands on her bows vertically, her bows
in 50 metres, her stern just 6 metres beneath the surface.