Shipwreck Facts

There are approximately three million shipwrecks on the ocean floor, worth billions in value and treasure.

There are approximately three million shipwrecks on the ocean floor, worth billions in value and treasure.

A sperm whale rammed and sank a British couple's yacht in the Pacific. Maurice and Maralyn Bailey escaped into a rubber raft with almost nothing. They survived 117 days - catching fish with their bare hands, fighting off sharks, and drinking rainwater. A Korean fishing vessel found them 1,500 miles from where they went down.

Shackleton's ship Endurance was found in 2022, 3,000 meters down on the Antarctic seafloor - lost since 1915. The name still stood out across the stern. The freezing water had kept the wooden hull almost perfectly preserved for 107 years. Shackleton lost the ship in the ice - but all 28 men survived a 22-month ordeal and made it home.

A natural gas company's robot found hundreds of ancient jars on the Mediterranean floor: a 3,300-year-old Canaanite cargo ship, the oldest ever found in deep water. At 1.8 km depth, cold oxygen-free water kept it perfectly intact. Bronze Age sailors were crossing the open sea by the stars, not hugging the coast.