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.
What Is Shipwreck Beach?
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.
