The first materials used in ship building were wood and reeds. However, during World War I there was a shortage of steel, and the U.S. government turned to an unlikely material – concrete.  An emergency fleet of 38 concrete ships was planned by the United States Shipping Board, but only 12 of the ships were actually put into service. Construction was begun on two more, but they were never finished.

   Historic Cape May’s Sunset Beach area is home to the second concrete ship to be built, the “Atlantus.” The 3,000 ton, 250 foot long freighter had a special 5-inch thick hull of special concrete aggregate. This material was used following the discovery that the first prototype was brittle and easily shattered by impact with waves and docks.

   Liberty Shipbuilding Corporation of Brunswick, Georgia built the Atlantus, and launched her on November 21, 1918 at Wilmington, North Carolina, and she was commissioned on June 1, 1919. The Atlantus served for a year as a government owned privately operated commercial coal steamer in New England.

   When the war ended the far more efficient steel ships took over and the “Concrete Fleet” was decommissioned. The Atlantus was sent to the “Bone Yard” at Pigs Point in Norfolk, Virginia is September of 1920. One year later was ship was stripped after being purchased by a salvage company.

   Several years passed and in 1926 the Atlantus was towed to Cape May, New Jersey because a Baltimore firm wanted to start a ferry service between Cape May and Lewes, Delaware. A channel was to be dredged well into the shore, and the Atlantus was to be forced into the channel. A special drawbridge type of device was to be mounted on the exposed end, and two other hulls were to be sunk at angles creating a “Y” shape. The ferry would then be docked by wedging in, and cars and passengers would load and unload using the drawbridge.

   Unfortunately, the Atlantus broke loose of her moorings during a storm on June 8, 1926 and went aground. Several efforts were made to free the Atlantus, but the attempts proved to be futile.

   Thousands of visitors come to the Sunset Beach area each year to search for “Cape May Diamonds,” the quartz crystal gems found in the shadow of the weather beaten hull of the Atlantus, still there after all these years on the shore of the southern tip of New Jersey.