MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust website features historic shipwrecks

The Maritime Heritage Trust website includes underwater footage of the German WW1 cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, sunk in December 1914 and located only in 2019.

A website has been launched to celebrate historic shipwrecks around the Falkland Islands, including underwater footage of the German WW1 cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, sunk in December 1914 and located only in 2019.

The site has been created for UK-registered charity the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT). Most of the featured wrecks come from pre-Panama Canal days, when vessels had to sail around perilous Cape Horn to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific.

Wreck locations are shown on an interactive map along with their background stories. The Vicar of Bray, Lady Elizabeth, Jhelum and Charles Cooper are shown along with the Scharnhorst, with the Garland, Capricorn and Acteon to follow.

The site also contains extracts from the recent documentary “SMS Scharnhorst & the Hunt for the Kaiser’s Missing Super-fleet”, based on the expeditions led by wreck-hunter Mensun Bound to locate the famous warships, and from 1926 British silent movie “The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands”. Find the website here.

The Falkland Islands is one of the 16 UK overseas territories brought together in a new book called “Britain’s Distant Seas” by scuba diver and naturalist Stewart McPherson. The vast territories cover every aquatic ecosystem in the world, and the book details the marine life to be found in each one. Find out more here and look out for a review in the February issue of DIVER magazine.