There are few things more fascinating, tragic and eerie than a shipwreck, whether it's a warship lost in battle, a deliberately-sunk divers' wreck or a steamer sent to the bottom by waves and weather. Some of these ships sit as skeletons on beaches and coasts, some have been raised and housed in museums, and others still sit leagues beneath the ocean, preserved by the salty seawater.
Click through this gallery to see stunning images of the most spectacular wrecks on the planet...
The Peloponnese, the leaf-shaped region that dangles from the edge of mainland Greece, has it all: stunning sandy stretches, glorious mountains and turquoise seas. It’s also home to the rusting hulk of the shipwreck Dimitrios, located on the area's eastern shore near the charming port town of Gytheio.
How the ship came to be there is something of a mystery. Some reports say it was caught up in cigarette smuggling and was burned to mask the evidence, others that it was simply abandoned. Whatever the true story, we do know that the Dimitrios has been lurking on these shores since 1981 and has gradually drifted out to its current location. Today it’s a popular wreck with photographers thanks to its accessible location.
Built in 1975, the fishing trawler MV Dayspring once brought mackerel and herring to the shores of the Scottish Highlands. Last launched in the early 2000s, she had been safely moored for over a decade when she ran aground during a storm on 8 December 2011. She still sits on the shores of Loch Linhe, and is sometimes known as the Old Boat of Caol.
Today photographers come from around the world to capture a shot of the wreck, as it can be pictured with the highest mountain in Britain, Ben Nevis, in the background. The ship is perched at a slightly odd angle, and locals still don't know exactly how it came to rest in its current position. Before it ran aground, its owners had planned to turn it into a floating restaurant.
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If you’re fascinated by shipwrecks, head to Ontario’s Tobermory on the banks of Lake Huron. It's home to more than 25 stunning wrecks that can be explored on diving or snorkelling tours, or aboard a glass-bottomed boat. The best known is Sweepstakes, a 119-foot (36m) schooner that sank in shallow water in 1885 after hitting a rock.
Sweepstakes remained where it sank for a couple of weeks before being towed into the harbour. After the schooner was examined and found to have sustained irreparable damage, she was stripped of all her useful rigging and equipment and abandoned to the waters of the lake. Her hull, windlass and part of the original bow rail are all still intact.
Today the Kodiak Queen is an exciting art piece that blends the power of past and future. One of a small group of ships to survive the attack on Pearl Harbor, the former US Navy fuel barge was deliberately sunk in the spring of 2017 in the British Virgin Islands to become a man-made scuba-diving site, marine ecosystem and underwater art installation.
The historic ship, along with its art-sculpture dive site, is a project from Virgin entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson. Sprawling over its hull above the water line is the Kraken – a many-tentacled mesh structure that resembles a beast of the deep. Sadly the sculpture was heavily damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017, but the underwater site remained intact.
The beach at Blankenese on the Elbe river near Hamburg has become something of a shipping graveyard. The first wreck to be brought here was the Polstjernan, an old Finnish four-masted schooner that caught fire when its engine exploded in 1926. More recently a barge called the Uwe sank here in 1975 after colliding with Wiedau, a coaster. The Uwe was torn to pieces, with the biggest chunk, the stern, still sticking out of the water today (pictured).
After World War II, the seawall built around the wreck of the Polstjernan was added to with the wrecks of German submarines, their slender skeletone still visible today at low tide. The wrecks are easily reached from Blankenese S-Bahn station and sit 320 yards (300m) down the beach from the lighthouse. Note that the beach here is not for swimming. The currents on this stretch of the Elbe are notoriously treacherous, as the captains of the ships wrecked here can attest.
It’s often a storm that causes a ship to meet its end, but, in this case, a hurricane gave an old shipwreck another lease of life. When Hurricane Sandy hit the US in 2012 it unearthed the skeleton of Canadian coal schooner Bessie White, which ran aground on Fire Island, a barrier island off the southern shore of Long Island, in the early 20th century.
You can easily visit Bessie White by taking a ferry from Long Island, but how much of the wreck you’ll see will depend on the weather. The whims of the wind, waves and sand determine how visible the hull is on any given day.
