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The shipwreck of SS American Star on the shore of Fuerteventura
A sonar image of the shipwreck of the Soviet Navy ship Virsaitis in Estonian waters
Johan Christian Dahl: Shipwreck on the Coast of Norway, 1832
Bow of RMS Titanic, photographed in 2004

A shipwreck is the remains of a ship that has wrecked, which are found either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be deliberate or accidental. In January 1999, Angela Croome estimated that there have been about three million shipwrecks worldwide[1] (an estimate rapidly endorsed by UNESCO[2][3] and other organizations[4]).



Historic wrecks are attractive to maritime archaeologists because they preserve historical information: for example, studying the wreck of Mary Rose revealed information about seafaring, warfare, and life in the 16th century. Military wrecks, caused by a skirmish at sea, are studied to find details about the historic event; they reveal much about the battle that occurred. Discoveries of treasure ships, often from the period of European colonisation, which sank in remote locations leaving few living witnesses, such as Batavia, do occur as well. Some contemporary wrecks, such as the oil tankers Prestige or Erika, are of interest primarily because of their potential harm to the environment. Other contemporary wrecks are scuttled in order to spur reef growth, such as Adolphus Busch and Ocean Freeze. Wrecks like Adolphus Busch and historic wrecks such as Thistlegorm are of interest to recreational divers that dive to shipwrecks because they are interesting to explore, provide large habitats for many types of marine life, and have an interesting history.[citation needed]

Well known shipwrecks include the catastrophic Titanic, Britannic, Lusitania, Estonia, Empress of Ireland, Andrea Doria, or Costa Concordia. There are also thousands of wrecks that were not lost at sea but have been abandoned or sunk. These abandoned, or derelict ships are typically smaller craft, such as fishing vessels. They may pose a hazard to navigation[5] and may be removed by port authorities.[6]


County of Peebles, used as breakwater in Punta Arenas at the Strait of Magellan


State of preservation[edit]


Many factors determine the state of preservation of a wreck:

  • the ship's construction materials
  • the wreck becoming covered in sand or silt
  • the salinity of the water the wreck is in
  • the level of destruction involved in the ship's loss
  • whether the components or cargo of the wreck were salvaged
  • whether the wreck was demolished to clear a navigable channel
  • the depth of water at the wreck site
  • the exposure to surface weather conditions at the wreck site
  • the presence of marine animals that consume the ship's fabric
  • temperature




All the above offers great challenges to the marine archaeologist when attempting to bind the pieces of a certain shipwreck together. Despite these challenges, if the information retrieved does not appear to be sufficient, or a poor preservation is achieved, authors like J.A. Parker claim that it is the historical value of the shipwreck that counts as well as any slight piece of information or evidence that is acquired.[7]

Construction materials[edit]

The Wreck, by Knud-Andreassen Baade c.1835




Salinity of water[edit]

Freshwater and low saline[edit]

Shipwrecks in some freshwater lakes, such as the Great Lakes of North America, have remained intact with little degradation. In some sea areas, most notably in Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland, salinity is very low, and centuries-old wrecks have been preserved in reasonable condition. However, bacteria found in fresh water cause the wood on ships to rot more quickly than in seawater unless it is deprived of oxygen.[8] Two shipwrecks, USS Hamilton and USS Scourge, have been at the bottom of Lake Ontario since they sunk during a violent storm on August 8, 1813, during the War of 1812. They are in "remarkably good" condition.[9]



  • Iron-based metals corrode much more quickly in seawater because of the dissolved salt present; the sodium and chloride ions chemically accelerate the process of metal oxidation which, in the case of ferrous metals, leads to rust. Such cases are prominent on deep-water shipwrecks, such as RMS Titanic (which sank in 1912), RMS Lusitania (which sank in 1915), and German battleship Bismarck (which sank in 1941).[citation needed] However, there are some exceptions; RMS Empress of Ireland lies in the saltwater portion of the St. Lawrence River, but is still in remarkably good condition.[10]
  • Unprotected wood in seawater is rapidly consumed by shipworms and small wood-boring sea creatures. Shipworms found in higher salinity waters, such as the Caribbean, are notorious for boring into wooden structures that are immersed in sea water and can completely destroy the hull of a wooden shipwreck.[11]

