It possessed that most valued of assets, seaworthiness, making it a long-favourite of researchers who enjoyed staying afloat. Although the ship was in no immediate danger of sinking, it wasn’t salvageable.

The wartime vessel was decommissioned in 1989, and in 2002 it was intentionally sunk in Key Largo, Florida, to create an artificial reef and recreational space for divers. THE ACTIVE TIMES ® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF TRIBUNE PUBLISHING. Water rushed onboard through the damaged bow and the boat sank in minutes. By 1720, the town had begun to clean up its act and its “Gallows Point” became a notorious site for pirate hangings. So what makes a ship good for research? From her base of operations at Rockfleet Castle, O’Malley—also known as Granuaile—commanded hundreds of men and some 20 ships in raids on rival clans and merchant ships. This made them very expensive to operate because you needed crews of 50 or 60 men. The LRTs use these sensors to detect traditional drug-running speed boats, known as "go-fasts," and drug-running semi-submersibles at sea. Knorr can scoot in any direction or hold position in rough conditions beautifully due to forward and aft azimuthing propellors. The law in those days deemed it illegal to claim salvage from a wrecked ship if anyone was alive on it. Small unarmed smuggling ships could do little when approached by a speeding government sloop, which by 1760 averaged around 50 tons, and had a modest complement of carriage guns .

In the early 1600s, the rocky island of Tortuga served as the chief stronghold of a motley group of adventurers, thieves and escaped slaves who preyed on Spanish treasure ships in the Caribbean.
He began building a series of very successful, very large ships for the California trade. There must not have been a red sky on this fateful night in 1928, because Pesuta sailed into a winter storm in the Hecate Strait, where it ran aground the shores of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada. They were built for brutal, laissez faire capitalism, but in terms of their angelic beauty they are peerless.

The Eduard Bohlen was a German-built cargo ship. We may think that in the present day smuggling has ceased but has it? During World War II in 1941, the ship set sail from Glasgow, Scotland, to Alexandria, Egypt, but was bombed and sank into the Red Sea in less than a minute. In 1838, a new governor of Canton Province was tasked by the emperor with showing the foreign devils, as western traders were known, who was boss. He had been in the China trade before.

By the 1710s, New Providence had become a popular gathering place for some of the Caribbean’s roughest customers.

According to pirate legend, some of these pioneering thieves even set up a utopian colony called Libertalia, where they mingled with native women and organized a democratic government. This was an era before any sort of regulation of conditions on board or of labor. Smuggling also prospered in Essex. Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman is about a ship’s captain who makes a deal with Satan in exchange for speed. As you can guess from its elegant lines and graceful tower structure, Alcoa Seaprobe was built specifically for deep sea research. She was 2,000 tons and had masts well over 200 feet high. The west coast of Ireland might not seem like prime pirate territory, but in the 16th century the rugged shores of Clew Bay served as the stronghold for of one of history’s most formidable lady corsairs.

Then if an individual smuggler was arrested later, the villagers could truthfully swear that they had seen nothing, for hearing was not evidence.

Bear led a colourful life, starting as a military troop carrier before joining WHOI to conduct 152 cruises in the North Atlantic. It even made it into orbit with a namesake space shuttle! VSVs are designed to be faster than other semi-submersible designs. So, they would send out so-called “crimps” to the brothels and bars of lower Manhattan or Boston and, working in cahoots with the madams and saloonkeepers, drop drugs into the drinks of the patrons, who would then wake up with a splitting headache, a third of their wages gone and on the way to China or San Francisco. Small unarmed smuggling ships could do little when approached by a speeding government sloop, which by 1760 averaged around 50 tons, and had a modest complement of carriage guns. ... Or maybe their bad luck was being on a boat with a guy smuggling … As the story goes, in 1980, the freighter was carrying contraband cigarettes from Turkey when a storm forced it aground white sands off the coast of Zakynthos, Greece. The SS Thistlegorm was a Royal Navy ship that made just three successful trips before its demise.

When Warren Delano died in 1898 he bequeathed well over $1 million to each of his children, which would put him on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy men in America at the time. Working as privateers for the upstart Republic of Cartagena, Laffite’s buccaneers plundered Spanish merchant vessels and then smuggled stolen goods and slaves into New Orleans. Jean le Vasseur, a buccaneer leader who had once worked as a military engineer, even built a 24-gun castle called Fort de Rocher to help guard the island’s harbor. Navy Extremely Interested in Bond Villain Lair, Mystery Drone Boat Discovered on Scottish Island. Have a favourite non-WHOI oceanographic exploration ship? Hilma Hooker was towed to a pier on the island, where it was searched and seized. In 1984, the ship lost power on a voyage off the coast of Bonaire, a gorgeous island you’ve likely never heard of before. Contemporary accounts describe a seamy harbor overrun with gambling, prostitution and drink, where hard-living mariners often squandered thousands of Spanish reals in a single night. Today, the boat is very much intact and is only submerged in 20 feet of water, making it highly visible to passersby above. Once it was no longer needed as evidence, it was sunk and is now used as a dive site. Tioga carrying researchers to a decomposing female finback whale off the coast of Nantucket.
As the story goes, in 1980, the freighter was carrying contraband cigarettes from Turkey when a storm forced it aground white sands off the coast of Zakynthos, Greece.

Popular Mechanics participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Libertalia is most likely a seafaring myth, but Madagascar was home to several other pirate strongholds, most famously St. Mary’s Island on the northeast coast. Others were retired from service and sunk with good intentions or left abandoned on beaches. The boat surveys seafloors with a current profiler, an echo sounder, and water samplers, while a pair of winches can tow underwater instruments behind the ship. But despite winning a clean slate, Laffite would not stay away from a life of crime for long. Guatemalan police found this odd watercraft that uses the same hull technology as military vessels—a long, narrow type that is both difficult to detect and faster than other homemade drug-smuggling boats. By the 1840s, American merchants doing business in China took these designs and expanded them into China clippers, carrying tea from Canton to New York and, later, Hong Kong. In 1909, it sailed into a thick fog and wrecked at Conception Bay on the coast of Namibia, home to some of the most mysterious places on earth. Following a bloody fight, he made off with the equivalent of some $200 million in loot.