A foremost authority on Florida shipwrecks and maritime history indexes more than 1,300 Atlantic coast shipwrecks and artificial reefs, and provides 330 archival and underwater images, and 1,000 Atlantic coast shipwreck coordinates.

Over 2,100 shipwrecks from the 16th century to the present; the most comprehensive listing now available. Wrecks are arranged primarily by geographical section of the state. Within sections, wrecks are arranged chronologically. Extensive and heavily illustrated appendices offer a wealth of information on topics of interest to divers and researchers alike. A companion volume, More Shipwrecks of Florida, is now available from Pineapple Press.

The Sunshine State has a rich maritime history spanning more than five centuries. Tragically, part of that history includes thousands of ships that have met their fates in Florida waters. Potentially more than 5,000 shipwrecks reside off Florida's 1,200 miles of coastline, with hundreds more lost in the state's interior rivers. In and of itself, the Florida Keys archipelago, consisting of approximately 1,700 islands stretching 200 miles, is littered with the remains of close to 1,000 shipwrecks. In fact, many features of the Florida Keys were named after various shipwreck events, such as Fowey Rocks, which earned its name after the 1748 wrecking of the British warship HMS Fowey, and Alligator Reef, where the schooner USS Alligator met her demise in 1822. Florida's Shipwrecks utilizes captivating images to illustrate dramatic stories of danger and peril at sea, introducing readers to a fascinating cross-section of Florida's shipwreck history.

Sunken treasure, cannibalism, prison ships, Nazi submarines, the Bermuda triangle—all are tied into the lore of shipwrecks along Florida's coasts. There are as many shipwreck stories as there are thousands of Florida shipwrecks. This book offers thirty of the most interesting of them—from the tale of young Fontaneda, who wrecked in 1545 and was held captive by Indians for 17 years, to the story of the Coast Guard cutter Bibb, which was sunk off Key Largo in 1987 to provide an artificial reef and diving site. In between there is the Atocha, flagship of a Spanish treasure fleet, which sank in a hurricane in September 1622 and was found, along with its $100 million worth of gold and silver, by Mel Fisher in July of 1985. Each shipwreck story has a map pinpointing its location and a full-color illustration by renowned artist William L. Trotter. There is an extensive bibliography and a foreword by Florida state underwater archaeologist Roger Smith.

On the evening of February 2, 1864, Confederate Commander John Taylor Wood led 250 sailors in two launches and twelve boats to capture the USS Underwriter, a side-wheel steam gunboat anchored on the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina. During the ensuing fifteen-minute battle, nine Union crewmen lost their lives, twenty were wounded, and twenty-six fell into enemy hands. Six Confederates were captured and several wounded as they stripped the vessel, set it ablaze, and blew it up while under fire from Union-held Fort Anderson. The thrilling story of USS Underwriter is one of many involving the numerous shipwrecks that occupy the waters of Civil War history. Many years in the making, W. Craig Gaines's Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks is the definitive account of more than 2,000 of these American Civil War--period sunken ships. From Alabama's USS Althea, a Union steam tug lost while removing a Confederate torpedo in the Blakely River, to Wisconsin's Berlin City, a Union side-wheel steamer stranded in Oshkosh, Gaines provides detailed information about each vessel, including its final location, type, dimensions, tonnage, crew size, armament, origin, registry (Union, Confederate, United States, or other country), casualties, circumstances of loss, salvage operations, and the sources of his findings. Organized alphabetically by geographical location (state, country, or body of water), the book also includes a number of maps providing the approximate locations of many of the wrecks -- ranging from the Americas to Europe, the Arctic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Also noted are more than forty shipwrecks whose locations are in question. Since the 1960s, the underwater access afforded by SCUBA gear has allowed divers, historians, treasure hunters, and archaeologists to discover and explore many of the American Civil War-related shipwrecks. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, Gaines scoured countless sources -- from government and official records to sports diver and treasure-hunting magazines -- and cross-indexes his compilation by each vessel's various names and nicknames throughout its career. An essential reference work for Civil War scholars and buffs, archaeologists, divers, and aficionados of naval history, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks revives and preserves for posterity the little-known stories of these intriguing historical artifacts.

From aerial survey to zoology, Part I of this two-part encyclopedia covers all aspects of underwater archeology, treasure hunting and salvaging. For example, entries are included for different types of artifacts, notable treasure hunters, the various salvaging equipment, and techniques in mapping and excavating. Part II covers the shipwrecks themselves, dividing them into 13 geographical categories. Beginning with the northernmost category (Canada) and ending with the southernmost (South America), every known shipwreck--both identified and unidentified--receives an entry in alphabetical order under its appropriate geographical category. Entries are by name, such as Andrea Gail, Titanic, and Queen Ann's Revenge. Unidentified is used when a shipwreck's name remains unknown. Entries give the nationality (e.g., Spanish, British, American), type (schooner, frigate, brig are three), function (examples: slave transportation, piracy, fishing), location and history of the shipwreck.

Lists alphabetically according to region, the shipwrecks that have occurred off the United States' shores since the pre-Revolutionary period