But the sunk ship in November shows that North Africans are now risking the choppier winter seas.

ECONOMIST: Morocco

The team from the University of Rennes in France say they found the crystal while examining the wreck of a British ship sunk off the island of Alderney - in the English Channel - in 1592.

BBC: 'Viking sunstone' found in shipwreck

In 1916, the Germans sunk the French transport ship Provence II, killing 930.

CNN: Thursday,

In 1940, the troop ship Lancastria was sunk by enemy fire after having taken on board British troops who were evacuating from France.

CNN: Wednesday,

The crew of the rescue tugboat Nan Hai Jiu 197, Nan Hai Rescue Bureau, Ministry of Transport, China, nominated by China, for saving four out of five persons aboard a small cargo ship that had sunk in severe weather, in January 2011.

FORBES: Korean Ship Captain Honored for Extraordinary Bravery at Sea

An Indian frigate battled a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, leaving the ship ablaze and likely sunk, the country's defense ministry reported.

CNN: Pirates collect $150 million in ransoms

Marine archaeologists working on a wreck off the coast of Sicily have discovered five large cannon from a British ship, believed to have sunk in a major battle with Spanish galleons.

BBC: British cannon from Battle of Cape Passaro found off Sicily

In 1985, one Greenpeace crew member died when the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was blown up and sunk by French secret agents in Auckland harbor in New Zealand.

CNN: Thursday,

His ship was torpedoed in the Channel and it sunk.

BBC: WWI generation

Such was the Houston company's prowess that in 1972 the Central Intelligence Agency used a Global Marine ship, the Glomar Explorer, to recover pieces of a Russian submarine that had sunk in 17, 000 feet of water in the Pacific.

FORBES: GLOBAL MARINE The Water Is 12,000 Feet Deep