All About The Mataphon Wreck
The HTMS Mataphon, a Landing Craft Tank USS LCT-1260, was built in Quincy, Illinois, USA, in 1944. After its service in the United States Navy, it was decommissioned and sold to Thailand, where it became part of the Royal Thai Navy fleet. It was eventually retired from active service in 2008 and sunk as an artificial reef and dive site in 2012 just 50min from Pattaya Beach.
The Mataphon Wreck provides an expansive and open environment for exploration, allowing wreck divers to navigate easily from bow to stern in a single dive. Sandy banks alongside the wreck are perfect for spotting nudibranchs, while seahorses can sometimes be found with their tails wrapped around sea urchins.
Additionally, the dive site can be divided into two sections: HTMS Mataphon and The Mataphon Cubes. Surrounding the wreck are cube structures added for further protection from currents, now teeming with aquatic life and offering a dive experience in themselves.
These features in combination with the depth make this wreck dive site an excellent training ground for Advanced Open Water Courses and PADI Wreck Diver Courses.
This shipwreck is especially good for diver training since the depth ranges from 15 meters at the upper mast area to 19 meters at the deck, with the sandy bottom reaching 23 meters max. Muck divers will enjoy exploring the deck and sandy surrounds, where seahorses, nudibranchs, and other macro life are abundant.
This site is also amazing to learn wreck navigation, originally a transport ship, the Mataphon carried tanks, supplies, and troops during its service. Therefore it has a wide open deck area with distinct bow and stern features to guide divers as they explore and encounter the variety of fish and popular marine life at this dive site.
Credit and thanks to Alex From Thai-scuba.com for his hard work and dedication to Mapping Thailands Wreck Sites
- Type: Landing Craft Tank
- Built: 1944 – Quincy Barge Builders, USA
- Launched: 29/07/1944
- Weight: 160 tons
- Dimensions: 36.3 million long, 9.96m wide, 1.02m projects
- Power: 3 x gray marine diesel 675hp –
- Speed: 7 knots
- Crew: 12
- Sank: 20/10/2012 – scuttled
- Depth: 23m
Some website report confusion in the community of divers on the ship was actually sunk as the wreck of Mataphon (sometimes spelled as “Mattaphon” or “Mattapon”) What actually happened was the Thai Navy had 2 of these ships, one called Mattaphon and one called Petra. HTMS Phetra (or “Petra “or” Tra Phe “). Which is the same class of ship except Phetra had hull number 764 and was formerly the USS LCT-1089 was sank in Rayong.
Questions About This Wreck
Where is the Mataphon Wreck?
The HTMS Mataphon wreck rests just 5 minutes away from Had Nuan Beach on Koh Lan Island.
How Long To Reach This Dive Site?
It takes about 50 minutes to reach here from Pattaya by boat and the trip is often combined with coral dives at dive sites nearby like South Point or Had Nuan Bay or Koh Khrok which are at the Pattaya Near Islands.
When is the Best Time To Dive This Wreck?
Like all dive,, high slack tide and low wind days will present the best possible conditions for both diving and boat travel to this wreck dive site.
It is visited more frequently in the high season when the sea conditions are the best It it not best visited whilst the winds are blowing towards the north.
Im Open Water Level Can I dive this wreck?
The Mataphon is 23m deep so as an 18m qualified Openwater diver on a guided fun dive, the answer is no. However, this is a perfect wreck for open water divers to try wreck diving on during the Advanced open water course or as a Deep Adventure training dive with an instructor under controlled training conditions. If you are dive-ready ask us about a deep training dive and we can take you to a wreck dive as an open water level diver.
What is the Bottom Time on This Wreck?
Bottom time depends partly on your skill level. A typical dive based on no decompression dive times is between 30-40 minutes. Air supply times can be up to 45-50min on a multi-level dive especially using nitrox 32.
What aquatic life is common on this wreck?
THe Mataphone has collected an impressive amount of growth in terms of coral and various aquatic life in just a few years underwater. In around and on top of this wreck is huge schools of fish. discover macro life like Nudibranchs, seahorses, shrimp, and crabs. Scorpionfish hide everywhere also, whilst around the wreck itself you will usually encounter barracuda, grouper, puffer fish and stingrays, flathead fish, bamboo sharks and maybe even something bigger. Keep your eyes open!
The Mataphon Aquatic Life
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