A Hidden Graveyard of 18th Century Ships Makes Hawaii's Shipwreck Beach

In every major body of water in the world, there are sunken ships resting on the seafloor. Near the coast of North Carolina, for example, there is a graveyard of ships torpedoed during the Second World War by German submarines. And in the Great Lakes, an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 ships have been lost at sea.

These wreckages, however, weren’t the intent of the captain or crew. Most ran into bad weather or enemy crosshairs. However, on the coast of a Hawaiian island, there is a ship graveyard where many of the groundings were intentional. Called Shipwreck Beach, this six-mile stretch of coastline is home to dozens of maritime skeletons. 

Shipwreck Beach is a maritime graveyard on the Hawaiian island of Lāna`i. Scientists don’t have an exact number of how many ships were marooned in the area, but archival records and land surveys have identified about two dozen, says Hans K. Van Tilburg, the maritime heritage coordinator with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Ships were intentionally grounded in the area starting in the 1870s through the 1940s.

“Shipwreck beach was where you could take an old haul and let it run itself ashore, and it would stay in place and not be a navigational hazard,” Van Tilburg says. 

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Many of the sunken ships at Shipwreck Beach were no longer useful to commercial mariners. They were older vessels, mostly small steamers, that had once transported passengers or goods between the islands.

Starting in the late 19th century, smaller steamers went between the islands to service cargo from sugar plantations as well as cattle ranches.

“Sometimes older steamers ended up in backwaters of harbors and sitting there for a while,” Van Tilburg says. “The last thing ship owners wanted was for these ships to become hazards.”

Read More: Historic Shipwrecks Preserved as Undersea Museums

Grounding a ship at Shipwreck Beach was meant to be a safe way for mariners to dispose of an old vessel and not have it return to wreak havoc. Van Tilburg says the trade winds in the area pushed vessels onto the Lāna`I shore and kept them in place.

But the same fierce trade winds that safely pushed unwanted ships into a permanent resting place also grabbed hold of other vessels and ran them aground.

“Anything that happened to accidentally come loose from the mooring or anchorage would be pushed on the north shore of Lāna`I,” Van Tilburg says.

Visitors to Shipwreck Beach can’t miss a WWII tanker, YOGN-42, that was intentionally grounded and is parked near the coastline. The massive tanker was made of steel and cement, and though it has decayed, it’s still where the U.S. Navy left it.

“That’s one of the most prominent on shipwreck beach; it’s visible from the air,” Van Tilburg says.

However, many wreckages aren’t visible above the waterline, and Van Tilburg says researchers want to continue surveying the shoreline to learn more about the hidden remains.

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Although many people might associate Hawaii with crystal blue waters and soft-sand beaches, Van Tilburg says the north shore of Lāna`I has rough waters.

“The entire shoreline has not been surveyed. The water can be somewhat turbulent and cloudy. It’s not crystal clear visibility water,” he says.

With limited visibility from above, divers have investigated the shoreline from below. Van Tilburg was part of a NOAA research team that surveyed the area, and he says they also relied on historical records.

“Looking at the historic records on Lāna`I Shipwreck Veach, we came up with a couple dozen places where there were all sorts of wrecks,” he says. “Container off a container barge, modern sailing vessels, barges that used to be towed. And then there are the steamship hulks and hulls that were intentionally disposed of.”

Read More: No One Knows How Many Shipwrecks Exist, So How Do We Find Them?

Although Shipwreck Beach might seem like it’s all about sunken ships, Van Tilburg says it’s also about the history of the people behind those ships.

He gives the example of the Paniolo, Hawaii’s cowboys who predated the American cowboy of the Wild West. Longhorn cattle and horses were introduced to the islands in the late 18th century. A beef industry emerged, and the Paniolo were responsible for herding the cattle onto boats.

Problematically, the boats couldn’t simply land ashore so the cattle could load. “There weren’t harbors or safe landings in Hawaii,” Van Tilburg says. “They had to do it from the beach.”

The Paniolo rode the cattle into the shallow water and then maneuvered them onto boats using ropes. Van Tilburg says the Paniolo history is a proud one, and it has a connection to the beach.

“For me, it’s not just about the history of this one particular wreck or that underwater aircraft but the interaction of those places with the marine environment,” he says. 

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Shipwreck Beach is open to hikers and explorers who wish to see the maritime graveyard for themselves. But Van Tilburg says what the wrecks mean to the area is a complex question. 

“This is archeology and this is history, which we love. But it’s also debris. It’s material falling apart in a marine ecosystem,” he says.

Researchers will continue to survey the shoreline and add to their growing knowledge of Shipwreck Beach, its benefits, and possible detriments. 

Van Tilburg says it’s a historical treasure worth more exploration because it reflects their “cultural connections to the oceans.”

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Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. National Marine Sanctuaries

• The maritime heritage coordinator of theNOAA. Hans K. Van Tilburg

• National Park Service. The Paniolo

Emilie Lucchesi has written for some of the country's largest newspapers, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and an MA from DePaul University. She also holds a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Illinois-Chicago with an emphasis on media framing, message construction and stigma communication. Emilie has authored three nonfiction books. Her third, "A Light in the Dark: Surviving More Than Ted Bundy," releases October 3, 2023 from Chicago Review Press and is co-authored with survivor Kathy Kleiner Rubin.