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 dismantled (to recycle their metal and remove dangerous materials like asbestos) are also known as ship graveyards.
By analogy, the phrase can also refer to a large number of shipwrecks which have accumulated in a single area but not been removed by human agency, instead being left to disintegrate naturally. These can form in places where navigation is difficult or dangerous (such as the Goodwin Sands or Blackpool), where a large number of ships have been deliberately scuttled together (as with the Kaiserliche Marine at Scapa Flow), or where a large number of ships have been sunk in battle.
Famous quotes containing the words ship and/or graveyard:
“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“Since the last one in a graveyard is believed to be the next one fated to die, funerals often end in a mad scramble.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)