Last shelter: ship graveyards

Have you ever thought about what happens to ships that have served their time? For their disposal create special man-made ship graveyards. They can be dry docks in which ships containing asbestos and other materials that can have harmful effects on the environment are stored. Man-made cemeteries of ships can be created in the sea, where old ships are left to be destroyed or dismantled into component parts. But, undoubtedly, the most interesting are not these artificially created places of repose, but cemeteries of ships that have arisen spontaneously.

Insidious Atlantic

During the existence of navigation, the Atlantic became the last haven for millions of ships created in different epochs. Usually, ship cemeteries arise at the intersection of sea lanes, where brave seamen are cursed by treacherous reefs, wandering sands not marked on maps of the rock. So, not far from Dover there is a place where the relief constantly changes its outlines, carrying a real threat to seafarers even today. What can we say about those navigators who did not know modern instruments? Near Dover there is a cemetery of sunken ships, on which, according to historians, hundreds of "floating vessels" and more than 50 thousand people who lived in different historical times rest. Drilling the bottom to a depth of 15 meters, the scientists found that the whole core taken consists of the remnants of ship's shells, wood, iron. Goodwin's smelts are permeated with shipborne decay. It is not for nothing that today this terrible place is called the Great Eater of Ships. There are many such places. Cemeteries ships are in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, the Bermuda Triangle, the Indian Ocean, Fiji and hundreds of other places. In some of them, triremes, created in the antique centuries, are under a thick layer of remains of Viking ships, medieval caravels, modern frigates and modern ships that have disappeared in our time. Why are there such graveyards?

Why?

Causes of ship graveyards can be:

• Storms that sailing ships could not resist.
• Mists, to navigate in which without special equipment was almost impossible.
• Strong currents that the ships could not withstand. Brought to the reef, they stayed there forever, if they did not have time to remove during the tide.

The most famous cemetery ships

In addition to the Great Ship Eater, there are other places where drowned ships accumulated for centuries (photo). The cemetery of the ships in Taranto (Italy) is quite well known, there is one among the 16 ships, which was especially famous because of its cargo. The vessel was lucky with coins, marble and tamarisk sarcophagi. It is interesting that after a century the cargo is still in a normal state. Among modern cemeteries, a rather large one is in Mauritania. After nationalization, many fishing and transport vessels were simply abandoned by the owners. They still rot near the shore. There is such a place in Russia, in the Aral Sea. There, as a result of the ecological disaster, hundreds of ships are being destroyed in the middle of the desert, which until recently was a sea bottom. The largest ship graveyard is in Pakistan. Huge tankers and luxury cruise ships here are sawed into small parts and utilized.