About Shipwrecks

If you don’t want your ship to sink, you’d better break a bottle of champagne on it before launching.

- Lisa Fields

1 (It’s considered bad luck if the bottle doesn’t break.) The tradition, called ‘christening’, dates back at least to the third millennium B.C. While champagne is the most popular these days, other liquids, such as red wine, whiskey and water, have also been used. Sure, it’s just superstition, but one vessel that skipped this step was the Titanic.

2 Perhaps the best known shipwreck, the Titanic sank in 1912 and wasn’t located until 1985. The discovery was a collaboration between French and American researchers, including Dr Robert Ballard, who had previously looked for the Titanic unsuccessfully in 1977. The research teams used the latest sonar and video equipment at the time to explore the sea floor.

3 The Titanic inspired the 1997 film that won 11 Academy Awards. It also inspired the adoption of a new international law that set minimum safety standards for ships at sea, including strict lifeboat and life jacket requirements. More than 1,500 people died, in part, because the Titanic’s 20 lifeboats could only hold about half of the passengers on board—and many of the 18 lifeboats that launched weren’t filled to capacity. Had they been, nearly 500 more people may have survived the disaster.