SHIPWRECKS AND THE US LIFESAVING SERVICE with Captain Greg Ketchen, The outer coast of Massachusetts has been called the Graveyard of the North Atlantic, with more than 3,000 shipwrecks off Cape Cod since European sailors began exploring the Western Hemisphere.. The earliest recorded wreck was that of the  Pinnace Sparrow Hawk in 1626.. Many wrecks followed, particularly in the 19th century, as commercial sailing vessel traffic peaked along our coast.  Advances in modern navigation, weather forecasting and vessel technologies have not eliminated the risks, evidenced by the grounding of the cruise ship  Royal Majesty off Nantucket in 1995 and the fast ferry  Iyannough in 2017 as it approached Hyannis Harbor. Navigational errors, extreme weather, equipment failures and human error are some of the causes. The  Wydah,  HMS Somerset, Pendleton, City of Columbus, Argo Merchant, Andrea Doria, and  Norwegian Majesty are just a few of the marine accidents in our local waters that have shaped life-saving innovations in rescue equipment and operations. Greg Ketchen is a retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain living in Osterville. He is currently serving as the president of the Coast Guard Heritage Museum, located in Barnstable’s Old Customs House,