Loss, salvage and demolition[edit]

The shipwreck of SS Austria on 13 September 1858


Examples of severe destruction at the time of loss are:

  • Collision with another ship (e.g., Andrea Doria)
  • Fire that burns for a long time before the ship sinks (e.g., Achille Lauro)
  • Foundering, i.e., taking in so much water that buoyancy is lost and the ship sinks (e.g., RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic); some ships with a dense cargo (e.g., iron ore) may break up when sinking quickly and hitting a rocky seabed
  • Enemy action from aerial bombs or torpedoes that may cause destruction before sinking (e.g., the Italian battleship Roma and HMS Barham)

After the loss, the vessel's owners may attempt to salvage valuable parts of the ship and its cargo. This operation can cause further damage.


Depth, tide and weather[edit]



Extreme cold (such as in a glacial-fed lake, Arctic waters, the Great Lakes, etc.) slow the degradation of organic ship materials. Decay, corrosion and marine encrustation are inhibited or largely absent in cold waters.[12]


Often, attempts are made to salvage shipwrecks, particularly those recently wrecked, to recover the whole or part of the ship, its cargo, or its equipment. An example was the salvage of the scuttled German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in the 1920s and 1930s. The unauthorized salvage of wrecks is called wrecking.

Legal aspects[edit]

Shipwreck law determines important legal questions regarding wrecks, perhaps the most important question being the question of ownership. Legally wrecks are divided into wreccum maris (material washed ashore after a shipwreck) and adventurae maris (material still at sea),[13] which are treated differently by some, but not all, legal systems.

Viewing at Christie’s auction in Amsterdam for the cargo of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship Geldermalsen (1747)

Wrecks are often considered separately from their cargo. For example, in the British case of Lusitania [1986] QB 384 it was accepted that the remains of the vessel itself were owned by the insurance underwriters who had paid out on the vessel as a total loss by virtue of the law of subrogation (who subsequently sold their rights), but that the property aboard the wreck still belonged to its original owners or their heirs.

Military wrecks, however, remain under the jurisdiction–and hence protection–of the government that lost the ship, or that government's successor. Hence, a German U-boat from World War II still technically belongs to the German government, although the Third Reich (the government of the time) is long-defunct. Many military wrecks are also protected by virtue of their being war graves.

However, many legal systems allow the rights of salvors to override the rights of the original owners of a wreck or its cargo. As a general rule, non-historic civilian shipwrecks are considered fair game for salvage. Under international maritime law, for shipwrecks of a certain age, the original owner may have lost all claim to the cargo. Anyone who finds the wreck can then file a salvage claim on it and place a lien on the vessel, and subsequently mount a salvage operation (see Finders, keepers).[14] The State of North Carolina questionably claims "all photographs, video recordings, or other documentary materials of a derelict vessel or shipwreck or its contents, relics, artifacts, or historic materials in the custody of any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions" to be its property.[15]

Some countries assert claims to all wrecks within their territorial waters, irrespective of the interest of the original owner or the salvor.[16] Wartime wrecks have different legal considerations, as they are often considered prizes of war, and therefore owned by the navy that sank them.

MSC Napoli beached off Branscombe

Some legal systems regard a wreck and its cargo to be abandoned if no attempt is made to salvage them within a certain period of time. English law has usually resisted this notion (encouraged by an extremely large maritime insurance industry, which asserts claims in respect of shipwrecks which it has paid claims on), but it has been accepted to a greater or lesser degree in an Australian case[17] and in a Norwegian case.[18]

The American courts have been inconsistent between states and at Federal level.[19] Under Danish law, all shipwrecks over 150 years old belong to the state if no owner can be found. In Spain, wrecks vest in the state if not salvaged within 3 years. In Finland, all property on board shipwrecks over 100 years old vests in the state.


