A ship graveyard or ship cemetery is a location where the hulls of scrapped ships are left to decay and disintegrate, or left in reserve. Such a practice is now less common due to waste regulations and so some dry docks where ships are broken (to recycle their metal and remove dangerous materials like asbestos) are also known as ship graveyards.
By analogy, the phrase can also refer to a large number of shipwrecks which have accumulated in a single area but not been removed by human agency, instead being left to disintegrate naturally. These can form in places where navigation is difficult or dangerous (such as the Seven Stones, off Cornwall, or Blackpool, on the Irish Sea); or where a large number of ships have been deliberately scuttled together (as with the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow); or where a large number of ships have been sunk in battle (such as Ironbottom Sound, in the pacific).
Guilvinec-Lechiagat
On the River Rance
Magouër (Plouhinec, Morbihan)
Plouhinec, Finistère
Landévennec
The River Tamar downstream of the Saltash Bridge used to be used as a mooring site for mothballed vessels, including submarines, of the Royal Navy. These have now all been removed.
Portsmouth Harbour hosts a number of ex Royal Navy vessels, awaiting removal for scrapping.
Forton Lake in Gosport, near Portsmouth, is host to approximately thirty vessels, several of which saw action in the Second World War.
The US Navy "phantom fleet" at Suisun Bay, to the north of San Francisco Bay
Witte's Marine Salvage - the Staten Island boat graveyard.
Bikini Atoll was designated as a ship graveyard for the U.S. Pacific fleet; it later became known as a nuclear testing facility.
Mallows Bay, Maryland.
Green Jacket Shoal, Rhode Island
Wrecks all along the peninsular coast at Nouadhibou
Several locations near the Aral Sea
The ship-breaking yards of Alang (India), Chittagong (Bangladesh), and Gadani Beach (Pakistan)
All states and territories of Australia, except the land-locked Australian Capital Territory, have ships' graveyards
New South Wales:
Stockton Breakwater (Newcastle)
Homebush Bay Ships' Graveyard (Sydney)
Pindimar Bay Ships' Graveyard/The Duckhole (Myall Lakes)
Northern Territory:
Darwin Harbour East Arm
Queensland:
Bishop Island Ships' Graveyard (Brisbane)
Tangalooma Ships' Graveyard (Moreton Island)
The Bulwer Wrecks (Moreton Island)
Curtin Artificial Reef
South Australia:
Port Adelaide and environs - sites at Mutton Cove, Jervois Basin, Garden Island, Angas Inlet and Broad Creek.
Port Augusta
Port Flinders
Port Pirie
Planned scuttling sites near Ardrossan, Cowell, Glenelg, Goat Island, Kangaroo Island, Port Noarlunga, Port Stanvac, Stenhouse Bay, Whyalla and Yankalilla Bay.
Tasmania:
Little Betsey Island Ships' Graveyard (Hobart)
East Risdon Ships' Graveyard (Hobart)
Strahan Ships' Graveyard (Strahan)
Tamar Island Ships' Graveyard (Launceston)
Victoria:
Barwon Heads Ships' Graveyard (Port Phillip Bay)
Western Australia:
Careening Bay Ships' Graveyard
Rottnest Island Ships' Graveyard (off Rottnest Island)
Jervoise Bay Ships' Graveyard
Albany Ships' Graveyard (Albany)
