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Less than 1 percent of the world's shipwrecks have been explored

US AWOIS database (extract)

From Popular Mechanics by Jay Bennett

A rough estimate puts more than three million shipwrecks on the ocean floor.

This number represents ships throughout the entirety of human history, from 10,000-year-old dugout canoes preserved in the muck to 21st century wrecks that you might have read about in the news.

There are so many shipwrecks, in fact, that a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has discovered two by accident.

The Battle of the Atlantic alone, which spanned nearly six years during World War II, claimed over 3,500 merchant vessels, 175 warships, and 783 submarines.

Particularly interesting are the cargo ships that literally contain treasure, such as Spanish galleons that transported gold and jewels across the Atlantic.

The Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of southwestern Turkey is roughly 3,300 years old, and that Late Bronze Age vessel contained gold, silver, jewels, copper and tin ingots, tools, swords and other weapons, and much more trade cargo—all of it hauled up over the course of 10 years and 22,413 dives.

But most wrecks don't receive that kind of attention.

In fact, less than 10 percent of the shipwrecks that we we've located—which account for just 10 percent of all shipwrecks in the world—have been surveyed or visited by divers.

Fishing trawlers snag on sunken ships, sonar readings pick them up, historical records tell us where they should be, harbor dredging operations uncover wrecks that have long been lost below the seafloor—but there simply isn't enough time and money to explore the vast majority of them.

The Sweepstakes was built in 1867 as a two-masted schooner in Burlington, Ontario by John Simpson.
The ship's length is 36.3m (119ft) and lays just below the surface in Big Tub harbor with a maximum depth of 7m (20ft).
The Sweepstakes was damaged off Cove Island, then towed to Big Tub harbor where she sank in 1885.
At times, the shipwreck will sit well below the surface of Lake Huron and then when the lake becomes shallower, sections of the Sweepstakes rise up out of the water making parts clearly visible.
Throughout Fathom Five National Marine Park, there are 22 shipwrecks and many people come here to snorkel and scuba dive in these pristine waters.

Daunting Task

James Delgado, the Director of Maritime Heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says that there are an estimated 4,300 shipwrecks within NOAA's 14 National Marine Sanctuaries.

Of these, 432 have been dived on and surveyed.

And these are shipwrecks within a mapped area set aside for preservation.

"There are laws and regulations directing NOAA to find what lies in those waters and assess it," Delgado said in an email.

Similar to other marine preservation organizations around the world, NOAA is not only devoted to discovering what the ships are, but also how their presence might affect the ecology of the marine environments they lie within.

Outside of marine sanctuaries, there isn't as much of an incentive.

Most shipwrecks are documented for a much simpler reason: to avoid collisions or other incidents. NOAA's Office of Coast Survey maintains a database of about 20,000 ships that is available to the public, primarily for the benefit of navigators and researchers.

The information for that database comes from two organizations within NOAA, the Electronic Navigational Charts (ENC) and the Automated Wrecks and Obstructions Information System (AWOIS).

Still, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where a shipwreck is on the ocean floor.

The database lists some limitations, including that it "contains wreck features from two different sources that were created for different purposes, and there is not a perfect match of features from either source. The same wreck may be found in both the ENC wrecks and AWOIS wrecks layers, although the positions may not necessarily agree."

Riches Under the Sea

Still, there is an estimated $60 billion in sunken treasure around the world, just waiting at the bottom of the ocean.

And that doesn't include the historical and cultural value of excavating shipwreck sites.

So why don't we explore more of them?

For one thing, it's hard to know what's worth the time.

Diving operations can cost millions of dollars, and before we go down there, we have no idea what the ship is, what it was carrying, and what condition the cargo is in. In some cases, we are not even 100 percent sure that the identified object is a ship at all.

"Not many people follow up on a target to determine if it is a wreck, and if so what type it is, and then if possible, which ship it is," says Delgado.

It is possible, however, that the situation will improve.

As Delgado points out, 90 to 95 percent of the sea floor itself remains unexplored.

There are a number of efforts to change that, such as the Ocean Discovery XPrize that is offering $7 million in prize money for private teams that build an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and create a bathymetric map (like a topographic map, but of the sea floor).

The Schmidt Ocean Institute, founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, maintains a 272-foot vessel outfitted with modern oceanographic equipment that scientists can apply to use for various research expeditions. 

The good news, for shipwrecks explorers at least, is that the majority of shipwrecks are actually near the coast, with a large percentage of incidents occurring in and around the entryways to ports and harbors.

"Some harbors are tough to enter, like Oregon's Columbia River Bar, or leave, like San Francisco's Golden Gate and Bar, due to shifting winds, shifting sands, fog, storms, or strong tides," says Delgado.

"But also for the same reason that most auto accidents seem to happen within a mile of home, and there are many accidents coming in and out of parking lots, people seem to be less cautious or more aggressive."

With most shipwrecks so close to the shore, and multiple examples of wealthy patrons sponsoring exploration and research expeditions, we could see many of these unexplored shipwrecks investigated in the coming years.

