Locations Of Sunken Or Abandoned Ships & Boats

[CaptainK]

I often wonder to myself where all the most prone areas of this worlds' oceans and seas, do the authorities find abandoned and sunken boats at?

A good number of us already know that Cape Horn, is a very dangerous area. Does any of the other forum members have any ideas besides Cape Horn. Inwhich I already mentioned are the most dangerous. And most prone to loss of ships and private boats?

[CaptainK]

Wow 2,000 wrecks? Well, considering all the bad things like weather. Malfunctions. Human error. Etc.

With the settlers and explorers for more than 300 years. I can imagine, there being 2,000 wrecks.

[GordMay]

There are numerous regions that can legitimately lay claim to the title “Graveyard of the ...”. These are not necessarily the world’s most dangerous waters, though each presents it’s significant challenges, but generally the most heavily traveled dangerous waters.

Great Lakes Shipwrecks

Although shipwrecks are often associated with oceans, the Great Lakes hold an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 sunken ships. About 1,000 Great Lakes shipwrecks have been identified, and about 10 new ships are discovered annually. Historian Mark L. Thompson (“Graveyard of the Lakes”) claims there have been as many as 25,000 wrecks on the Great Lakes over the past 300 years.

In 1871 alone, 1,167 disasters were recorded. In the two decades between 1878 and 1898, the United States Commissioner of Navigation reported 5,999 vessels wrecked on the Great Lakes and 1,093 of these were total losses. 1905 was a particularly bad year on the Lakes with 271 vessels damaged, 54 of which were lost through the stress of weather.

Some “Graveyards of the Atlantic”

~ The Entire North Carolina Coast (Cape Hatteras & Outer Banks) - Historians estimate that over 1,000 ships have been lost along the N. C. coast

~ Sable Island has claimed over 350 recorded shipwrecks since 1583.

~ Cape Cod - between Truro and Wellfleet alone, there have been more than 1,000 wrecks.

Some “Graveyards of the Pacific”

~ Vancover Island, BC, Canada contains 1.5 shipwrecks per mile. Between 1803 and 1972, there were more than 450 shipwrecks along this treacherous stretch of coastline.

~ Bass Strait, the narrow stretch of water that lies between Tasmania and Mainland Australia (375 miles/600 km long by 185 miles/300 km wide), has over 700 shipwrecks.

~ Mouth of the Columbia River - Almost 2000 ships & 700 lives have been lost along the Long Beach Penninsula.

[Talbot]

UKHO charts have wreck locations anotated on them, and there is also a list of wreck sites available for purchase (for divers) This doent cover all wrecks, but does cover a substantial number of them.

[Alan Wheeler]

Aye, thar be treasures in them thar waters.
Here in NZ, back in the gold rush days, a small port on our South Island Westcoast was the busiest port in NZ at the time. Sailing ships were bringing in the prospectors and supplies and taking out gold in huge quanitities on the way out back to england. Like all the rugged west coast rivers, The river mouth at Hokitika is deadly and claimed many a ship. Today, they consider there to be huge quntities of gold sitting down on the bottom of that river mouth. It's just that no one has come up with a way of retrieving it.