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The MV Panagiotis, on the coast of Zakynthos in Greece, has become a major tourist attraction in recent years. The brown, rusting wreck is beautifully well-preserved, protected from the elements by a sheltered cove, and stands as a perfect centrepiece for Navagio Beach – a secret stretch of sand also known as 'Shipwreck Beach' on the island's northwestern coast.
The ship, which is thought to have been a smuggling vessel, was built in the 1930s and ran aground in the 1980s due to stormy weather. It's possible to admire the boat from the high cliffs above or take a boat trip to the beach itself for a close-up view. Though almost synonymous with the Zakynthos, this much-Instagrammed wreck has significantly deteriorated in the last decade, and its long-term future is uncertain.
Just one of over 60 spectacular dive sites in Bonaire, the Hilma Hooker makes for a memorable underwater adventure. The 236-foot (72m) Dutch freighter originally sank in 1975, but was rescued and sold on. There are many tales about its past lives, and the story goes that it was suspected of drug smuggling and found to be carrying a sizeable stash behind a false bulkhead.
The drug-smuggling case never went anywhere – officials never located the boat's owner – and eventually the ship was left unattended. It was towed out to sea and moored before sinking in 1984, landing conveniently between two coral reefs. It’s now part of the Bonaire National Marine Park and is beloved by divers thanks to its well-developed, untouched and colourful corals.
The Mary Rose, the favourite warship of Henry VIII of England, sank in 1545 during the Battle of the Solent – an inconclusive engagement between the English navy and the navy of Francis I of France. She served 34 years at sea and witnessed a host of historic moments. She transported troops to northern England for the Battle of Flodden and attacked the French fleet at Brest.
The Mary Rose was raised from the seabed in 1982 after years of underwater archaeological work, and now the historic warship lives in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. More than 19,000 items were recovered from the wreck site including human remains, guns and clothes. The ship can be viewed close up at the museum, which was redesigned in 2016 to offer visitors an even more immersive experience.
There are plenty of shipwrecks along the Oregon coastline – especially along the morbidly-named Graveyard of the Pacific, a stretch of sea known for unpredictable weather conditions, shifting sandbars and treacherous currents that has claimed thousands of ships through its history. Perhaps the best known wreck is the Peter Iredale, which can be found in the historic Fort Stevens State Park.
The run of coast that leads up to the mouth of the Columbia River is notoriously hard to navigate and the ship ran aground in 1906 amid heavy winds. Its rusted and barnacle-clad bow and masts are still intact and visible, poking out of the sand. When the tide is low, you can walk right up to the ship and examine it for yourself.
Norderney is one of the East Frisian Islands off the North Sea coast of Germany and is famous for its long sandy beaches. It is a popular summer spot, but during a vicious storm in 1967 it became a place of tragedy when a herring lugger enroute from Glückstadt to Emden ran aground at the eastern tip of the island. A rescue ship tried to keep the Ministerialrat Streil from drifting onto the beach but were thwarted by the ferocity of the storm.
The wreck you see on the beach on Norderney today, however, is not the Ministerialrat Streil. Rather it is the Capella, a mussel sucker from Bensersiel that tried to salvage the Ministerialrat Streil but got stuck themselves. A year later, a salvage tug managed to free the herring lugger, but the Capella refused to budge. Today it is a popular destination for hikers and graffiti artists.
The Pesuta began life as a steamship before being converted to a log barge in the early 20th century. After a brutal storm in 1928, the 264-foot (80m) vessel was shipwrecked, ending its life on the pebble shores of the picturesque Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia, Canada.
The remains of the Pesuta are a popular tourist attraction. Listing slightly onto one side and slowly rotting away, the wreck still boasts metal portholes and the skeleton of its hull remains clear to see. Visitors can walk right up to its bulk, but getting there involves a four-hour round-trip hike through the forests and dunes of the Naikoon Provincial Park on Graham Island.
Known in Scotland as 'the sugar boat', the MV Captayannis was a Greek sugar-carrying ship that sank in the River Clyde in 1974 after a wild storm. The boat was irreparably damaged by a collision with the anchor chains of a large oil tanker, which drilled a hole in the boat below the water line.
