Shipwreck

on the shore of Fuerteventura.]] A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English. A shipwreck could be called a wreck if the structure is still recognizable or a wreckage if it is not recognizable anymore. The United Nations estimates that there are more than 3 million shipwrecks on the ocean floor.

Types of shipwrecks

in Plymouth, Massachusetts]] Historic wrecks are attractive to maritime archaeologists because they preserve historical information: for example, studying the wreck of Mary Rose revealed information about seafaring, warfare and life in the 16th century. Military wrecks that were caused by a skirmish at sea are studied to find details about the historic event and reveal much about the battle that occurred. Discoveries of treasure ships, often from the period of European colonisation, which sank in remote places, leaving few living witnesses, such as the Batavia, do occur but only very infrequently.

Some contemporary wrecks, such as the Prestige or Erika, are of interest primarily because of the potential harm to the environment. Other contemporary wrecks are scuttled in order to spur reef growth, such as Adolphus Busch and the Ocean Freeze. Wrecks like Adolphus Busch and many historic wrecks such as are of interest to recreational divers who enjoy diving shipwrecks because they are often interesting to explore, provide large habitats for many types of marine life and have an interesting history.

Very few shipwrecks are famous catastrophes like the wrecks of the , Britannic, or Estonia. There are also thousands of wrecks that were not lost at sea but have been abandoned or sunk. These are typically smaller vessels such as fishing vessels. These vessels can provide an interesting recreational dive but are usually of little interest to historians. They may pose a hazard to navigation and may be removed by port authorities. These vessels are sometimes referred to as abandoned or derelicts..

Construction materials

Exposed wooden components decay quickly. Often the only wooden parts of ships that remain after a century are those that were buried in silt or sand soon after the sinking. An example of this is the Mary Rose.

Steel and iron, depending on their thickness, may retain the ship's structure for decades. As corrosion takes place, sometimes helped by tides and weather, the structure collapses. Thick ferrous objects like cannons, steam boilers or the pressure vessel of a submarine often survive well underwater in spite of corrosion.

Propellers, condensers, hinges and port holes were often made from non-ferrous metals such as brass and phosphor bronze, which do not corrode easily.

Salinity of water

Wrecks typically decay rapidly when in seawater. There are several reasons for this:

Iron-based metals corrode much more quickly in seawater because of the dissolved salt present; the sodium and chloride ions chemically accelerate the process of metal oxidation which, in the case of ferrous metals, leads to rust.

Bacteria found in fresh water cause the wood on ships to rot more quickly than in seawater unless it's deprived of oxygen. Unprotected wood in seawater is rapidly consumed by shipworms and small wood-boring sea creatures. Shipworms found in higher salinity waters, such as the Caribbean are notorious for boring into wooden structures that are immersed in sea water and can completely destroy the hull of a wooden shipwreck.

Shipwrecks in some freshwater lakes, such as the Great Lakes of North America, have remained intact with little degradation. In some sea areas, most notably in Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland, salinity is very low, and centuries-old wrecks have been preserved in reasonable condition.

Loss, salvage and demolition

explodes]] An important factor in the condition of the wreck is the level of destruction at the time of the loss or shortly afterwards due to the nature of the loss, salvage or later demolition.

Examples of severe destruction at the time of loss are:

being blown onto a beach, reef or rocks during a storm (e.g. Royal Adelaide)

collision with another ship (e.g. ) a catastrophic explosion (e.g. )

a fire that burns for a long time before the ships sinks (e.g. MS Achille Lauro)

After the loss the owners of the ship may attempt to salvage valuable parts of the ship or its cargo - this operation can cause damage.

Shipwrecks in shallow water near busy shipping lanes are often demolished to reduce the danger to other vessels.

Depth, tide and weather

On the seabed, wrecks are slowly broken up by the forces of wave action caused by the weather and currents caused by tides. Also more highly oxygenated water, which promotes corrosion, reduces the strength of ferrous structural materials of the ship. Deeper wrecks are likely to be protected by less exposure to water movement and by lower levels of oxygen in water.

Temperature

Extreme cold (such as in a glacial-fed lake) can lead to slow degradation of organic ship materials.

Salvage of wrecks

Often, attempts are made to salvage recently wrecked ships to recover the whole or part of the ship, its cargo, or its equipment. A good example of this was the salvage of the Kaiserliche Marine High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in the 1920s. The unauthorized salvage of wrecks is called wrecking.

Shipwrecks and the law

Shipwreck law determines important legal questions regarding wrecks, perhaps the most important question being the question of ownership. Legally wrecks are divided into wreccum maris (material washed ashore after a shipwreck) and adventurae maris (material still at sea); although some legal systems treat the two categories differently, others treat them the same.

