Talk:List of shipwrecks

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Contents

[edit] Artificial reefs

Should this include ships intentionally sunk as artificial reefs or not? --Displaced Raleighite 02:10, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, good question - I would say not. There's not much "story" to tell for deliberate sinkings; little to explain about how it happened, what the remains on the bottom can tell us, and so on. Artificial reefs do have a significant present-day interest for divers though; how about a list of artificial reefs that includes ship and non-ship creations, with the expectation that articles describe what's there, which critters are to be seen (a nice connection to our species articles), etc. Stan 05:31, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why located wrecks only?

I'm curious why this list is limited to those whose wrecks have been located. Having just added a couple before I noticed that limitation, I am wondering why it is there - or, more accurately, I should say there's a need for a page that lists ship disasters by location (other than the category page), whether or not they were found. Is there such a page? If not, can this page be separated out, so that located and unlocated ships are both listed, but separately? It's seems a dishonor to those who've lost their lives at sea not to include their wrecks if they haven't (yet) been located. Thanks, Bruxism 00:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The theory is that this is a list of existing physical objects/locations that one could actually visit today - using the noun "shipwreck" to refer to the remains rather than the event. There is certainly room for a separate list of disasters at sea; I would think twice before embarking on it, because it will likely get very very long (thousands of entries), and it doesn't start to get useful until it's comprehensive (no "list of disasters that I could think of off the top of my head" please :-) ). Stan 12:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales wrecks are off the East coast of Malaysia in the South China Sea and not in the Indian Ocean. [David] 7 September 2005

I noticed at the top of the page, it makes a point of saying that this is a list of ships that have sunk, which sounds like it would exclude ships that ran aground and wrecked in that manner. Does this mean that legitimate wrecks like the Peter Iredale, still resting on the northern Oregon Coast a century after wrecking, could not be added to this list since it never actually sank? --Billdorr 03:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I have started another List of missing ships which would include missing wrecks for now. I have moved some of the missing wrecks identifiable in this list to over there. --Kvasir (talk) 15:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability criteria for shipwrecks

There are a lot of red-links on this page. The sheer numbers of wrecks in the world mean that we can't and shouldn't have an article per wreck. So should we have notability criteria for shipwrecks? My proposal would be that the following deserve own article:

  • Historically notable ships or ships whose voyages were notable even if scuttled/salvaged rather than wrecked or even if exact location not known/confirmed (e.g. Cook's Endeavour). If more than say 50 years ago and people have heard of it, that suggests notable.
  • Historically notable wreck incidents even if exact location not known/confirmed (Lusitania, Titanic). Historically notable can include recent events e.g. modern tragedies.
  • Archaeologically or historically notable assemblages of wrecks (even if scuttled) e.g. Scapa Flow. There should be an article for the wrecksite with individual vessels listed or described (possibly as sections) within that arcticle. Only individual vessels that meet the notability criteria in their own right should have their own article.
  • Archaeologically interesting wreck or boat remains or wrecksites (e.g. Mary Rose) Even if on foreshore - like Newport boat? One archaeologist (or team) doing a survey does not qualify as notable, unless some new archaeology (techniques, first example of a kind etc) or social interaction arise - like Newport boat.
  • Well-known dive locations (multiple or individual wrecksites) even if little or no apparent historic/archaeological interest e.g. Scilla. As with archaeological assemblages consider that the article should be of a group of wrecks in the same area (e.g. wrecksites of Portland) rather than an article per vessel. A search on google ought to uncover multiple hits if the dive site is well-known.
  • Other sites could be considered notable based on special circumstances e.g. if Titanic weren't already notable for the wrecking, her wrecksite might still have been notable for the fact of its investigation using deep submersible technology (possibly an archaeological technique criterion anyway).

