A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately three million shipwrecks worldwide as of January 1999, according to Angela Croome, a science writer and author who specialized in the history of underwater archaeology.
A tall ship is a large, traditionally-rigged sailing vessel. Popular modern tall ship rigs include topsail schooners, brigantines, brigs and barques. "Tall ship" can also be defined more specifically by an organization, such as for a race or festival.
A barquentine or schooner barque is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.
A ghost ship, also known as a phantom ship, is a vessel with no living crew aboard; it may be a fictional ghostly vessel, such as the Flying Dutchman, or a physical derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste. The term is sometimes used for ships that have been decommissioned but not yet scrapped, as well as drifting boats that have been found after breaking loose of their ropes and being carried away by the wind or the waves.
USS Amesbury (DE-66/APD-46), a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, was named in honor of Lieutenant (jg) Stanton Morgan Amesbury (1916–1942), who was killed in action while flying from the aircraft carrier Ranger (CV-4) during Operation Torch in 1942.
Asgard is a 51-foot (16 m) gaff-rigged yacht. She was owned by the English-born writer and Irish nationalist Erskine Childers and his wife Molly Childers. She is most noted for her use in the Howth gun-running of 1914.
SS Flying Enterprise was a 6,711 ton Type C1-B ship which sank off Cornwall in 1952. She was built in 1944 as SS Cape Kumukaki for the United States Maritime Commission for use in World War II. The ship was sold in 1947 and operated in scheduled service under the name Flying Enterprise. At the end of 1951, on a voyage from Hamburg to the USA with mixed cargo and a few passengers, she was crippled by storm damage and shifting cargo. Passengers and crew were evacuated. Three weeks of effort to save the ship having failed, she sank in January and some of the cargo was later salvaged.
Jeanie Johnston is a replica of a three-masted barque that was originally built in Quebec, Canada, in 1847 by the Scottish-born shipbuilder John Munn. The replica Jeanie Johnston performs a number of functions: it is an ocean-going sail training vessel at sea, and in port, it converts into a living history museum on 19th century emigration and, in the evenings, is used as a corporate event venue.
German submarine U-625 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 28 July 1941 at the Blohm & Voss yard in Hamburg, launched on 15 April 1942, and commissioned on 4 June 1942 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Hans Benker.
German submarine U-255 was a Type VIIC U-boat that served in Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 21 December 1940 at the Bremer Vulkan yard at Bremen-Vegesack, launched on 8 October 1941 and commissioned on 29 November 1941 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Reinhart Reche.
The Marques was a British-registered barque that sank during the Tall Ships' Races in 1984.
The Tall Ships Races are races for sail training "tall ships". The races are designed to encourage international friendship and training for young people in the art of sailing. The races are held annually in European waters and consists of two racing legs of several hundred nautical miles, and a "cruise in company" between the legs. Over one half of the crew of each ship participating in the races must consist of young people.
Tyrronall was a 248 GRT Coaster that was built in 1935 as the 199 GRT schooner Heimat by Flender Werke AG, Lübeck, Germany for German owners. She was seized by the Allies in May 1945, passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) and was renamed Empire Contamar.
Cymric was a British and Irish schooner, built in 1893. She joined the South American trade in the fleet of Arklow, Ireland, in 1906. She served as a British Q-ship during the First World War; she failed to sink any German U-boats, but did sink a British submarine in error.
James Postlethwaite was a schooner, launched in 1881. She operated out of Arklow after 1909. She was in Hamburg on the day that Britain entered the First World War with its declaration of war against Germany. Her crew was imprisoned and she was impounded and used as a barge to carry munitions.
The Mary B Mitchell was a British and later an Irish schooner, affectionately known as Mary B.. She was a pleasure craft, a war hero, a working schooner, a film star and a transporter of essential cargoes in dangerous waters.
STV Astrid was a 41.90-metre long tall ship that was built in 1918 in the Netherlands as a lugger and originally named W.U.T.A., short for Wacht Uw Tijd Af meaning "Bide Your Time". She was later transferred to Swedish ownership, renamed Astrid and sailed on the Baltic Sea until 1975. She then sailed under a Lebanese flag and was allegedly used for drug smuggling. After being found burnt out on the coast of England in the early 1980s, she was overhauled and used as a sailing training vessel. She was based in Weymouth, Dorset, United Kingdom and was informally known as "Weymouth's vessel".
Zebu, formerly Ziba, was a historic tall ship. Built in Sweden in 1938, she was used as a trading vessel until the late 1960s, before circumnavigating the globe in the 1980s. She has been based in Liverpool since the 1980s. She sank in 2015, and was subsequently restored. She partially sank again in 2021 after running aground on Holyhead breakwater after slipping her anchor, and had masts and sails removed to reduce weight so the hull could be moved. On 21 May 2021 after suffering further damage due to a storm, she was declared a wreck.
The Arklow Maritime Museum opened in 1976 in the old technical school on Saint Marys Road in Arklow, County Wicklow. Its original purpose was to celebrate the town's rich seafaring heritage, described by the late maritime historian John de Courcy Ireland in a letter to the museum as "Ireland's Most Maritime Town". In 2009, the museum moved to its current location at the Bridgewater Shopping Centre.
Lord Mulgrave was launched at Whitby in 1783. She had a mercantile career until 1793 when the Admiralty hired her to serve as an armed ship protecting convoys. She was wrecked in 1799.
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