Wrecks are often considered separately from their cargo. For example, in the English case of the Lusitania [1986] QB 384 it was accepted that the remains of the vessel itself were owned by the insurance underwriters who had paid out on the vessel as a total loss by virtue of the law of subrogation (who subsequently sold their rights), but that the property aboard the wreck still belonged to its original owners (or their descendants).

Military wrecks, however, remain under the jurisdiction–and hence protection–of the government that lost the ship, or that government's successor. Hence, a German U-boat from World War II still technically belongs to the German government, even though the Third Reich is long-defunct. Many military wrecks are also protected by virtue of their being war graves.

However, many legal systems allow the rights of salvors to override the rights of the original owners of a wreck or its cargo. As a general rule, non-historic civilian shipwrecks are considered fair game for salvage. Under international maritime law, for shipwrecks of a certain age, the original owner may have lost all claim to the cargo. Anyone who finds the wreck can then file a salvage claim on it and place a lien on the vessel, and subsequently mount a salvage operation (see Finders, keepers).

Some countries assert claims to all wrecks within their territorial waters, irrespective of the interest of the original owner or the salvor. Wartime wrecks have different legal considerations, as they are often considered prizes of war, and therefore owned by the Navy that sunk them.

beached off Branscombe]]

Some legal systems regard a wreck (and/or its cargo) to be abandoned if no attempt is made to salvage them within a certain period of time. English law has usually resisted this notion (encouraged by an extremely large maritime insurance industry, which asserts claims in respect of shipwrecks which it has paid claims on), but is has been accepted to a greater or lesser degree in an Australian case and in a Norwegian case. The American courts have been inconsistent between states and at Federal level. Under Danish law, all shipwrecks over 150 years old belong to the state if no owner can be found. In Spain, wrecks vest in the state if not salvaged within 3 years. In Finland, all property on board shipwrecks over 100 years old vests in the state.

The British Protection of Wrecks Act, enacted to protect historic wrecks, controls access to wrecks such as Cattewater Wreck which can only be visited or investigated under licence. The British Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 also restricts access to wrecks which are sensitive as war graves. The Protection of Military Remains Act in some cases creates a blanket ban on all diving; for other wrecks divers may visit provided they do not touch, interfere with or penetrate the wreck. In the United States, shipwrecks in state waters are regulated by the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987. This act is much more lenient in allowing more open access to the shipwrecks.

Following the beaching of the MSC Napoli, as a result of severe damage incurred during European storm Kyrill, there was confusion in the press and by the authorities about whether people could be prevented from helping themselves to the flotsam which was washed up on the beaches at Branscombe. Many people took advantage of the confusion and helped themselves to the cargo. This included many BMW motorbikes and empty wine casks as well as bags of disposable nappies (diapers). The legal position under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 is that any such finds and recovery must be reported within 28 days to the Receiver of Wreck. Failure to do so is an offence under the Merchant Shipping Act and can result in a criminal record for theft by finding. After several days, the police and Receiver of Wreck, in conjunction with the landowner and the contracted salvors, established a cordon to prevent access to the beach. A similar situation occurred after the wreck of the MV Cita in 1997.

Historic wrecks (often but not always defined as being more than 50 years of age) are often protected from pillaging and looting through national laws protecting cultural heritage. Internationally they may be protected by a State ratifying the Unesco Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. In this case pillaging is not allowed.

An important international convention aiming at the protection of underwater cultural heritage (including shipwrecks) is the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage represents the international community's response to the increasing looting and destruction of underwater cultural heritage. It forms part of a group of UNESCO standard setting instruments regarding the domain of cultural heritage, encompassing seven conventions adopted by UNESCO Member States, which constitute a coherent and complementary body guaranteeing a complete protection of all forms of cultural heritage.

The UNESCO 2001 Convention is an international treaty aimed exclusively at the protection of underwater cultural heritage and the facilitation of international cooperation in this regard. It does not change sovereignty rights of States or regulate the ownership of wrecks or submerged ruins.

References

See also

, Greece.]] , Morocco.]]

Shipwreck (accident)

Hulk (ship)

Abandoned Shipwrecks Act

Flotsam and jetsam

Sinking ships for wreck diving sites

Underwater archaeology

Wreck diving

External links

WRECKSITE Worldwide free database of + 65.000 wrecks with history, maritime charts and GPS positions

UNESCO 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage

More than 3 million shipwrecks rest beneath the world's waters

Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), St. Augustine, Florida

National Underwater and Marine Agency

Florida Shipwrecks: 300 years of Maritime History, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary

Straits of Mackinac Shipwreck Preserve

BSAC List of wrecks on the UK South coast with GPS co-ords

Website of The Elizabethan wreck off the island of Alderney, Channel Islands

Above and Underwater virtual tour of a ship (the Buccaneer) sank in 2010 in Lake Michigan as an artificial reef

The Sea Hunt Case : An Extraordinary Legal Fiction

Category:Law of the sea