During his last trip, on October 15th 1944, the American tug/minelayer LT221 has rapidly sunk right after the impact and subsequent explosion of a mine placed in defence of the Gulf of Cagliari, taking down with itself big part of the crew and the barge which was towed behind.
The blast, which occurred in the central part of the hull, was powerful enough to tear almost in two parts the robust structure of the tug-boat, so today we can see its wreck lying on its right side on a sandy bottom at a depth of 49 meters.
The two halves of stern and bow, now joined together just by a few twisted metal, rise up from the bottom up to 36 meters deep and are surrounded by dense schools of anthias and breams and covered by various organisms including many colorful nudibranchs. Its gorges instead offer good shelter to scorpion fishes, moray eels and congers also of considerable size.
The stern section still shows intact propeller and rudder, while the bow conserves in good conditions the command bridge. Both offer good starting points for penetration but the bow is especially suited thanks to a succession of corridors that converge, giving the opportunity to observe the interesting internal structures and the control room with a few more portholes still intact.
The dive requires good level of training and experience to recreational divers, while can give the best to technical divers by allowing them to visit it entirely inside out with a well planned dive and a not excessively extended required decompression.