Shipwrecks and Sinking Ships I wonder how many people know occasionally shipwrecks will rise to the surface? Can you imagine the implications this could have on a passing ship or even somebody onshore who happens to see this occurring? I think it would be particularly bad if the person seeing it, believed in ghosts and such. The first thought which might come to their mind would be the wreck was haunted and was the reason why it rose to the surface. Another thought about this is the shipwreck which rose to the top of the ocean might have had something valuable aboard it. It could pose a temptation for people like fishermen and others to try and go aboard, which would be extremely dangerous. The they might disregard this danger in the hope of making a fortune. Three years ago, an ancient wooden shipwreck rose to the surface and traveled to the sure of North Carolina. The wreck has been studied by scientists from many different disciplines and scientists believe there is a hidden history of North Carolina and they are making a case to try and discover it. The wreck might be able to contribute to this history once scientists are able to discover what it was carrying and where it was going. It will also be very important to note when it was built and what culture it came from. The scientists working on the ship want to try and conserve it. This may be hard to believe but this particular wreck was close to a small village after it bobbed to the top and it stayed in sight for over two years before anything was done about it. Part of the wreck had been caught in the sand presumably on a sandbar, but then got dislodged by a very strong storm and at that point staff were called in from the Underwater Archaeology Branch which was part of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, and they decided to take the wreck. What the archaeologists think they discovered was a ship from the early seventeenth century. As you might guess most shipwrecks stay on the bottom of the ocean. What excited underwater archaeologists in 2016 was the fact they found an area in the Black Sea which contained over forty preserved ancient ships. The Black Sea is one of the preferred locations to find shipwrecks in and the reason for this is they are so perfectly preserved because of the conditions on the bottom of the sea. As a matter of fact, the oldest shipwreck in the world was found there which dated back 2400 years. It was a Greek merchant ship. The scientists who found it were astonished to find a ship intact which resembled the portraits of ships on ancient Greek wine bottles. When the ship was found the rudder, rowing benches and even its contents remained intact giving scientists a sort of time trip into the past. How many shipwrecks do you think there are around the world? No, it’s not 100,000. There are far more than that and it has been estimated by the United Nations there are probably about 3,000,000 shipwrecks. This figure sounds a little high to me but I have absolutely no experience in this area. It also brings up a question, how much of a ship has to be left to be called the shipwreck? You would think most ships of oceangoing size would not sink anymore due to our advancements in technology. The amount of ships sunk every year seems to be declining considering ships which are one hundred tons or more. I saw some information which indicated about 200 or less of the ships are lost per year. I can’t verify the figure but it probably is correct. The Mongols launched two invasions by sea against the Japanese and both times a storm wiped their fleets out. The dates were 1274 A.D., and 1281 A.D. and this is where the term divine wind came from and in Japanese that was kamikaze. The suicide pilots which crashed into our ships had gotten their name from the storms which wiped out the Mongol fleets. I don’t know how many ships have been found from these fleets but I do know at least one was. I also know a few artifacts have been found over the years from these fleets. When one looks at shipwrecks and arranges them from oldest to newest, the advancements in technology are obvious. Construction of some of these ancient ships was incredible. Some were built without a nail being used and were still capable of traveling over the ocean. When we talk about fleets of ships being lost throughout history, we have to think about the Spanish Armada. They lost a large number of their ships due to storms when they were traveling to the British Isles to invade them. In 1985 three of the ships were discovered. They were identified as the La Lavia, La Santa Maria de Vison, and the La Juliana. Pieces of the ships and equipment are still being found. If one was to ask what is the most famous shipwreck of all time I believe it has to be the wreck of the RMS Titanic. It has been made famous by different movies and articles and the story of the Titanic is heartbreaking and has touched the heartstrings of people since the day it went down and even today in current times. The story of the bravery of some of the passengers letting the women and children get into the lifeboats first even though they knew there wasn’t enough boats for everyone is truly heroic. The story of the band playing while the ship was sinking to try to improve morale in a terrible situation is famous. The ship sank in 1912 killing over 1500 people. Today it lays at the bottom of the ocean where a wreath has been deposited on it marking its Memorial status. There are plenty of famous shipwrecks and one of the most famous in this country is the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. There is a place which is neither an ocean or a sea but yet contains many shipwrecks and that is Lake Superior in the United States. The Lake is huge being 33,800 square miles. It is so big some ships which travel at are big enough to go on the ocean. The ship was a freighter and was rated at 13,632 Gross Weight Tonnage or GRT. That’s a pretty big ship and yet when it sunk in the storm and killed all of its crew of twenty-nine there was nothing they could do to save it. There probably will always be ship sinking but hopefully as time goes by the numbers will go down even more.
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