# How many ships are on the bottom of the sea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952 "2001-03-14T14:54:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/1 "2001-03-14T14:54:36Z")
I recognize that I have a problem with parameters on this question, so go ahead and throw in any suggestions abotu what should be included and excluded. Obviously small boats like canoes and rowboats are out, but I still am not sure what the minimum size should be. Part of me is wondering how many of these shipwrecks are recognizable right now, and part of me just wonders how many boats have sunk in the last…6000 years or so. I also don’t know what they did with old boats back in the day. Did they just sail them around until they sank? Did they take them to sea and scuttle them? Did they get dismantled? I guess you can see the problem with defining this question. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/2 "2001-03-14T15:28:47Z")
I don’t see any possible way of answering your question, outside of the Psychic Hotline. 😃 As to what they used to do with old boats: As wooden boats age, they flex more and more, and eventually the caulking between the planks/staves that make up the hull won’t keep out the water any more. A big expensive boat like a British frigate will of course last longer than a cod fisherman’s dory. I would assume that as soon as it became clear that a boat wasn’t going to be useful much longer, it would be broken up and salvaged for firewood or building timbers. There’s a very famous painting by Turner, of a British warship being towed away to be broken up. [http://website.lineone.net/~carpenter9/artist/turner-temeraire.htm](http://website.lineone.net/~carpenter9/artist/turner-temeraire.htm) > [@](#): > > The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838 ---
**Author:** ![SavageNarce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@SavageNarce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SavageNarce)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/3 "2001-03-14T15:51:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freedom \* > **…how many boats have sunk in the last…6000 years or so.** Pretty well all of them 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/4 "2001-03-14T19:30:45Z")
I have a National Geographic map on my cubicle wall entitled “Ghost Fleet of the Outer Banks” which shows the “ill-fated ships [which] lie forever anchored in the coastal sea floor.” It lists the name, date and location of shipwrecks off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The earliest listed is 1585 and the latest is 1969. There are over 500 wrecks. So the answer to your question must be, by extrapolation, a whole lotta ships! p.s. Note that, according to National Geographic, they lie there “forever”! ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/5 "2001-03-14T19:47:55Z")
Let me chime in with “It’s staggering.” We visited a shipbuilding museum in Maine. On a wall where photos or drawings of all the ships one particular company had made. These were big, big wooden ships used for hauling stuff up and down the east coast of the U.S. Each drawing was accompanied by information such as when the ship was built, what its routes were, and what eventually happened to it. Every single one of them was listed as “wrecked.” Very alarming to a landlubber like myself–but apparently I was not the only one. The very next panel said “Why Did All These Ships Wreck?” And the answer was that this was just a very usual fate for ships like this. I know we think of shipwrecks as dramatic disasters (and I guess they were, regardless) but hardly uncommon. Build 'em, use 'em, wreck 'em, build another. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/6 "2001-03-14T20:52:47Z")
You’d never know. I found out a couple of years ago that there are ship graveyards. The reason is that it is easier to sink a ship than to pull it out of the water and try and reuse it. A lot of ships are also now used to make reefs. I’ve also heard that people will throw refridgerators, washing machines and anything else to make reefs. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/7 "2001-03-15T00:41:07Z")
Shipwrecks I can think of: _Titanic_ d’uh (In fact, I’m listening to the sndtrk right now…go figure) _Lusitania_ _Britannic_, _Titanic_’s sister ship, sunk off the coast of Greece when it hit a mine during the Great War-_Britannic_ was a hospital ship. _Andrea Doria_ _Empress of Ireland_ _Edmund Fitzgerald_ _Carpathia_, the Cunarder that picked up _Titanic_’s passengers, torpedoed in 1918 and the wreck was only recently discovered. _Mary Rose_, Henry VII, or was it Henry VIII? Anyhoo, it was a warship belonging to one of them. _Maine_ _Essex_ _Wilhelm Gustloff_ The worst maritime disaster of the 20th century-the _Gustloff_ went down in the Baltic was nearly 8,000 people lost. Torpedoed by a Russian sub, I believe. Everyone talks about the _Titanic_, but the _Gustloff_ was really a tragedy. _Atocia_ _Bismarck_ _Blucher_ Again, torpedoed during WWI. I THINK this is the ship one of my mom’s grandparents came to America on. I THINK. (But not on the last voyage, of course!) _Republic_ _Estonia_ _Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse_ BTW, which was the shipwreck where some of the survivors were attacked by sharks? I KNOW someone told me here on another discussion about the _Titanic_, I think, but I forgot! I love reading and hearing about shipwreck disasters. Bob Ballard’s book, The Lost Liners is EXCELLENT! Well, he coauthored it with someone else, I believe. Of course, most of these are ocean liners, but I hope this helps! [http://www.greatshipwrecks.com/index.html](http://www.greatshipwrecks.com/index.html) [http://www16.brinkster.com/shipwrecks/](http://www16.brinkster.com/shipwrecks/) [http://www.lostliners.com/](http://www.lostliners.com/) [http://www.greatoceanliners.net/](http://www.greatoceanliners.net/) [http://www.pbs.org/lostliners/](http://www.pbs.org/lostliners/) ---
