Overview
A shipwreck is the cheapest progression chain in the early game, and the trick is knowing which chest you actually want. Wrecks generate with up to three chests in fixed positions: the map chest sits in the bow, the supply chest amidships, and the treasure chest in the stern. It is the bow chest that matters, because the buried treasure map inside it leads to a chest that always contains a Heart of the Sea — the core of a conduit. A player who finds a beached wreck on day three can have a conduit-grade artefact before they have found diamonds. The supply chest carries food, bamboo, paper and often an enchanted fishing rod; the treasure chest carries iron, gold, emeralds and occasionally diamonds. Wrecks come upright, capsized or snapped in half, and a broken one may be missing the section you want, so check the sand around it before deciding a chest is absent. Drowned patrol the hulls, some carrying tridents that hit for more than a diamond sword, and the half-buried wrecks are worse because you dig into a sealed cabin and meet one at arm's length with no room to swing.
The buried treasure map in the bow chest, which is the entry point to the Heart of the Sea and therefore to conduits. Beyond that: iron, gold, emeralds, diamonds, an enchanted fishing rod, bamboo for scaffolding, and a complete hull of free wood planks.
A wrecked sailing ship, generated upright, capsized, or broken in two, on the sea floor or beached on the sand. It holds up to three distinct chests: a map chest in the bow with a buried treasure map, a supply chest amidships with food and useful odds and ends, and a treasure chest in the stern with ingots and gems. Shipwrecks are the standard early-game route into ocean exploration, because one map chest chains you straight into buried treasure and a Heart of the Sea.
It is common in the Overworld, restricted to Ocean, Warm Ocean, Lukewarm Ocean, Cold Ocean and 4 more, and it generates ocean floor or beach; sometimes half-buried in sand.
How to get it
Shipwrecks are common in every ocean variant and on beaches and snowy beaches, on the sea floor or half-buried in sand. Sailing a boat along a coastline turns them up faster than anything else — expect to pass 2 or 3 in an hour of shoreline travel.
Tips
- Open the bow chest first — the map is the reason you are here and the other two chests are ordinary early-game loot.
- Beached wrecks are safer than sunken ones: no drowning risk, no drowned, and you can mine the whole hull for planks.
- Dig around a buried wreck from above rather than tunnelling in sideways, or collapsing sand will seal you inside a flooded cabin.
- A broken wreck may have lost a section entirely, so sweep the sand nearby before concluding the map chest is missing.
Version notes
Added in 1.13 as part of Update Aquatic, together with buried treasure and the conduit chain they feed. The loot tables have been adjusted since but the three-chest layout has not changed.
Properties
It generates in the Overworld, which is the only dimension with a day-night cycle and weather, and the one every distance in the game is measured against. In a world with cheats on, /locate structure minecraft:shipwreck gives the coordinates of the nearest one. Without cheats, an explorer map from a cartographer villager is the reliable route for the structures that have one; everything else is exploration.
- Biomes it generates in
- 8
- Notable loot items
- 8
Where it generates
Shipwreck generates in 8 biomes: Ocean, Warm Ocean, Lukewarm Ocean, Cold Ocean, Frozen Ocean, Deep Ocean, Beach, and Snowy Beach. Outside those it will not generate at all, however far you travel.
Notable loot
Its loot includes Iron Ingot, Gold Ingot, Emerald, Diamond, Lapis Lazuli, Suspicious Stew, Paper, and Bamboo. These are the notable entries rather than the full loot table — the common filler (bread, coal, iron nuggets) is omitted, and in some structures the best of it comes from a vault or a spawner rather than a chest.
Mobs found here
Drowned generate here. Several of them spawn nowhere else, which is usually the reason to make the trip.
What to watch out for
3 things to prepare for before you go in:
- Drowned patrolling the wreck
- Drowning inside sealed cabins
- Gravel and sand collapsing when you dig into a buried wreck
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How many chests does a shipwreck have?
Up to three — map, supply and treasure — but a broken or partly buried wreck may generate with fewer. The map chest is in the bow, the treasure chest in the stern.
Does every shipwreck have a buried treasure map?
Not every one, but most intact wrecks do. If a wreck has an intact bow section with a chest, the map is very likely to be in it.
Can shipwrecks generate on land?
They generate on beaches and snowy beaches as well as underwater, so a wreck lying on dry sand is normal rather than a bug.
How do I find Shipwreck?
Shipwreck generates in the Overworld, only in Ocean, Warm Ocean, Lukewarm Ocean, Cold Ocean and 4 more, and is common. /locate structure minecraft:shipwreck finds the nearest one instantly with cheats on.
What loot is in Shipwreck?
The notable entries are Iron Ingot, Gold Ingot, Emerald, Diamond, Lapis Lazuli, Suspicious Stew and 2 more.
When was Shipwreck added?
Shipwreck was added in Java Edition 1.13.
Related pages
Structures that share Shipwreck's loot, its mobs or its biomes — not simply the next few in the list.