The ship rolled onto her port side and she’s still that way decades later, emerging eerily from the sea. Plans to blow up the wreckage were discarded following concerns about the site's proximity to a local bird sanctuary. The wreck has never been moved and is now a popular spot with tourists, divers and birdlife alike.
The SS Francisco Morazan was built in the 1920s for German owners but was subsequently sold to various governments over the years. She was to take her last journey in November 1960 – setting sail from Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes region sees notoriously risky weather as winter sets in, and the trip was always a slight gamble.
Strong winds, fog and heavy snow caused the ship to run aground some 300 feet (91m) off the southwest shore of South Manitou Island, Michigan. The crew abandoned ship soon after and the vessel has been there ever since, now home to various species of bird. You can hike to view the ship for yourself from the shore or take out a kayak to see it close up.
It’s probably the most famous shipwreck of all time: the RMS Titanic sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people. The wreckage of the ship was only found in 1985, when cutting-edge sonar and video technology allowed researchers to scour the seafloor for debris dispersed by the currents of the Atlantic. It was also discovered that the Titanic had split apart before sinking to the seabed.
In February 2023, never-before-seen footage of the Titanic's wreck was released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Oscar-winning film Titanic. The 80-minute video, shot in July 1986, reveals what the ship looks like as it sits under 12,400 feet (3,780m) of ocean: covered in seaweed and inhabited only by deepwater fish but still unmistakably recognisable thanks to its portholes, railings and once-opulent interiors.
A former whaling and fishing vessel that's Iceland's oldest steel ship, Gardar BA 64 was built in the same year that the Titanic tragically sank – in 1912. Originally called Globe IV, the boat was built in Norway and made its way to Iceland in 1950. It's now more than a century old and is rusting away in the stunning surroundings of Iceland's west coast.
The ship has been out of service since 1981 and instead of being scrapped it was run aground in the Patreksfjordur fjord. Here it has remained, drawing photographers keen to capture its beauty. For safety reasons tourists must not enter the vessel, as its structure has long since degraded and is no longer sound.
Whenever a heatwave hits northern Europe and the water level of the Rhine drops dramatically, the skeletal remains of an old eel trawler, the Aalschokker, rises from its watery grave, just before the charming town of Neuss am Rhein. It sank in the 1990s when its owner was jailed for murder and lay forgotten, with only the tip of its distinctive mast, especially designed to trawl for eels, poking above the water level.
The Aalschokker first reappeared during the baking hot summer of 2003. But as heatwaves have become more regular across Germany, so too has the appearance of the trawler. Caked in river mud, its appearance is unnerving. Various plans have been mooted to move the barge on shore and create a monument, but there is a dispute as to which waterway authority has jurisdiction over that part of the Rhine. As the wreck poses no threat to passing river traffic, it has been decided to leave the Aalschokker exactly where it is.
From elephant seals to a magnificent lighthouse, there's a lot to see at the 70,000-acre Point Reyes National Seashore in northern California. In addition to the 1,500 species of plants and animals, there is also the SS Point Reyes, a fabulously photogenic shipwreck that's one of many along the treacherous rocks of the coast.
Located in Tomales Bay, this is another shipwreck beloved by photographers, with the best shots taken during low tide. Here the wreck is captured at night by professional photographer Cameron Venti, topped by the Milky Way. But its popularity also means it's under threat – in 2016 a fire ripped through the rear of the ship, while storms have since damaged it further. In 2024 the National Park Service acknowledged that it was exploring options for the wreck's possible removal.
One of the first turbine-driven steamers, the SS Maheno was built in 1905, and took a regular route between Sydney and Auckland. When World War I broke out, she was converted into a hospital ship in Europe. Years later, in 1935, SS Maheno was heading for a Japanese wrecking yard when a cyclone caused her to meet an untimely end.
The hull is now the most famous of all the wrecks on Queensland’s Fraser Island and it’s easily reached by a 50-minute ferry ride from the Fraser Coast. Although the wreck is slowly deteriorating thanks to the island’s salty environment, its mainly intact skeleton is fascinating to visit. Here the ship has been captured from above by a drone.