**Author:** ![Du\_Hast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f0a364/32.png) [@Du\_Hast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Du_Hast)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/8 "2001-03-15T01:38:22Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* \*\*Shipwrecks I can think of: _Titanic_ d’uh (In fact, I’m listening to the sndtrk right now…go figure) _Lusitania_ _Britannic_, _Titanic_’s sister ship, sunk off the coast of Greece when it hit a mine during the Great War-_Britannic_ was a hospital ship. _Andrea Doria_ _Empress of Ireland_ _Edmund Fitzgerald_ _Carpathia_, the Cunarder that picked up _Titanic_’s passengers, torpedoed in 1918 and the wreck was only recently discovered. _Mary Rose_, Henry VII, or was it Henry VIII? Anyhoo, it was a warship belonging to one of them. _Maine_ _Essex_ _Wilhelm Gustloff_ The worst maritime disaster of the 20th century-the _Gustloff_ went down in the Baltic was nearly 8,000 people lost. Torpedoed by a Russian sub, I believe. Everyone talks about the _Titanic_, but the _Gustloff_ was really a tragedy. _Atocia_ _Bismarck_ _Blucher_ Again, torpedoed during WWI. I THINK this is the ship one of my mom’s grandparents came to America on. I THINK. (But not on the last voyage, of course!) _Republic_ _Estonia_ _Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse_ USS Arizona USS Indianapolis Kursk (do submarines count) Andrea Gail (watch The Perfect Storm) about 1200 Mongol Ships in the 1200s A canoe I set out on Lake Erie USS Monitor CSS Virginia A sailboat my friend sailed outside Southport, NC (capisized) 7 nuclear submarines (dunno if that includes Kursk) Every ship at Midway except the Yorktown (at least according to that boring-as-hell movie) That’s all I can think of. ---
**Author:** ![Wabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba9def/32.png) [@Wabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wabbit)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/9 "2001-03-15T01:54:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\* > BTW, which was the shipwreck where some of the survivors were attacked by sharks? I KNOW someone told me here on another discussion about the _Titanic_, I think, but I forgot! \*\* \*The Indianapolis \*, an American cruiser torpedoed by a Japanese submarine after delivering components for the A-bomb. Made famous by \* Jaws \* when the skipper of the shark hunting boat (you know, the guy that ends up trying to floss Jaws’ teeth) talks about why he hates those particular fish. Pretty good scene, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/10 "2001-03-15T05:08:28Z")
We were trying to guesstimate a rough number of recognizable shipwrecks on the ocean floor. If we put the minimum ship size at a 10 passenger ship, would anyone in here have a problem with a guess of 50,000? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/11 "2001-03-15T06:47:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Du\_Hast \* > Every ship at Midway except the Yorktown (at least according to that boring-as-hell movie) Then either the movie was wrong or you were confused. The _Yorktown_ was the only US carrier sunk in that battle. The _Hornet_ and _Enterprise_ survived, although the former was sunk later in the war. The _Enterprise_ survived the war and was eventually scrapped (despite efforts to turn it into a war memorial). ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/12 "2001-03-15T14:55:21Z")
**Freedom** : > [@](#): > > If we put the minimum ship size at a 10 passenger ship, would anyone in here have a problem with a guess of 50,000? Well, yes. Passenger capacity has little to do with size. There are relatively small ferries that can carry hundreds of passengers; they ply the waters between Indonesian islands and the English Channel every day. On the other hand, _Edmund Fitzgerald_ carried no passengers at all (she was an ore freighter), and had a crew of only 29. But no one would dispute her as a major, famous shipwreck. Where did you get 50,000? Did you just make it up? And here’s another problem: your thread title refers to “the bottom of the sea.” What’s the sea? All the major oceans? _Edmund Fitzgerald_ and _Empress of Ireland_ are on the bottom of a Great Lake and a river, respectively. Will you not count them? To others’ lists of sunken ships I wish to add the good ship _ **Endurance** _, and also the cruise liner _ **Achille Lauro** _. ---
**Author:** ![douglips](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@douglips](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/douglips)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/13 "2001-03-15T17:45:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fiver \* > \*\*_[Achille Lauro](http://pc-78-120.udac.se:8001/www/Nautica/ships/Achille_Lauro.html)_. \*\* (link added.) Holy crap! I only remembered the hostage thing - why did I not hear about [its fate](http://nemo.unh.edu/aqualung/picts/scanned/achilleb.