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Dieren en planten

Animals   Fauna rocky substrates   

Water en land

Mens en Milieu

Safety at sea   Wrecks   
Anemones on a wreck, Carl van Dijk

Wrecks

On the bottom of the North Sea lie many thousands of shipwrecks. They form dangerous obstacles in the navigational lanes and more recent wrecks often leak oil or other pollutants. The wrecks which cause the most problems are removed, however the majority are left on the bottom. Because the North Sea bottom is mostly made up of sand and mud, wrecks offer shelter to plants and animals which do not grow on soft bottoms. Sea anemones, polyps, sea squirts, sponges, crabs and lobsters are found in large numbers here. Wrecks also attract many fish, such as cod.

  • Danger from wrecks

    Demersal fishermen must be careful in the vicinity of wrecks: the chance of losing a fish net is not unimaginable. In early August 2000, both nets from the Helders fishing vessel HD68 were caught in a ship wreck. One of the nets was cut off, but it could not stop the ship from sinking to the bottom of the Wadden Sea. The ship was salvaged a few days later.
    And of course a wreck lying in a shipping lane is an obstacle for deep-lying vessels. The 70,000 ton single-hulled tanker Vicky ran into the Tricolor wreck in early 2003. The damage was limited, but the Coastguard reported that it could have been an oil disaster. The German cargo ship Nicola had collided with the wreck of the Tricolor before this incident.