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Fun Facts about Shipwrecks:
– The most famous shipwreck of all time is the sinking of the Titanic.
– Did you know? Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novel Futility tells the story of a ship, the SS Titan that had the same destiny as Titanic years later.
– You could build ten RMS Titanic ships from the profits of Titanic the film.
– Two years after Titanic sank, the Empress Of Ireland sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and lost 68.5% of all passengers.
– In 1945, a German U-boat sank due to a toilet malfunction.
– The Swedish warship Vasa, which sank in 1628 less than a mile into its maiden voyage, was built asymmetrically.
– In 1991, when the cruise ship Oceanos sank, the crew abandoned ship, leaving the passengers behind.
– During the Cold War in 1974, CIA spent $3.8 billion to construct a ship with a 16,000 feet underwater claw arm in order to retrieve a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine.
– In 2013, the chef of Jascon 4, a sunken ship survived for three days under the ocean after taking refuge in an air pocket of the ship.
– USS Tang, one of the most successful subs in WWII, accidentally sank itself with its own torpedo.
– There are 22 Sunken WWII German U-Boats off the Eastern Coast of the United States.
– Rather than having their fleet be used by the Germans during WWII, the Danish Navy intentionally sank majority of their ships.
– Queen Anne’s Revenge was an 18th century warship mostly known for being the ship of legendary pirate Blackbeard.
– The Caparthia, the ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic’s sinking, was sunk by German torpedoes during WW1.
– There is at least one recorded incident of a train colliding with and sinking a ship.
– Only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsible boats were carried on Titanic, enough for only one third of the passengers
– The Nuestra Señora de Atocha, the prize ship of a Spanish fleet went down carrying one of the largest treasure hauls in maritime history.
– Treasure worth millions of dollars lies underwater in the remains of sunken ships.
– The major sunken-treasure areas are the Gulf of Mexico, the western Caribbean, and the waters off the Florida Keys.
– Among the 1,100 known shipwrecks in United States waters are some with gold cargoes.
– Lake Guatavita, Colombia is said to be the home of the fabled El Dorado treasure.
– Less Than 1 Percent of the World’s Shipwrecks Have Been Explored.
– Still, there is an estimated $60 billion in sunken treasure around the world.
– A rough estimate puts more than three million shipwrecks on the ocean floor.
– Most shipwrecks are documented for a much simpler reason: to avoid collisions or other incidents.
– Diving operations for exploring shipwrecks can cost millions of dollars.