Wrecking is the practice of taking valuables from a shipwreck which has foundered or run aground close to shore. Often an unregulated activity of opportunity in coastal communities, wrecking has been subjected to increasing regulation and evolved into what is now known as marine salvage.
Robert Duane Ballard is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is noted for his work in underwater archaeology and marine geology. He is best known by the general public for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.
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.
Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. The term is used mainly by recreational and technical divers. Professional divers, when diving on a shipwreck, generally refer to the specific task, such as salvage work, accident investigation or archaeological survey. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving. The recreation of wreck diving makes no distinction as to how the vessel ended up on the bottom.
USS R-12 (SS-89) was an R-class coastal and harbor defense submarine of the United States Navy.
Dog Island is located in the northwestern Florida Gulf coast, just 3.5 mi (5.6 km) off-shore from Carrabelle, in Franklin County, Florida. There is, by reservation, ferry transportation to Dog Island on weekends.
Valbanera was a steamship operated by the Pinillos Line of Spain from 1905 until 1919, when she sank in a hurricane with the loss of all 488 crew and passengers aboard. Valbanera was a 400-foot-long (120 m) steamer capable of carrying close to 1,200 passengers. She sailed a regular route between Spain and Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Gulf Coast of the United States. The ship sank with the loss of all 488 people on board during the Florida Keys Hurricane in September 1919.
SS Copenhagen is a shipwreck off the town of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, United States. She was a cargo steamship, built in England in 1898. She was wrecked on a reef south of Hillsboro Inlet in 1900.
Maple Leaf is a United States National Historic Landmark in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. Maple Leaf, a side paddlewheel steamship, was first launched as a freight and passenger vessel from the Marine Railway Yard in Kingston, Upper Canada in 1851. The 181-foot (55 m) sidewheel paddle steamer measured 24.7-foot (7.5 m) at the beam.
City of Washington was an American merchant steamship that aided in rescuing the crew of USS Maine when it exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, in 1898.
USS Curb (ARS-21) was a Diver-class rescue and salvage ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Her task was to come to the aid of stricken vessels.
HMS Winchester was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched at Bursledon on 11 April 1693.
SS Benwood was a steam cargo ship of the early twentieth century. Built by Craig, Taylor & Co Ltd., Stockton on Tees, she entered service with Joseph Hoult & Co. Ltd, Liverpool. She passed through several owners, before being lost in a collision off the coast of Key Largo, Florida in 1942. Her wreck is now a popular dive site.
Michael C. Barnette is an American diver, author, photographer and founder of the Association of Underwater Explorers.
USC&GS Isis was a survey ship that served in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1915 to 1917 and from 1919 to 1920.
Charles T. Meide Jr., known as Chuck Meide, is an underwater and maritime archaeologist and currently the Director of LAMP, the research arm of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum located in St. Augustine, Florida. Meide, of Syrian descent on his father's side, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and raised in the adjacent coastal town of Atlantic Beach. He earned BA and MA degrees in Anthropology with a focus in underwater archaeology in 1993 and 2001 from Florida State University, where he studied under George R. Fischer, and undertook Ph.D. studies in Historical Archaeology at the College of William and Mary starting the following year.
SS Arratoon Apcar was an iron-hulled sail and steam merchant ship that was built in Scotland in 1861 and wrecked off the coast of Florida in 1878. Her wreck in shallow water on Fowey Rocks is now a scuba diving site.
