Mauritania 2004
On August 19th 2004, the Oxford University Expedition to Mauritania embarked on an expedition to create a visual history and oral record of the world’s largest ships’ graveyard. The team aimed to document and record this unique human phenomenon before time and politics reduce it to a memory. The wrecks constitute a hazard to shipping in the shallow channels of Nouadhibou harbour, and represent an ecological threat, which is why the European Union has allocated a sum of $2 million to fund a clearance project.
The expedition photographed 104 wrecks above water, and identified two-thirds of them. In addition to photographs, we created a silhouette of each ship, in order to standardize the images, and sketched some of them when necessary. To compile the oral history of the ships’ graveyard, the expedition relied on semi-structured interviews and surveys. We conducted the interviews with influential members of Nouadhibou’s fishing and shipping communities. Through our conversations with these key informants, we determined that the graveyard is relatively young. Most of these shipwreck are less than 20 years old and nearly all of the wrecks are fishing vessels (apart from a few units seemingly disposed of by the Mauritanian Navy).
The survey portion of the oral history was conducted with the individuals who live on the wrecks. These guards are hired by the ship owners to protect the valuable equipment still installed on the wrecks. These individuals presented unique opinions regarding the current and future status of the graveyard. Despite undertaking a socially sensitive topic, the expedition achieved its goals.