Mallows Bay (The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay)

USA / Virginia / Quantico /
 bay, ship wreck, sunken, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places
Due to a remarkable combination of historical circumstances, Mallows Bay, on the Potomac River, is home to more shipwrecks than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay, located in Maryland, USA.

It is here that hundreds of ships were sunk, 230 alone by the United States Shipping Board Merchant Fleet Corporation, with more than 100 of the vessels being wooden steamships, part of a fleet built to cross the Atlantic during World War I.

Because they were built of wood, most of these ships were already obsolete by the end of the war, and the U.S. Navy did not want them due to high storage costs. They were sold to the Western Marine & Salvage Company and moved to the Potomac River in Virginia, and eventually towed to Mallows Bay in 1925.

The company went bankrupt and the ships were burned where they lay, only their hulls remain.
Remnants of those ships and many others, some dating back to the late 1700s, also lie there, including an early 1900s four-masted schooner, and many other vessels from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallows_Bay
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   38°28'16"N   77°16'0"W

Comments

  • Daily Mail article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3308682/Incredible-pictures-reveal-abandoned-site-200-scuttled-shipwrecks-including-huge-World-War-ghost-fleet-vessels-old-Revolutionary-War.html
  • http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171116-a-magical-graveyard-of-lost-battleships Better view on Bing Satellite view (Wikimapia)
This article was last modified 9 months ago