There have been many interesting naval battles in history, and it made me curious about what would be the biggest ship ‘graveyard’ in history?
This came to mind after reading a book about the battle of Midway, where they recently found the wreck of the Yorktown. Despite being 50+ years old, the wreck is absolutely amazing to look at- riddled with bomb craters and sitting silently in the bottom of the pacific.
Just for clarification, are you thinking of naval battle sites or areas that are particularly dangerous for navigation, i.e. the Outer Banks, etc.? Or both?
Veb
If you’re counting areas that are tough to navigate and not just sites of naval battles, then the Outer Banks of NC [as TVeblen mentioned as an example], is probably the worst, or one of them. It’s nicknamed ‘the graveyard of the Atlantic,’ so that’s at least the biggest on the Atlantic side, and maybe overall.
Gotta be Mallow’s Bay on the Potomac, for sheer density of wrecks.
After WWI, hundreds of ships were packed in tightly and set alight, and ships had been scuttled there before and have been since.
More on Cape Hatteras and the Outer Banks as a contender:
Iron Bottom Sound in the Solomon Islands has a few wrecks. The linked site doesn’t list it, but PT-109 ought to be in the neighborhood (well, they didn’t call it Plywood Bottom Sound).
Sable Island, Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Nice Map
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/sableisland/english_en/history_hi/graveyard_gr/Shipwreck_Map.htm
For seeing the greatest number of wrecks/founderings/naval battles over the millenia, you’d probably be hard-pressed to beat the various well-travelled routes in the Mediterranean… not that anything remains from many of them.
That, and the English Channel.
Not sure where it stands relative to other places (the Mediterranian was my first thought also, Scrivener), but bad weather has dropped a lot of ships in the Caribbean.
Now, the “biggest ship” graveyard might be Bikini Atoll. Various ships, including battleships and a carrier were sunk there as part of the atom bomb testing.
Some relatives of mine just went there diving. Great place to dive if you like wrecks.
For old civilian ships, that were put there deliberately and peacefully, there’s the Boatyard on Staten Island in NY.
http://www.oboylephoto.com/boatyard/index.htm
Creepy pictures. But, OT, all time creepiest winner is this Flash movie: