Deepdive into these 13 Facts about Shipwrecks

1

If you don’t want your ship to sink, you’d better break a bottle of champagne on it before launching. (It’s considered bad luck if the bottle doesn’t break.) The tradition, called ‘christening’, dates back at least to the third millennium B.C. While champagne is the most popular these days, other liquids, such as red wine, whiskey and water, have also been used. Sure, it’s just superstition, but one vessel that skipped this step was the Titanic.

2

Perhaps the best known shipwreck, the Titanic sank in 1912 and wasn’t located until 1985. The discovery was a collaboration between French and American researchers, including Dr Robert Ballard, who had previously looked for the Titanic unsuccessfully in 1977. The research teams used the latest sonar and video equipment at the time to explore the sea floor.

3

The Titanic inspired the 1997 film that won 11 Academy Awards. It also inspired the adoption of a new international law that set minimum safety standards for ships at sea, including strict lifeboat and life jacket requirements. More than 1,500 people died, in part, because the Titanic’s 20 lifeboats could only hold about half of the passengers on board—and many of the 18 lifeboats that launched weren’t filled to capacity. Had they been, nearly 500 more people may have survived the disaster.

4

In 2010, 168 intact champagne bottles were recovered from an old shipwreck with an unknown name in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. They were estimated to be 170 years old. Researchers studied and then sampled it, which was believed to have been the world’s oldest drinkable champagne. It had aged remarkably well in the cool, deep water.

5

Perhaps the shortest life of a ship was that of the massive Swedish warship Vasa. The poorly designed vessel sank mere minutes after it was launched in 1628, in full view of the port and the crowd gathered to watch. Most people aboard swam to safety, but 30 perished. The Vasa remained submerged for more than 300 years. In 1961, it was raised from the water and turned into a museum that opened the following year.

6

While shipwrecks can be fatal disasters for humans, they do encourage sea life to flourish. The bigger the shipwreck, the greater the number of creatures that can live in and on the wreckage. Over time, shipwrecks attract large and small fish, eels and sharks, as well as plankton, algae and coral. In 2005, a retired Australian Navy warship called the Brisbane was scuttled (sunk on purpose) off the coast of Queensland to become an artificial reef.

7

In 1906, more than 100 people died when the Valencia sank off Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. The treacherous water where the ship went down has come to be known as the Graveyard of the Pacific: Nearly 2,000 ships have sunk there since 1792.

8

In 1975, a carrier called the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members aboard. It remains the largest ship to sink in the North American Great Lakes. Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot penned a song, ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ immortalizing the event; the song reached No. 1 on Canada’s singles chart.

9

According to Greek mythology, sirens—creatures that are part bird, part woman—sang beautiful songs to lure sailors toward rocky shores, causing shipwrecks. In the Odyssey, Odysseus was eager to hear the sirens but didn’t want to veer into danger. He ordered his men to tie him to the ship’s mast, then put wax in their ears, protecting them from the music. Odysseus listened to the tempting sirens, but his sailors didn’t, and everyone survived the encounter.

10

Odysseus is also the name of the oldest shipwreck that was discovered intact: a 2,400-year-old Greek ship that was located by the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP) research team. The ship was found in the Black Sea near Bulgaria, still in one piece. It sank so deep that the water surrounding it was anoxic (oxygen-free), preserving it well, since the organisms that degrade wood couldn’t survive that far down. The Odysseus was one of 65 shipwrecks found in the Black Sea by MAP researchers between 2015 and 2017.

11

Shipwrecks have figured into the plots of several classic plays and novels, including The Tempest, Candide, The Divine Comedy, Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson and—perhaps the most ‘giant’ of them all—Gulliver’s Travels.

12

The famous English pirate Blackbeard took over a French ship called La Concorde (which he renamed Queen Anne’s Revenge) in 1717 off the coast of Martinique in the Caribbean, stealing the powdered gold on board and adding it to his treasure. Blackbeard abandoned the ship in 1718 after it hit a sandbar near North Carolina. The shipwreck wasn’t discovered until 1996, nearly 300 years later. 

13

Searching the sea floor is no easy feat, but finding treasure aboard a shipwreck could be better than winning the lottery. One of the most valuable shipwrecks that still hasn’t been found is the Flor de la Mar. The Portuguese ship sank near Sumatra, Indonesia, in 1511, and was laden with treasure. The estimated value in today’s currency: $2 billion.