If you walk to the end of Sunset Boulevard in Cape May Point and look out at the Delaware Bay, you’ll see something that looks like a broken piece of a parking garage sitting in the surf. That’s the SS Atlantus, a World War I cargo ship built entirely out of concrete, and it has been rotting in the same spot just off Sunset Beach since a storm ran it aground in 1926. It never sailed again after that, and its crumbling hull has been slowly dissolving into the bay for a century now.
What exactly is the SS Atlantus?
The Atlantus wasn’t some novelty boat built for a laugh. It was a serious, government-funded experiment born out of wartime desperation. After the United States entered World War I, there was a need for more war ships and merchant vessels, but with a lack of steel and other metals during wartime, naval engineers needed to think of new materials, and they immediately thought of concrete because there had been some success with smaller concrete ships.
The federal government took the idea seriously enough to bring in outside expertise. Under the guidance of President Woodrow Wilson, the government invited Norseman N.K. Fougner to head a study into the feasibility of concrete ships after earlier experiments with other materials had failed. Fougner wasn’t picked at random, either — the government invited him specifically because he had already built the Namsenfjord in his home country, the first self-propelled ocean-ready concrete vessel.
Not long after, the U.S. commissioned a grand total of 24 concrete ships to help the war effort, though only a fraction of those ever actually got built. Only twelve of the original twenty-four commissioned were built, and the Atlantus was the very first of them.
How big was the Atlantus, and how does concrete even float?
It’s a fair question. Concrete doesn’t exactly scream “buoyant.” But the freighter weighed 3,000 tons, measured 250 feet long, and was built with a 5-inch thick hull of special concrete aggregate. The trick, according to the folks who’ve studied the wreck, is the same one that keeps any steel ship afloat: it floats the same way any massive steel vessel does, with air-tight compartments and a large hull. Concrete itself doesn’t need to float — the hollow shape displacing water does the work.
The ship was launched on 5 December 1918, and was the second concrete ship constructed in the World War I Emergency Fleet. Its timing was almost comically bad. By the time it was ready for action, the fighting was basically over. The war had ended a month earlier, but the Atlantus was used to transport American troops back home from Europe and also to transport coal in New England. It managed a couple of transatlantic trips bringing soldiers home before the whole concrete-ship concept fell apart.
Why did the concrete fleet get scrapped so fast?
Once real steel was flowing again after the war, nobody wanted these things anymore. The difficulties of maintaining large concrete ships became apparent — they moved slowly and required large amounts of fuel to run, and sailors were wary of them, calling them “floating tombstones.” That’s a nickname that tells you everything about how the maritime world felt about concrete hulls.
After two years of service, the ship was retired in 1920 to a salvage yard in Virginia. It sat there, stripped of anything useful, just waiting for someone to find a use for a giant dead concrete hulk. That someone turned out to be a Baltimore entrepreneur named Colonel Jesse Rosenfeld.
Why did the ship end up in Cape May in the first place?
Rosenfeld didn’t want the Atlantus to sail anywhere. In 1926, Rosenfeld acquired the Atlantus not for any grand voyage, but as the cornerstone of his plan to link Delaware and New Jersey with a ferry line between Cape May and Cape Henlopen, needing the concrete ship not to move passengers, but as the first part of a concrete wharf. The idea was oddly elegant: sink a few dead concrete ships in a Y-shape and use them as a ready-made dock. He planned to buy two more concrete ships, digging shallow depressions for each so they’d form a Y-shaped slip, letting ferries slide between the two additional ships while passengers disembarked over the top deck of the Atlantus and onto Sunset Beach.
The town was excited enough to throw a party for it. In March of 1926, the town celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony in honor of the new enterprise. Three months later, nature had other ideas.
What happened the day it ran aground?
On June 8, 1926, a storm rolled in while the Atlantus was moored offshore waiting for its final positioning. During an early summer storm, the Atlantus broke free from her mooring, drifted into the bay, struck a sandbar and ran aground about 150 feet from shore. There was even a caretaker on board at the time, and by the account of one local magazine, though the ship had no engine, it still had a caretaker aboard, and as the vessel moved seaward he went on deck and began waving a white sheet — presumably signaling for help as his concrete ride drifted toward the beach.
Once it was stuck, it was stuck for good. She couldn’t be pried off of the bottom because she was made of, well, concrete. Several attempts were made to free the ship, but none was successful. Rosenfeld’s ferry-dock dream died with it, and the wreck has simply stayed put, a few hundred feet off Sunset Beach, ever since.
What does the SS Atlantus look like today?
A century of storms and tides have not been kind to it. The ship has been splitting apart for decades. A severe storm caused further damage to the ship, breaking her in half and scattering debris along the beach, and the two halves started drifting apart with the stern section rolling onto its side. Today the wreckage is currently split into three pieces, and there’s noticeably less of it visible than there used to be — older photos from 2011 show far more of the wreck sticking out of the water than you’ll see now.
For a stretch of years, locals leaned into the wreck’s fame rather than fighting it. Since so many people went to visit the ship, it became a great place to advertise, and a boat insurance company and a local business called Henry’s both took up the opportunity. You can still find old photos of the hull wearing a painted insurance ad like a very odd billboard.
Can you actually visit the concrete ship?
Yes, and it’s easy. Sunset Beach in Cape May offers miniature golf, shopping, a grille, and the wrecked SS Atlantus, and the beach itself is free to visit year-round with on-site parking. You won’t be able to walk out to the wreck — it sits in the water, not on the sand — but you can see it clearly from shore, especially at low tide. Locals also point out that the site pairs well with other nearby history: the SS Atlantus is part of a larger historical area in Cape May Point, and you can combine your visit with the nearby World War II Lookout Tower.
Bring some patience for beachcombing while you’re there. The same stretch of sand is known for “Cape May diamonds,” which are quartz pebbles worth searching for while you stroll the beach. Sunset Beach also does a small daily flag-lowering ceremony that’s worth timing your visit around if you like a little ritual with your ghost-ship viewing.
What makes the SS Atlantus worth the drive isn’t really the wreck itself — it’s a low, gray, unglamorous lump of concrete these days. It’s the story behind it: a government desperate enough to try building warships out of the same stuff as a driveway, a businessman who thought dead ships made a fine dock, and a storm that turned the whole plan into one of the strangest permanent fixtures on the Jersey Shore.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
