North Carolina’s coast has been called the Graveyard of the Atlantic for generations, and this Halloween the numbers show just how many ships are still out there.
A new national analysis from BoatBooker counted every shipwreck on the nautical charts of 23 US coastal states, and North Carolina came ninth in the country with 668. The surprise is where they sit. The county with the most charted wrecks isn’t Dare County, home of Cape Hatteras. It’s Carteret County, home of Cape Lookout and Beaufort, with 99. That’s also the county where Blackbeard ran his flagship aground.
North Carolina’s showing, by the numbers:
- #9 nationally, with 668 charted shipwrecks.
- Carteret County holds 99 wrecks, edging out Dare County (82), home of Cape Hatteras. Together the two counties account for 181 wrecks, more than one in four of the state’s total.
- More than entire states. Carteret alone charts more wrecks than Hawaii (98) or Oregon (76). Carteret and Dare together have more than Georgia (146), Alabama (118), or Delaware (109).
- About two in three (66%) of North Carolina’s wrecks are still flagged as navigation hazards. That means boats still need to steer around them, not that the water is unsafe to swim, fish, or boat in.
- The charts only show part of the graveyard. The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras estimates that more than 2,000 shipwrecks lie off this stretch of coast. The 668 on NOAA’s charts are the ones still mapped today.
The ghosts of the Graveyard
In June 1718, Blackbeard sailed his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, into what is now Beaufort Inlet in Carteret County. His three smaller sloops made it through, but the big ship ran aground on a sandbar and was abandoned. Many historians suspect he wrecked her on purpose so he could split from his crew with the loot. The wreck lay hidden for nearly 280 years, until a private research firm found it near today’s Fort Macon State Park on November 21, 1996.
Blackbeard didn’t outlive his ship by long. On November 22, 1718, Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard cornered him at Ocracoke Inlet. Blackbeard was killed in the fight, his head was hung from the bowsprit of Maynard’s ship, and his body was thrown overboard. Legend says his headless body swam around the ship three times before it sank. Ever since, locals have said his ghost haunts the cove known as Teach’s Hole, and on stormy nights a strange light called “Teach’s Light” is said to glow beneath the water.
America’s Top 10 States for Shipwrecks:
- Florida: 2,302 wrecks (65% still a hazard)
- New York: 1,510 wrecks (72% still a hazard)
- Louisiana: 1,478 wrecks (68% still a hazard)
- Virginia: 856 wrecks (74% still a hazard)
- Texas: 823 wrecks (68% still a hazard)
- Maryland: 788 wrecks (80% still a hazard)
- Massachusetts: 741 wrecks (47% still a hazard)
- California: 738 wrecks (48% still a hazard)
- North Carolina: 668 wrecks (66% still a hazard)
- Alaska: 622 wrecks (39% still a hazard)
“Everyone expects Cape Hatteras to lead North Carolina, so it was a real surprise to see Carteret County come out on top,” said Vukan Simic, CEO of BoatBooker. “Between Cape Lookout, Beaufort Inlet and Blackbeard’s own flagship, the Crystal Coast has as strong a claim to the Graveyard of the Atlantic name as the Outer Banks.”
Methodology
BoatBooker analyzed NOAA nautical chart data across 23 ocean, Gulf and Pacific coastal states. It removed duplicate records and matched each charted wreck to its nearest county. A wreck counts as a hazard only when the chart data marks it as dangerous to navigation. These findings are BoatBooker’s own analysis, not official NOAA conclusions. The full dataset can be found here.
