The steamship Giuseppe Dormio was built in 1904 in the shipyard of Napier & Miller in Glasgow. The customer was a Russian company FC Zvorono, and its first name was Italia. In 1928 it was sold to the Giuseppe Dormio company from Bari. After the capitulation of Italy the ship was taken over by the Germans.
The Vela Vrata Channel had for centuries been the main entrance to the port of Rijeka. For sailing ships, it offered enough space for crossing into the wind, whilst for the fastest and larger steamships it presented the easiest and quickest route.
In the First World War Austro-Hungary laid the first sea mines in the Vela Vrata passage, and the Italians during the Second World War also tried to prevent access to all approaches to Kvarner and the port of Rijeka with mines. However the first victims were not Allied ships, but ships in the German service. The steamship Giuseppe Dormio, on a trek from Pula to Rijeka, after one explosion which occurred on 11th August 1943 around 03.30hrs. sank at about 200 metres east of the Cape of Mašnjak. Six Italian crew members of the ship were lost.
The wreck lies on a silty bottom in an upright position. The top of the mast is at a depth of 48-50 metres and is thoroughly overgrown with crustaceans. Large shoals of tiny blue fish which gather close to the wreck obscure the view. All parts of the ship are thickly overgrown with layers of crustaceans and sponges, for which wrecks are a favourite habitat.