Namibia is one of the most spectacular places in the world to view eerie shipwrecks for yourself. Its Skeleton Coast is home to thousands of shipwrecked vessels scattered along the coastline, having failed to navigate the tempestuous seas and angry winds. One of these is the Eduard Bohlen which is stranded in the middle of the desert, about a quarter of a mile from the shoreline.
A former German cargo ship, the vessel ran aground, probably due to thick fog, while it was on its way to Table Bay. Years later, as the desert encroached on the ocean, the ship found itself adrift in the middle of the sand. Usually it's possible to see it for yourself on a flying safari or a guided 4x4 tour from Luderitz or Walvis Bay.
North of the Eduard Bohlen along the Skeleton Coast, this rusty wreck close to the shore is often covered with dozens of sea birds, making it an even eerier sight. The fishing trawler Zeila ran aground south of Hentiesbaai in August 2008 and has since been at the mercy of the stormy sea.
The vessel was sold as scrap metal to an Indian company but got stranded after it came loose from its towing line on its way to Mumbai. The Zeila is now one of the most accessible wrecks along the Namibian coast even though the sea is too rough to set foot on the decaying ship. It is best seen from the beach, an easy stop-off near the popular fishing spot Die Walle.
Touted as the most important discovery since the Mary Rose, the HMS Gloucester warship was discovered off the coast of Great Yarmouth in 2007 – but the find was only made public in 2022. The vessel sank in 1682 after running aground, resulting in the tragic deaths of hundreds of people onboard. In fact, it was carrying the soon-to-be King of England, the Duke of York, who just managed to flee the ship in time. If he hadn't, history could have taken a very different course.
Researchers found incredible items at the site, including the ship's bell, a pair of glasses preserved in their original case (pictured) and the ship's original cannons. The discovery was made by two brothers who had been diving off the Norfolk coast when they found a cannon lying on the seabed. But it was not until 2012, with the discovery of the bell, that the wreck was officially identified, and its location in public waters meant that it was not publicly disclosed until a decade later.
A staggering discovery was made in England's Poole Bay, off Dorset's windswept coast, in 2020. Marine archaeologists from Bournemouth University unearthed the remnants of a medieval ship thought to date back to the 13th century – touted as the earliest English designated wreck that includes the hull. The so-called 'clinker ship', made from overlapping wooden planks, had an impressive load of cargo too.
It's been named 'the Mortar Wreck' since its cargo included a large collection of mortars (instruments used for grinding grain, pictured). They're made from Purbeck stone, a form of limestone quarried on England's south coast. Purbeck marble gravestone slabs were another star find at the site and, according to experts, offer unforeseen insights into how gravestones were produced at the time.
At the time it was launched in 1628, the Vasa was the most powerful warship in the Baltic: Sweden's equivalent of the Mary Rose. The tall ship stood at a height of around 165 feet (50m), and her 64 cannons could fire ammunition up to the speed of sound. However, 20 minutes after being launched, the Vasa was blown over by a gust of wind, and sank in Stockholm Harbour. Thirty people trapped inside lost their lives.
The discovery of the Vasa wreck – and its raising from the seabed in 1961 – was a momentous event for Swedish television, and divers spent the following years recovering fascinating items like gold rings, intricate decorations, and anchors from the mud. Today, the fully-restored Vasa sits in its own purpose-built museum, where you can see what the ship looked like in its full painted glory, and walk beside its creaking decks.
In October 2022, Swedish marine archaeologists confirmed an exciting find: the sunken wreck of the Applet. The sister ship of the Vasa, the Applet (meaning 'apple') is a carved 17th-century warship, built with a wider hull than the Vasa to give it more stability. However, after a few decades of service, the Applet was deemed unseaworthy and was sunk in 1659 to form part of a marine barrier preventing enemy ships from entering Stockholm's harbour.