Any comments, improvements please? Viv Hamilton 13:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Not my sphere - but this all seems very reasonable to me. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 14:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sub-categories for shipwrecks etc

A second suggestion, once we have dealt with the question of notability, is that we should have categories and sub-categories, rather than list of pages. That way we could have a sub-category for disasters at sea, wrecks of particular regions etc. The ability to have multiple sub-category tags gets around the problem of what should be on what list, and hence multiple entries. Viv Hamilton 13:25, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grounded ships

Does the list include ships which run aground and destroyed or otherwise unsalvageable as a result, or only ships lost under the water? What of wrecks (of either sort) which are subsequently removed? Should the New Carissa, for example, be listed here? --EngineerScotty 21:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Well Shipwreck starts off with "A shipwreck is the remains of a ship after it has sunk or been beached as a result of a crisis at sea", so I would include New Carissa.--Commander Keane 10:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Excessive red links

Per the Manual of Style on links, an article may be considered overlinked if ... more than 10% of the links are to articles that don't exist. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I intend to start unlinking nonexistant articles in this list. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Good plan. Most of these ships are in no way notable and would therefore not merit an article anyway. Even where an article exists, many of these are stubs and candidate afd as they do not give any reason why the shipwreck is notable. It would also be useful if you or someone checks that the blue links are correct. Viv Hamilton 06:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
And now I see that there are 28 Lists of shipwrecks by year, many of which have a single shipwreck listed for the year. These are obvious duplicates, and I will nominate all of them for deletion as soon as I can (I have to leave my computer in just a couple of minutes). -- Donald Albury(Talk) 13:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
You'll find there are a few more red links as I have disambiguated the ones pointing to completly the wrong thing! Viv Hamilton 20:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List cleanup

Following some of the comments here, I am in the midst of a (sadistically large) cleanup effort on this list. In the interest of a homogenous appearance, I came up with the following conventions:

Red links

  • I am retaining links for red linked shipwrecks only if I have reason to believe (via previous notations here, google search, etc) that the ship or the wrecksite is historically, archaeologically, or dive-related-ly notable. If they don't meet this, the info remains but it is no longer redlinked.
  • Red linked locations have, in almost all cases, had their link removed, with the info of course retained there.

General phrasing of a list item

  • Ship types (barque, sloop) are not interwiki'd, although ship lines (White Line) are.
  • Ship countries of origin (German) are not interwiki'd.
  • Directions (north, southeast) are not capitalized.
  • Self-referential information is not included (a listing in the 'Western Cape' subsection need not mention the Western Cape).
  • Once a location (sunk near London) is interwiki'd within a subsection, further references to that location within the subsection are not interwiki'd.
  • If a listing links to an existing article, the listing itself only contains a brief description of the shipwreck. Listings that are interwiki'd to an as-yet-nonexistant article may contain a longer description until the article is created.

Essentially, I am aiming for:

shipname a nationality shiptype shipwreckevent at shipwrecklocation on shipwreckdate

which would produce:

Dunedin Star a British cargo vessel ran aground 80 km south of the Kunene River mouth on November 29, 1942.

Anyone have any advice, corrections, or perhaps dark chocolate, to help me in this ridiculous (but hopefully useful) endeavor? Maralia 05:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Bravo! Yes I basically agree with what you are doing. I think perhaps we should consider going further and eventually split it out into a set of List of shipwrecks by location. The only point in your strategy I would question is not interwiki the ship type. Against linking is that the list is messy if every other word is a link, but pro linking, is the fact that you often want to find out what that term means. An info box of ship types (all linked) at the side or bottom of the article, instead of linking the ship type in every entry would be best I think. There is an info box of sailing vessels on Galleon, but we would need an info box with a wider scope than this to include all the steam ships and motor vessels as well. Viv Hamilton 09:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not opposed in theory to linking the ship type - it was just unreadable. I think splitting the list by location, and moving to tables, are the real solutions. List of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks is the format I'd like to see, although I would use sortable tables. Maralia 16:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Additionally, the list ought to cite references. If the shipwreck is notably and is linked to its own article, the link to the article can stand as the reference, but if it doesn't link, it ought to have a reference (preferably in-line web, to keep the information together). The alternative is where there a good reference can be cited for shipwrecks of a region, that can act as the reference for a whole section. Viv Hamilton 09:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed on principle. In practice, I think removing redlinks and eventually moving to tables would help organize these as well. Maralia 16:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes List of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks is a good model and a table format would be a real improvement - a ship type info box as the footer would be quite elegant - it could then be consistent across each of the regional pages. I'd offer to produce it but have no experience of making info boxesViv Hamilton 19:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

