A tugboat ruined by fire found a new job at the bottom of the ocean. According to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, its Division of Marine Fisheries sank the tugboat Thomas Dann at a reef site called AR-305, off Cape Lookout, on August 1, 2024. The tug was built in 1981 and suffered a catastrophic fire in 2016. Marinex Construction Co. of Charleston, South Carolina, donated the vessel to the state's Artificial Reef Program. Now it rests on a reef that is a favorite haunt of fishermen and divers.
Why sink a ship on purpose
An artificial reef is a manmade structure placed underwater, mostly to help marine life thrive in waters where the sea floor is almost always flat and bare. It is like building a little community in a deserted place. Fish need a place to hide, eat, and spawn, and these structures can help them with that. The state says that its 72 artificial reefs serve as important spawning and feeding grounds for various fish used both for commercial purposes and as sport. Before the sinking of Thomas Dann, the ship was thoroughly cleaned to meet the Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Stevens Towing then did the preparation and sank it.
A busy reef off Cape Lookout
Thomas Dann isn’t all alone down there. There are two older ships already sitting at AR-305. One is the 183-foot Spar, sunk in 2004; the other is the 439-foot Aeolus, which was sunk in 1988. It is longer than a football field, including end zones. Keeping the ships company, there are also 1,700 tons of recycled concrete that were donated and deployed in July 2023, more than a year before the tugboat arrived. The entire reef is located about 28 nautical miles south of Beaufort Inlet, at a depth of 105 feet.
{{/usCountry}}Thomas Dann isn’t all alone down there. There are two older ships already sitting at AR-305. One is the 183-foot Spar, sunk in 2004; the other is the 439-foot Aeolus, which was sunk in 1988. It is longer than a football field, including end zones. Keeping the ships company, there are also 1,700 tons of recycled concrete that were donated and deployed in July 2023, more than a year before the tugboat arrived. The entire reef is located about 28 nautical miles south of Beaufort Inlet, at a depth of 105 feet.
{{/usCountry}}Deep Dive
Why are retired ships sunk to create artificial reefs?
How was the Twin Capes ferry turned into an artificial reef?
Can artificial reefs support as many fish as natural reefs?
What the research says
One might wonder if these human-made reefs really help fish? A 2020 study by Paxton and colleagues in Frontiers in Marine Science looked exactly at that. Researchers from NOAA centers examined 39 studies from around the world. They compared fish on artificial reefs with fish on natural reefs, like rocky and coral reefs. The team looked at four things: the number of fish living there, the total weight of the fish, the number of different species there, and the variety of those species.
The findings were promising. Artificial reefs had similar fish densities, biomass, species richness, and diversity as the natural reefs. In simpler terms, a man-made reef can have almost the same amount of fish and just as many kinds of fish as a natural reef in the area. The researchers also found that minor differences in the findings were associated with the location and the material of the reef.
It's not a magic fix
The authors say that reefs should be used strategically, based on local scientific assessment and resource needs. That’s important here because this study is a broad review and not a look at this one reef. It won’t tell us how Thomas Dann will do in the future. Still, the review included reefs in water shallower than 150 meters (about 490 feet), and AR-305 lies at 105 feet. Artificial reefs can be effective tools if they are designed with the local area in mind. Most of us probably think of shipwrecks as sad endings. This one looks more like a fresh start, a second life. Two older ships and concrete, along with a fire-damaged tug, now sit on the seafloor, giving marine life a safe home in their nooks and crannies.