A book detailing more than 300 of Bermuda’s shipwrecks and 500 years of maritime history hits the shelves today.

Shipwrecked traces the Island’s role as the shipwreck capital of the mid-Atlantic and is written by underwater archaeologist Gordon Watts.

Dr Watts, from North Carolina, has been a frequent visitor since 1981 and launched a long-running programme investigating Bermuda’s shipwrecks that has seen many US students come to the Island.

“Bermuda is the most incredible classroom in the world,” he said. “If you do the sort of work we do and don’t document it, then you really have not accomplished much.

‘I’m very proud of what we have achieved with this book, but a lot of people have made this happen and I’m very grateful to all of them.

“I’m also extremely grateful to all the Bermudians who have helped me over the years; I really appreciate having been able to come out here and work with them. I have worked in a lot of places over the years, but there is no place that I would rather work.”

The 278-page book has been published by the National Museum of Bermuda Press and designed by Brimstone Media, and has been eight years in the making.

“We hope this book will help to nurture a wider appreciation by Bermudians, residents and visitors alike for the extraordinary heritage that is represented by the 300-plus shipwrecks on the reef platform of the Isle of Devils, as Bermuda was known to the mariners in its early decades,” said Edward Harris, executive director of the museum.

“The Island has depended on the ocean for resources, commerce and defence — but the trade-off has been lost lives and hundreds of vessels claimed by the Island’s necklace of barrier reefs.”

An official book launch was held last night in Dockyard.