Have you ever thought about what happens to ships that have served their time? For their disposal, special man-made cemeteries of ships are created. They could be dry docks that store ships containing asbestos and other environmentally damaging materials.
Man-made ship cemeteries can also be created at sea, where old ships are left to break down or dismantled into their component parts. But, undoubtedly, the most interesting are not these artificially created resting places, but the cemeteries of ships that arose spontaneously.
Tricky Atlantic
During the existence of navigation, the Atlantic has become the last refuge for millions of ships created in different eras. Typically, ship cemeteries appear at the intersection of sea routes, where brave sailors are watched by treacherous reefs, wandering sands, rocks not indicated on the maps. So, not far from Dover there is a place where the relief is constantly changing its shape, posing a real threat to sailors even today. What to say about thosenavigators who did not know modern instruments? Near Dover there is a cemetery of sunken ships, on which, according to historians, hundreds of "floating vessels" and more than 50 thousand people who lived in different historical times are buried. Having drilled the bottom to a depth of 15 meters, scientists found that the entire core taken consists of the remains of ship plating, wood, and iron. Goodwin's shallows are soaked through with ship decay.
No wonder today this terrible place is called the "Great Ship Eater". There are many such places. There are ship cemeteries in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Bermuda Triangle, the Indian Ocean, Fiji, and hundreds of other places. In some of them triremes, created in ancient times, are under a thick layer of the remains of Viking ships, medieval caravels, modern frigates and modern ships that have already disappeared in our time. Why do such graveyards arise?
Why?
The causes of ship cemeteries can be:
- Storms that sailboats couldn't resist.
- Mist, which was almost impossible to navigate without special equipment.
- Strong currents that ships couldn't resist. Brought to the reefs, they remained there forever if they were not removed at high tide.
The most famous ship cemeteries
Besides the Great Ship Eater, there are other places where sunken ships accumulated for centuries (photo). Cemeteryships in Taranto (Italy) is quite well known, among 16 ships there lies one that has gained particular fame because of its cargo. The ship was carrying coins, marble and tamarisk sarcophagi. Interestingly, centuries later, the cargo is still in good condition. Among modern cemeteries, a rather large one is located in Mauritania. After nationalization, many fishing and transport vessels were simply abandoned by their owners. They are still rotting near the shore. There is such a place in Russia, in the Aral Sea. There, as a result of an ecological disaster, hundreds of ships are destroyed in the middle of the desert, until recently the former seabed. The largest ship graveyard is in Pakistan. Huge tankers and luxury cruise ships are cut into small pieces and disposed of here.