OK I have just discovered Template:Navbox generic and have had a go at an info box for the footer, take a look at my page and see what you think. Is this a useful grouping? Viv Hamilton 14:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Fancy! Looks like just the thing. The wikicode looks pretty terrifying, though - you are brave! :) Maralia 20:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I've added the template. Do feel free to edit the Template:Ship types to add anything I've missed or improve the categories Viv Hamilton 18:16, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup stage 2

This list is certainly looking better! Once Maralia has finished cleaning up red links and extraneous text, what is the next stage? Personally I would like to see the list broken into list of shipwrecks by region/country with each one written as a proper list article - and eventually - suitable references for everything. Is it worth considering standard headings for each list article? I can think of:

  • Opening paragraph would have some standard text e.g. this is a list of shipwrecks whose remains have been located - plus whatever is significant about wrecks in that region - aim to provide generic references for wrecks of the region (e.g. databases, catalogues, books covering local wrecks)
  • Wreck distribution - time period, location e.g. if there is a concentration because of a battle or trade routes or hazardous sea areas
  • Wreck law - e.g. if protected
  • Wreck diving and tourism e.g. if there is a thriving diving or wreck museum tourist industry
  • List of shipwrecks (preferably tabulated)
  • References

Obviously it would be best if most of the above paragraphs linked out to main articles. Any improvements on the above or any thoughts on improving the introductory sentence? I would be willing to have a go at United Kingdom in this format, or whatever is agreed Viv Hamilton 10:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good approach. I am posting about some related issues on the project page - appreciate your input. Maralia 15:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I've come up with a draft table structure at User:Maralia/List of Shipwrecks of the Florida coast. Leaving some comments about it over at the Talk page there. Maralia 19:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There are references to ships named Collector, Wychwood, Elda, and Caraquet. The links are totally wrong, and I have no idea what they should be. Hue White 19:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Please move any remaining unlocated shipwrecks to List of missing ships and mark them with "(missing wreck)". Those under that category will be split into its own list when it becomes large enough. I have moved most if not all missing wrecks identifiable in this list already. According to the introduction this list covers wrecks that HAVE BEEN located. --Kvasir (talk) 13:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MS Explorer - not in list yet, but may well be in future

I have not put MS Explorer in this list because the wreck has not been found yet. But it might be found in the future. If it is found, which category should we put it under? 68.36.214.143 (talk) 07:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The wreck need not have been relocated after sinking in order to be listed as a shipwreck. This list is in pretty bad shape at the moment; the shipwreck categories are much more comprehensive and will be used to rework this list. From the coordinates given, it looks like it should be listed here under Antarctica, and categorized in Category:Shipwrecks in the Southern Ocean. Maralia (talk) 15:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology?

Why isn't there a list in chronological order somewhere? There is something like this in de: and fr: - Simplicius (talk) 23:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This is only possible if the list is in table form that have customisable listing preference. --Kvasir (talk) 15:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there some way that a seperate list could be compiled where all the wrecks are compiled in order of the year sunk? --216.229.227.141 (talk) 15:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Only if the list is converted to sortable tables. The list is long as it is, a separate list will make the article twice as long. --Kvasir (talk) 17:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Odd article sectioning

It seems very odd that the article is organized according to continents, countries or even by (Canada and Australia) provinces or (U.S.A.) states (!!), that is, land masses. That's not where ships usually are. The article should instead be organized by water bodies, that is, oceans, seas, rivers, and lakes. Also, the Caribbean, legendary graveyard of sunken Spanish & other European Galleons, is completely missing. --AVM (talk) 17:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The located wrecks tend to be in shallower water which tends to mean that it is territorial waters or at least EEZ of a particular country. So for the majority, if the wrecks are listed by country, it indicates what legal jurisdiction applies. Viv Hamilton (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)