Pictured here is a cannon port, which, as on the Vasa, held one of 64 cannons. Knowing how significant the Vasa discovery had been, marine archaeologists spent years searching for the Applet's wreck. Its discoverers said that the find would "help us understand how large warships evolved... [into] seaworthy behemoths that could control the Baltic Sea – a decisive factor in Sweden’s emergence as a great power in the 1600s".
In November 2022, researchers discovered an incredible medieval shipwreck at the bottom of Norway's largest lake. The frozen-in-time wooden ship, which is thought to date from as early as the 1300s, was found during a mission to map the 140-square-mile (363sqkm) lakebed of Lake Mjosa using sonar technology. This image was captured using that technology.
The discovery was made using the underwater vehicle Hugin, pictured, which is operated by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. Surprisingly, the ship was well-preserved, thanks to the freshwater environment and the stillness of the lakebed. Archaeologists are still studying the vessel to determine where it came from and what it was used for, but it seems to have been built using a Norse technique with overlapping wooden planks. Researchers believe the ship likely went down in bad weather.
While on the hunt for minerals in a quarry on the coast of England's Romney Marsh in April 2022, workers from a cement company unearthed something far more exciting: the remains of a rare Elizabethan shipwreck, 984 feet (300m) from the sea. Experts noted that the ship's hull was in remarkably good condition, and over 100 oak timbers have so far been recovered. The discovery will help historians learn more about shipbuilding techniques in the 17th century, in an era of increased exploration, globalisation and colonisation.
Shipwrecks from this period are so rare that the find was featured on popular archaeology TV show Digging for Britain in January 2023. Historians Andrea Hamil (pictured), Anthony Firth and Alice Roberts revealed that the ship was probably built between 1558 and 1580, but its purpose is yet to be identified. Marine archaeologists are currently mapping the wreck with laser technology – once this task is complete, the ship will be re-buried in the quarry, so the silt can continue to preserve its fragile remains.
Built in the Netherlands in 1959, this one-time tourist barge lays stranded in Berlin’s River Spree, halfway between the Molecule Man sculpture and Badeschiff. It is owned by Franz Günther van de Lücht and named after his true love, a talented surgeon at Dreifaltigkeits-Hospital in Lippstadt, who was killed in a tragic car accident in 1979.
The MS Dr. Ingrid Wengler has lain abandoned here since 1996, grounded not by treacherous sandbanks in the River Spree but rather by German bureaucracy. The ship was seized and anchored here when Van de Lücht was declared bankrupt. He brought a case against the Berlin Waterway and Shipping Authority who said he owed them money, and lost. Close to 30 years later it remains stuck in the Spree, waiting to be freed.
On 15 July 2023, a remarkably intact wooden schooner that sank in Lake Michigan 150 years ago was discovered 10 miles (16km) off the Wisconsin coast with dishes still stacked in cabinets and the crew’s belongings still where they left them. Shipwreck hunters Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck found the Trinidad after a two-year quest that saw them study historical records and scour the lake with sonar. "It's really like a ship in a bottle," Baillod told The New York Times. "It's a time capsule."
The 140-foot-long (43m) schooner was hauling coal bound for Milwaukee and sank on 13 May 1881, going down so fast that the crew didn’t have time to rescue the vessel’s mascot, a Newfoundland dog who was asleep next to the stove. Baillod and Jaeck reported their find to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, who built a 3D photogrammetry model of the ship that allows people to explore the site virtually.
In June 2024 a team of scientists, historians and divers announced the discovery of one of history's most coveted wrecks in the deep waters of the North Atlantic. Quest was a steamship that found fame carrying legendary polar explorer Ernest Shackleton on his fateful fourth voyage to the Antarctic in 1921. The ship never reached the Southern Ocean and Shackleton died of a heart attack in his cabin off the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, but the ship long outlasted him, eventually sinking several thousand miles further north in 1962.
Though lost for decades, it took the team just five days to find the wreck, using advanced sonar that identified something ship-shaped 1,280 feet (390m) down on the seafloor, 15 nautical miles off the Canadian coast. The vessel is resting on its keel – its broken mast lying on the sand nearby. "It was a bit of a detective story initially," said search director David Mearns, "I thought we had ... maybe a 70% chance of finding it."
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