The Rottnest ship graveyard is a

ship graveyard 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 br ...

and dump site located off

Rottnest Island Rottnest Island ( nys, Wadjemup), often colloquially referred to as "Rotto", is a island off the coast of Western Australia, located west of Fremantle. A sandy, low-lying island formed on a base of aeolianite limestone, Rottnest is an A-class ...

, Western Australia. The graveyard is located southwest of Rottnest Island: older records identify it as a diameter area centred on , while a 1996 report placed the site between the coordinates of and . The seabed in this area rests between below sea level. It has been used for the disposal of obsolete ships since 1910. After World War II, the graveyard was also used for the disposal of

Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

vehicles and aircraft. As of 2006, the wrecks of 47 historically significant vessels are known to have been sunk in the Rottnest graveyard.

References

{{reflist Rottnest Island Shipwrecks of Western Australia Ship graveyards Ship disposal

See also

References