Ships

Some of the divers from Blue Water Recoveries excavating artifacts from the wreck of the Esmeralda

Found: 500-Year-Old Portuguese Shipwreck From Famed Explorer's Fleet

A warship from the famous navigator Vasco da Gama’s fleet has been excavated in the waters off Al Hallaniyah island in Oman

The suspected Confederate blockade runner found near the mouth of the Cape Fear River

Civil War Blockade Runner Found in North Carolina Waters

Sonar scan finds possible remains of a Confederate steamship used to outrun the Union Navy

A diver sorts through the remains of a ship that sank in 1025 A.D. off the coast of Turkey. Though this site is out of the line of most cyclonic activity, similar sunken ships may contain a trove of information for climate scientists.

Ancient Shipwrecks Offer Clues Into the History of Hurricanes

Patterns in ancient shipwrecks are helping scientists fill in the gaps of the patchy hurricane records

A 19th-century illustration depicts a scene off the coast of Peru, where bird poop, or guano, was harvested as a valuable agricultural fertilizer.

How the Gold Rush Led to Real Riches in Bird Poop

The ships carrying gold miners to California found a way to strike it rich on the way back with their holds full of guano

A trumpet recovered from the USS Houston undergoes treatment at the Naval History and Heritage Command's Underwater Archaeology Branch laboratory on the Washington Navy Yard, Dec. 31, 2013.

A Trumpet Retrieved From a World War II Shipwreck Could Still Hold Its Owner’s DNA

Conservators are trying to identify the sailor who once played it

Crews abandon their ships during the Great Whaling Disaster of 1871.

Remnants of a Whaling Disaster Have Been Discovered off the Coast of Alaska

A catastrophe wiped out an entire whaling fleet 144 years ago, now researchers have found some of the wrecks' remains

A fragment of a scuttled Revolutionary War-era ship discovered at a Virginia construction site.

Revolutionary War-Era Ship Found at Hotel Construction Site

The scuttled ship could reveal new details about how American colonists built their boats

The Times Square New Year's Eve Ball is tested the day before New Year's Eve atop the roof of One Times Square in New York, on Dec. 30, 2015.

Here’s Why New York Celebrates New Year’s Eve by Dropping a Ball

New Year’s Eve wasn’t always a riotous party

A NOAA archaeologist examines the wreck of Two Brothers in Hawaii.

NOAA Made a Sequel to 'In the Heart of the Sea'

Because the story that inspired <i>Moby-Dick</i> is just the beginning

When the crew felt they had a good chance of freeing the trapped Endurance from the sea ice of the Weddell Sea, they put the sails up. As we know, this and other attempts failed. Realizing the ship wasn't moving, Hurley went onto the ice to take this photograph. New details of sea ice have been revealed.

Restored Photos From Shackleton’s Antarctic Wreck Reveal New Details

Photos taken during Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition have been digitally restored for the first time

An illustration of a Spanish galleon at the time when European travelers searched for treasure across the seas.

Legendary Shipwreck May Have Been Found off the Colombia Coast

The sunken treasure on the Spanish galleon San Jose could be worth up to $17 billion

A photo of the Hydrus before the ship sank in November, 1913

Divers Discover 102-Year-Old Shipwreck in Lake Huron

The Hydrus and her crew were lost during the Great Storm of 1913

This small amphora from the Fourni wrecks likely carried luxury goods.

A Shipwreck Graveyard Has Been Found Off This Greek Archipelago

A recent expedition to the Fourni islands uncovered piles of ancient cargo, including types of amphorae never before seen on the seafloor

Divers examine ceramic artifacts that may hold clues about ancient medicines, perfumes and food.

Antikythera Shipwreck Yields New Cache of Ancient Treasures

Scientists have recovered more than 50 artifacts from the site, including a bronze armrest that was possibly part of a throne

Here’s How a Crew Survived an 1813 Shipwreck

The Neva’s remaining crew managed to live an entire month in an Alaskan winter with just the wreckage of their ship

Ariel view of the Port of Galveston in 2008

An 1830s Steamship From the Texas Navy May Be Buried Near Galveston Harbor

Author Clive Cussler first discovered the wreckage in 1986, now the port’s expansion forces an archeological excavation

The Cape Hatteras Light of North Carolina, on the Atlantic Ocean.

The Lonely, Lifesaving Job of Lighthouse Keepers, Revealed at the National Lighthouse Museum

A new museum in Staten Island tells the stories of men and women who ran lighthouses throughout America’s history and shows off some unique antiques

Photo shows a section of the Florida-Caribbean map. In lower left, an insert section shows part of the Caribbean treasure ground. Note heavy concentration of numbers (each location a shipwreck) off the Louisiana coast, and in the Florida Keys.

Florida Divers Dig Up $1 Million in Sunken Treasure

Treasure hunters find 300-year-old coins from a Spanish fleet off the Florida coast

Melville joked that Dana’s descriptions of Cape Horn “must have been written with an icicle.”

Before Moby-Dick, There Was "Two Years Before the Mast"

This salty memoir by Richard Henry Dana Jr. was one of America's first literary classics

Michigan Owns 1,500 Shipwrecks

Divers, historians and state officials team up to preserve the state’s underwater heritage

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