But even with advancing AUV technologies and efforts to map more of the ocean floor, many shipwrecks are likely to remain unexplored until they are buried below the sands or decay beyond the point of recognition.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Canada finds British vessel that vanished on doomed North-West Passage expedition in 1840s /  Could this shipwreck be Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria? / Lost treasures reclaimed from 2,000-year-old Antikythera shipwreck / Historic shipwreck to be freeze-dried & rebuilt / Could shipwrecks lead the World to war? / Explore a shipwreck LIVE: Underwater project lets you watch in real-time as scientists navigate a sunken warship / Historic shipwreck to be freeze-dried & rebuilt /

Santiano with La Recouvrance

Two Miles deep trailer

Syndicated cartoonist Jim Toomey is best known for his daily comic strip “Sherman’s Lagoon,” which explores themes ranging from pop culture to ocean conservation through the eyes of a cast of sea creatures living in an imaginary lagoon.

In June of 2014, Jim was invited by the Duke University Marine Lab to be a “cartoonist-in-residence” aboard the famed deep submersible vehicle Alvin.

“Two Miles Deep” is an account of his dive to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

In this 27-minute film, we discover, from the perspective of a cartoonist, through video and animation, that the deep ocean is a world full of beauty and complexity.

Cape Horn discovered 400 years ago

Cabo de Hornos with the GeoGarage platform (SHN Argentina chart)

From Maritime Executive by Niek Boot

On January 29 2016, it is exactly 400 years ago that a Dutch merchant ship, the Eendracht, sailed by Cape Horn, the southern-most point of South America.
When Fernando Magallanes discovered and sailed the Strait of Magellan in 1520 it was still assumed that Tierra del Fuego, the southern bank of the Strait, was part of Terra Australis, the unknown continent. Maps of the era show no passage south of the Strait of Magellan.
Some 80 years later, in 1602, the Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) and granted it a monopoly to trade with the “Spice Islands” east of Cape of Good Hope and west of the Strait of Magellan.

 NGA chart with the GeoGarage platform

One of the founders and the first president of the VOC was Isaac Le Maire.
He soon fell out with the board and was expelled in 1605 with the prohibition never to trade in VOC territory.
For a number of years he complied, but then the temptation became too great and he got permission to establish an “Australische Compagnie” or “South Company” and to launch an expedition to investigate the possibility of trade with the unknown Southern Continent.
His intention, from the start, was to find a new way to the East Indies, bypassing the exclusive routes of the VOC.
He purchased two vessels, the Eendracht (about 40m (130 feet) long with a crew of 65) and the Hoorn (about 30m (98 feet) long with a crew of 22) and had them fitted out by Captain Willem Schouten.

 Jacob Le Maire 

Le Maire appointed his son Jacob as leader of the expedition.
They sailed from the city of Hoorn, which was an important investor in the adventure, in June 1615. After calling at Cape Verde and Sierra Leone in Africa to replenish stores, water in particular, they arrived at what is today Puerto Deseado in the South of Argentina early December.
It is a protected inlet with a tidal range of over five meters, ideal to ground the vessels and clean their hulls of molluscs and other growth.
The cleaning was done by scratching the hulls with burning grass and scrubs.
During this work the Hoorn caught fire, and when the flames reached the gunpowder room, the vessel exploded and was irretrievably lost.
All of the crew survived and they then spent some weeks recovering was could be saved to put it on board Eendracht.

Beagle canal (SHN nautical charts)

On January 13, 1616, they set sail on the next leg of the trip.
They continued south past the latitude of the Strait of Magellan.
Here the coast of Tierra del Fuego forced them to sail eastbound in bad and cold weather.
Captain Schouten was tempted to abandon the search and set sail for Cape of Good Hope, unconvinced of the existence of a passage to the east and less secure without the assistance of his support vessel Hoorn. 
Jacob Le Maire insisted, and they continued.
On January 24, they found an opening and against current, waves and wind they managed to sail through.

Isla de los Estados with the GeoGarage platform (UKHO chart)

To the west was Tierra del Fuego, to the east there was land which they called Staten Land, not knowing it was an island.
Today it is called Staten Island, just like the island at the entrance of the Hudson River in New York, both named in honor of the General Staten of Holland, the Dutch government at the time.

 1633 map of Strait of Magellan, showing Strait Le Maire at the right, marked Fretum le Maire (Latin) and Straet Le Maire (Dutch)

They called the passage “Strait Lemaire.”
Continuing south, they sailed by various islands, some of which still today carry the names they were given then.
On the afternoon of January 29, 1616, they came by a cape which they realized was the southernmost of all and called it Kaap Hoorn in honor of the city they had sailed from.
They crossed the Pacific Ocean and arrived in Djakarta on the island of Java at the end of October 1616.
Instead of congratulating them with their discovery, the VOC-appointed governor did not believe their story and confiscated their ship and the goods on board.
Le Maire, Schouten and some of the crew were shipped to Holland as criminals for having infringed the monopoly of the VOC.
Jacob Le Maire died on board at the end of December.
The others arrived in Holland by July 1617. Isaac Le Maire was of course most distressed for having lost his son and his ships.
He claimed against the VOC for the confiscated vessel.
He won the case and recovered 65,000 florins.
But in the meantime the Dutch set up a new company, the West India Company, which they granted the monopoly of trading with the Americas, including the route via Cape Horn.
As a result Le Maire could not take advantage of his son’s discovery.
He died a bitter man in 1624, but his name lives on, 400 years later.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Vendee Globe : Cape Horn and ice danger