About Wreck Intelligence
Wreck Intelligence is a free, evidence-backed wreck diving database covering diveable shipwrecks across Ireland and the United Kingdom, where every factual claim on a wreck page links to the source it came from.
What the database contains
Each wreck record is built around the vessel as an entity rather than around a page. Identity, construction, loss circumstances, position, physical condition, dive conditions, certification requirements, seasonality and legal protection are stored as separate structured fields, so a question like “what qualification do I need” has an answer that is distinct from “how deep is it”.
Certification in particular is not collapsed into a single flag. The legal or operator minimum, the recommended qualification, the recommended experience level and whether penetration is possible are held separately, because conflating them is how divers end up on the wrong wreck.
How evidence is handled
Factual fields point to evidence records with fields for a source name, a source URL where one exists, the source date, the supporting excerpt and a confidence rating. Not every field is populated on every record — source name, URL, excerpt and confidence are, but most records carry no source date — and a missing value is left missing rather than estimated. The coverage page publishes the current figures.
Where two sources disagree, the conflict is preserved and shown on the page rather than resolved by picking the more convenient number. The coverage page reports how many are currently recorded.
The full approach is set out in the methodology, including how confidence ratings are assigned and how coordinate visibility is decided.
Limitations
This is a compilation of published sources, not original survey work. No dive on any wreck listed here has been conducted by this project, and nothing on the site should be read as first-hand experience. Depths, positions and conditions vary with tide, weather and season, and wreck sites degrade — several records describe structures that have demonstrably collapsed further since the sources were written.
Legal status changes. Protection designations, permit requirements and access restrictions are recorded as at the source date shown, and must be confirmed independently before a dive.
The retrieval study
Alongside the database, this project runs an open longitudinal study of whether structured, well-sourced specialist content gets retrieved and cited by AI search systems. Prompt sets are version-controlled and frozen, raw responses are stored, and the methodology — including its known limitations — is published in full on the benchmark page. Results are reported whether or not they flatter the site.
Common questions
What is Wreck Intelligence?
Wreck Intelligence is a free, evidence-backed wreck diving database. Each record covers a diveable shipwreck: what the vessel was, how it was lost, where it lies, how deep it sits, what conditions and qualifications the dive demands, and what legal protections apply. Factual fields carry source attribution.
Who publishes it?
Wreck Intelligence is an independent project, not affiliated with any dive agency, operator, tourism board or heritage authority. It sells nothing, takes no bookings and carries no advertising. Editorial contact is hello@wreckintelligence.com.
Is the information reliable enough to plan a dive on?
Treat it as a research starting point, not a dive plan. Records are compiled from published sources, and sources disagree — particularly about depths and positions. Where a disagreement has been recorded, both values are shown on the wreck page rather than one being chosen silently. Conditions on any given day, and the current legal status of a protected site, must be confirmed with a local operator before diving.
Where does the data come from?
Published sources: heritage registers and official marine datasets, dive club and operator accounts, recognised wreck databases, contemporary and historical press, and academic work. Each evidence record has fields for the source name, URL where available, source date, the relevant excerpt and a confidence rating. Source names, URLs, excerpts and confidence ratings are present on every evidence record; source dates are not, and most records are undated. Missing dates are left missing rather than estimated. The sources are listed on every wreck page, and the current provenance figures on the coverage page.
Can I reuse the data?
Statistics and facts may be cited with attribution to Wreck Intelligence and a link to the page used. Free embeddable wreck cards are available for dive clubs, operators and maritime sites.
Why are some coordinates approximate or hidden?
Because publishing exact positions for protected wrecks and war graves invites interference with them. A record's coordinate visibility state — exact, approximate, register-only, restricted or hidden — decides what is shown, and precision is reduced or withheld where the site warrants it. Coordinates appear only for records explicitly marked public exact or public approximate, so a record whose state has not been set has its position withheld rather than published by default.
What does the database not cover?
Coverage is currently limited to Ireland and the United Kingdom. Wrecks that are not diveable are largely out of scope, as are sites where no usable published evidence exists. Absence from the database means nothing has been recorded here, not that a wreck does not exist.
Contact
Corrections are welcome and acted on: if a record here contradicts a source you trust, send it to hello@wreckintelligence.com. Corrections that cite a checkable source are the fastest way to improve the database.