Corveta V17 Ipiranga

The corvette Ipiranga was ordered in 1953 from the L. Smit & Zoon shipyard in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and commissioned into the Brazilian Navy in 1955; she was 56 m long, displaced 950 t and, in the 1980s, carried out patrol, support and rescue duties. The ship took about 8 hours to sink, while boats from the island helped remove equipment and crew members; the crew was rescued by fishermen, and the Navy inquiry concluded that no one was to blame. The Cabeça da Sapata, a rock that rises from more than 70 m deep to less than 2 m at low tide, has no navigational marking, and it is suspected of also having caused the wreck of Amerigo Vespucci's ship. Today the ship sits upright in sailing position and keeps its original structure, with the bow cannon covered in sponges and crew belongings inside; the bell and emblems were removed in the 1980s. The hull is home to plenty of marine life, with reef sharks, corals and schools of fish.