Following the beaching of MSC Napoli, as a result of severe damage incurred during European storm Kyrill, there was confusion in the press and by the authorities about whether people could be prevented from helping themselves to the flotsam which was washed up on the beaches at Branscombe. Many people took advantage of the confusion and helped themselves to the cargo. This included many BMW motorbikes and empty wine casks as well as bags of disposable nappies (diapers).[20] The legal position under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 is that any such finds and recovery must be reported within 28 days to the Receiver of Wreck.[21] Failure to do so is an offence under the Merchant Shipping Act and can result in a criminal record for theft by finding.[22] After several days, the police and Receiver of Wreck, in conjunction with the landowner and the contracted salvors, established a cordon to prevent access to the beach.[23] A similar situation occurred after the wreck of Cita in 1997.

Historic wrecks (often but not always defined as being more than 50 years of age) are often protected from pillaging and looting through national laws protecting cultural heritage.[24] Internationally they may be protected by a State ratifying the Unesco Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. In this case pillaging is not allowed. One such example is Queen Anne's Revenge[25] which is undergoing archaeological recovery by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources near Beaufort Inlet, NC.



Notable salvages[edit]

In 2011, the most valuable cargo of a sunken shipwreck was identified near the western edge of the Celtic Sea. This World War II era sinking of Gairsoppa led to a treasure almost three miles deep.[27]

A U.S. federal court and a panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit have upheld the Spanish claim to the contents of the ship Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes; Spain took control of the treasure in February 2012. A very small number of coins and effects recovered from the ship were deposited in Gibraltar, because they showed clear signs coherent with an internal explosion on the ship and thus confirmed Spanish claims to the wreck being that of the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. They were not returned to Spain until 2013, when a court finally ordered Odyssey Marine to return the missing pieces.

Archaeologist Valerios Stais discovered one of the most notable instruments of time keeping and prediction of celestial events off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera On May 17, 1902. The device, known as the Antikythera Mechanism is perhaps the earliest account of what would be known as today as an analog computer and the technology it encompasses predates any other recorded description by nearly hundreds and thousands of years.


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Angela Croome (January 16, 1999). “Sinking fast”, New Scientist, Volume 161, Issue 2169, pp. 49.
  2. ^ “Sinking fast”, Marine Industrial Technology, 1 and 2/1999, Emerging Technology Series, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, pp. 58.
  3. ^ Lucia Iglesias Kuntz (June 12, 2002), “UNESCO urges the Americas to join the underwater heritage convention”, UNESCO Media Services.
  4. ^ Lisbon Resolution”, Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter, Summer 1999, Volume 32, Number 2, pp. 31.
  5. ^ "Wrecks and Obstructions Database". NOAA. 
  6. ^ Scurvy, Death and Cannibalism (internet video). Shipwreck Central. 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-03-06. 
  7. ^ Parker, A.J. (1981). "Stratification and contamination in ancient Mediterranean shipwrecks". The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration. 10: 309–335. 
  8. ^ "Final Management Plan" (PDF). Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. NOAA. Retrieved 11 August 2015. 
  9. ^ "Hamilton's War of 1812 shipwrecks 'an archeologist's dream'". CBC News. Retrieved 11 August 2015. 
  10. ^ Dominique. "Empress of Ireland". 
  11. ^ Gilman, Sarah (December 5, 2016). "How a Ship-Sinking Clam Conquered the Ocean". Smithsonian. 
  12. ^ Steere, Mike. "Superior keeps its shipwrecks fresh Preservation: In the cold, almost sterile water at the bottom of the Great Lake, divers find the remains of marine disasters". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 29 August 2015. 
  14. ^ "Treasure Salvage: Finders Keepers?". Archived from the original on 2015-09-17. 
  15. ^ "HB 184" (PDF). ncleg. 
  21. ^ "ROW- The reporting process". Archived from the original on 2008-02-25. Retrieved 2013-05-18. 
  22. ^ "Wreck and salvage law - Detailed guidance - GOV.UK". 2012-09-14. Archived from the original on 2011-01-28. Retrieved 2015-09-17. 
  23. ^ "Structural failure of container vessel MSC Napoli and subsequent beaching Marine Accident Investigation Branch report - GOV.UK". 2007-01-18. Archived from the original on 2007-10-18. Retrieved 2015-09-17. 
  25. ^ "Blackbeard's Flagship - Archaeology Magazine Archive". Retrieved 2015-09-17. 
  26. ^ "UNESCO 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage". Archived from the original on 2008-08-15. Retrieved 2009-09-19. 

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]