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/14 "2001-03-15T18:13:35Z")
**douglips** : Beats me. Its fire, abandonment, and sinking were pretty big news, although not nearly as big as the hostage crisis years before. Another comment for the OP, regarding what was done with old ships (not boats) back in the day. If you were a wealthy Viking jarl and died, all your possessions including your best or favorite ship (and best or favorite slaves, even if they hadn’t died yet themselves) were buried with you. That’s right, they’d dig a grave big enough to hold an entire _ship_, then haul said ship out of the water and into the grave. And it’s lucky for us they did, because some of them were exhumed in the last century or two and have become major resources for historians and archaeologists. Add to our ongoing list of sunken ships the _ **Bianca C** _, the “Titanic of the Caribbean.” ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2001, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/15 "2001-03-15T18:24:14Z")
More on this subject: On the rivers, it was very common for the gorgeous (and not so gorgeous) riverboats to hit snags or sandbars and sink. They dredged one up from the Missouri river recently-- it had been loaded to its brim with supplies, headed for general stores and mercantiles up north. It sunk back in the late 1800s. When they recovered it, all this stuff was well-preserved by the river mud. It took some cleaning, but they have extraordinary displays at a museum in Iowa showing all the goods from that boat. These aren’t shipwrecks, but riverboat sinkings were another staggeringly commonplace event. ---
**Author:** ![labdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/16 "2001-03-16T01:45:27Z")
One more to add the sultana. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sultana.htm](http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sultana.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Du\_Hast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f0a364/32.png) [@Du\_Hast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Du_Hast)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/17 "2001-03-16T03:18:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dtilque \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Du\_Hast \* > > Every ship at Midway except the Yorktown (at least according to that boring-as-hell movie) > > Then either the movie was wrong or you were confused. The _Yorktown_ was the only US carrier sunk in that battle. The _Hornet_ and _Enterprise_ survived, although the former was sunk later in the war. The _Enterprise_ survived the war and was eventually scrapped (despite efforts to turn it into a war memorial). \*\* * * * I slept through Midway. Boring movie. Boring battle to learn about. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/18 "2001-03-16T21:54:32Z")
If we’re going to be counting Great Lakes and riverine disasters as well as those on the actual ocean, let’s include the Lady Elgin (1860, 380 dead, Lake Michigan) and the Eastland (1915, over 800 dead, Chicago River)\* amidst a cast of literally thousands. Lady Elgin: [http://www.execpc.com/~bbaillod/elginhx.html](http://www.execpc.com/~bbaillod/elginhx.html) Eastland: [http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/](http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/) Great Lakes shipwrecks in general: [http://www.execpc.com/~bbaillod/](http://www.execpc.com/~bbaillod/) \*The Eastland was a disaster but not a shipwreck: it was righted, sailed again, and ultimately reused during WWII as a Navy trainer aircraft carrier in Lake Michigan. (George Bush [the First] might very well have trained on it.) Along with ships, there’s a bunch of WWII-era naval aircraft on the bottom of Lake Michigan from trainees missing the training carriers’ decks. Oops! ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/19 "2001-03-16T22:42:52Z")
This site lists alot of ships and planes that were lost near Bermuda. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2001, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952/20 "2001-03-16T22:57:51Z")
I’m pretty certain that every sunken steel-hulled ship is still recognizable in some form, and I think I can give a ballpark esimate of how many of them are out there. [This page](http://www.usmm.org/navylossww2.html)gives the official number as 692. [Merchant Marine](http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html) losses were staggering, I’d say very close to five thousand. [This page](http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWshipslost.htm) shows about five thousand Allied ship losses for WWII. The German and Austrian navies were of course almost wholly destroyed, some of the last at the hands of Billy Michell’s bombers in the 1920’s. The above must be very close to twelve thousand ships, and that doesn’t include the Japanese in WWII, who lost almost everything. So if we figure that World Wars I and II comprise the majority of ship sinkings of the twentieth century, and I think that’s fair, and make some guesses about the losers of those wars, then toss in all other sinkings and the comparatively small number of steel-hulled sinkings in the nineteenth century, we could easily be talking about what, maybe twenty thousand sunken steel-hulled ships? I don’t know, does that seem like a fair estimate? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-ships-are-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/57952.md?page=2)