The Counterintuitive Engineering Behind Historic Ships Made Out of Concrete

Reporter Phil Edwards, who explores interesting subjects from all over the world, kayaked within Kiptopeke State Park off the coast of Virginia to dive deep into the counterintuitive engineering behind historic ships that were made of concrete, nine of which he was visiting that very day.

I kayak out to nine concrete ships stranded off the coast of Virginia at Kiptopeke State Park, explore the wartime engineering behind them, and trace the strange global afterlives of these vessels.

While doing his research, Edwards got in touch with Richard Lewis, the co-founder of The Crete Fleet, a fascinating database that keeps track of all the historical concrete ships in the world, which numbers at about 1800. Lewis provided a great deal of information as to where these ships can be found and how these unique ships played both pivotal and lesser-known roles in history.

We explore the McCloskey shipyard in Tampa, Florida, where 24 concrete ships were built in just 14 months. You’ll see how two of these ships helped form the D-Day Gooseberry breakwaters off Normandy, others became floating ice cream barges, and some were literally sunk to create breakwaters in Powell River, Canada.