About how many wrecks of ships built within the last century are there littering the sea bottom a good distance out? By “good distance” I mean more than 200 miles. By ships I mean things like tankers, ocean liners, battleships, and cargo ships.
How many of these have been found and explored like the Titanic and the Bismarck?If there wasn’t some environmental risk as was feared with that tanker that broke in half a few weeks ago or no loss of life, does anyone really make any attempt to find most shipwrecks?
For those that have, how many are in decent condition like the bow section of the titanic? Do most of them end up that way, or do they get so badly damaged by impacting the ocean floor or from implosion that they’re little more than a mass of twisted metal?
I ask because I just saw a clip on MSNBC of one of those cruise ships with the stomach virus and the shot had some lifeboats in it. It reminded me of this sinking I heard about maybe 10 years ago or so where a cruise ship sank, but everyone escaped.
Sinking ships don’t “implode”. Sinking submarines could, but don’t always. Implosion requires a watertight hull that maintains its integrity until the external pressure crushes it - open hatches or weak seams on a submarine hull could allow it to sink without crushing. Surface ships have enough holes, vents and hatches that they wouldn’t inplode, though they might blow off a hatch cover or porthole as air inside the ship is compressed by rising water levels. And they don’t usually sink at express-train speed, so impact damage would not be a significant factor. Hull damage is usually the cause for sinking, rather than the effect.
I would guess that most ships sunk within normal diving depth have been explored - they are a favourite site for scuba divers. Deeper sinkings are harder to find and harder to dive on, as you’re getting into submersibles, gas mixtures, and long decompression times. But, as with the Titanic, searchers usually have some idea where the ship was when it went down, so it’s not an impossibility if you have the money, time, and technology.
The drive to find a sunken vessel is usually connected to its notoriety. Titanic and Bismarck are ships everyone knows about, and the reputation that comes from finding and exploring them makes people like Bob Ballard famous (and rich). But who’s really interested in a documentary or book on the Costarican Trader (cargo ship that sank in the approaches to Halifax Harbour in the 1960s)?
Wow. There are thousands and thousands of ships that litter the sea…heck from ONE war alone…from one country alone!
Many are in sizable chunks.
google: sunken ship data
Hundreds, if not thousands of boats are on the floor. As to how many have been explored probably not many, as a percentage. Some people actually sink ships for any number of reasons. Mostly because it is actually cheaper to buy a new boat then fix an old one or bring it out of water. Others sink them to make reefs for fishing.
Oh and going 200 miles out you can get into some really deep water. You can go looking for ships if you want I’ll wait on shore.
Actually, they believe that the reason why the stern of the Titanic is in such horrible condition compared with the bow is because it imploded. The reasoning goes that the bow was allowed to slowly fill with water while the stern imploded because it sank much more quickly after the ship broke in two and thus didn’t have time to become filled as the bow did.
Wow. I waited several days and there were no replies. I thought perhaps THIS post had sunk to the bottom. :rolleyes: :smack:
