What is a Ship Graveyard?

A Ship Graveyard is where old vessels that have gone out of service are dumped.

Rapid developments in the transportation and logistics sector make vessels technologically obsolete, quickly ending their service lives. Hence, transportation companies adapt to new scenarios with enhanced modes of transportation. The massive junkyards—of cars, trucks, aeroplanes, and ships—around the world show the amount of wreckage left behind when we tend to move fast.

At the same time, these graveyards or cemeteries of all kinds of vehicles are an environmental hazard but also generate employment through the recycling industry.

Ship graveyard

A ship graveyard is where old ships that have completed their service life are abandoned to disintegrate naturally. Also known as a ship cemetery, a ship graveyard generally has ships, boats, or hulls of scrapped vessels left to decay and rust.

The practice of abandoning ships to rust in a particular area was followed during ancient times. However, the introduction of various environmental and waste regulations makes it difficult to dump old or decommissioned vessels.

For this reason, today, places where ships are dismantled or scrapped to recycle their metal or remove dangerous materials like asbestos are also known as ship graveyards. The Alang ship-breaking yard and the Chittagong ship-breaking yard are the famous ship graveyards in the world.

Different Types of Ship Graveyards

Several ship graveyards are still present around the world. Many ships have been abandoned, mainly where navigation is difficult, or the means to relocate them are not easily available or accessible.

Moreover, areas where many ships were sunk during battle and whose remains are still on the ocean floor are also called ship graveyards. Today, many of those ship graveyards, where ship ruins lie underwater, serve as excellent sites for scuba diving and sightseeing.

In earlier times, when environmental concerns were relatively less prominent in public discourse, old ships were dismantled, and their hulls abandoned at sea or scuttled. Several locations were usually identified for the abandonment of vessels, creating several graveyards with abandoned boats and ships together in one place.

The practice of scuttling vessels—forcefully sinking a ship after letting the water flow into it—was so common during those days because it allowed ship owners to avoid the liabilities of an old vessel.

Usually, the scuttling was carried out by opening the hatches, making holes in the hull, and even using explosives. However, while it was mostly used as a dumping method earlier, other forms of scuttling have also been practised now, especially to create an artificial reef to strengthen marine life.

It is also noted that one of the other reasons for scuttling was to prevent navigation hazards caused by old or decommissioned vessels resting in areas near harbours and ports.

The Black Sea ship graveyard contains 60 wrecks dating back almost 2,500 years, and the Aegean Sea ship cemetery, which features about 23 ships, is an example of such a graveyard.

Many ship graveyards worldwide are outcomes of naval battles. The abandonment or sinking of vessels both during and after the wars has resulted in the formation of ship cemeteries and war museums.

The old ships resting in these graveyards were either sunk due to enemy attack or by their crews to avoid capture by the other faction.

If the ship graveyard of Chuuk Lagoon was a result of World War 2, during which Allied forces destroyed and sunk over 60 Japanese warships, the rusting submarines in the Soviet Submarine Cemetery on the Kola Peninsula were dumped during the Cold War period.

However, while some graveyards pose a threat to life due to the presence of radioactive cargo, many of them have become locations of splendid marine life.

Also read 10 Largest Ship Graveyards in the World.

Similarly, several naval forces often carry out an activity that involves abandoning a ship by deliberately sinking it to the ocean floor. Known as sink exercise or Sinkex, the exercise involves submerging non-operational vessels as part of training and weapon testing.

Several ship graveyards have also been formed as a result of this exercise. This naval practice is predominantly active with the United States Navy, and the Northern regions of Hawaii and the Pacific coastline near California are significant locations of the exercise. According to reports, the U.S. Navy has sunk over 50 vessels as part of SINKEX since 1999.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest ship graveyards in the world are ship-breaking yards. The history of ship-breaking yards goes back centuries when ancient wooden ships were recycled to reuse the timber.

Since metal became the main component of ships, this form of ship disposal became popular so that the steel could be recycled to produce new products.

South Asia, predominantly countries like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, are hubs of the global ship-breaking industry, accounting for up to 80% of the ship recycling market. Countries like China and Turkey cover a large portion of the remaining market, minus 5% of the total, which belongs to other nations.

Thus, a large number of ships destined for recycling are dumped at the world’s biggest yards in South Asia, such as Chittagong in Bangladesh, Alang in India, and Gadani in Pakistan. In these ship-breaking yards, the sandy beaches stretching kilometres are filled with hundreds of vessels being dismantled, called the graveyards of ships.

Also read: How Ship Dismantling is Done? 

Some ship graveyards are the result of marine conservation efforts. Many old and decommissioned ships have been deliberately sunk in different parts of the planet to create artificial reefs.

These purposely built cemeteries improve biodiversity by offering a surface for invertebrates and algae to settle and also attract a variety of marine species. Ship graveyards also support local economies by attracting several fish varieties and acting as splendid destinations for marine enthusiasts and divers.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Duane, the Royal Thai Navy’s HTMS Sattakut, the Cayman Islands’ Kiitiwake, and Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior are notable artificial reefs.

Ship graveyards have also been formed for natural reasons. Several ships sank because of accidents involving icebergs, storms, rough weather, whirlpools, etc.

The shipwrecks in the Outer Banks are examples of such ship graveyards. The notorious water in the area has witnessed the sinking of over 5,000 ships since 1526. The ship graveyard in Namibia’s Skeleton Coast is an outcome of accidents caused by natural calamities.

While the oceans and seas feature different forms of ship graveyards, these wrecks have raised discussions regarding their environmental impact.

Some of them, especially those consisting of oil tankers and submarines, have indeed become an environmental hazard due to their chemical and toxic content.

Shipbreaking yards also lead to marine pollution due to the unsafe methods used to dismantle vessels. These yards are filled with toxic wastes, poisonous gases, unusable oil, radioactive elements, etc., contaminating the oceans and destroying the marine food chain.

At the same time, many of those ship graveyards, where ship ruins are underwater, enrich marine life and serve as excellent sites for scuba diving and sightseeing.

You may also like to read – The Role Of A Cash Buyer in Ship Recycling.