Hazardous
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | Hazardous | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | ship, shipwreck | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Sea / ocean | English Channel | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | England | official dataset |
| Position | 50.7522, -0.8593 | Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3) |
| Protected Wreck | List entry 1000048 | Historic England |
| Designated | 1986-08-21 | Historic England |
| Restricted area | 7.07 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | SZ8056595358 | Historic England |
About the wreck
The Hazardous, formerly Le Hazardeux, was a French third-rate ship of the line captured by the English and later wrecked in Bracklesham Bay, West Sussex, on her way back from Virginia. The wreck was found in 1977 by Buster Geary and George Arnold. In 1986 the site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act as a Protected Wreck, managed by Historic England.
Diving & visiting
This is a designated Protected Wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Under the Act, diving on or otherwise interfering with the wreck inside its restricted area requires a licence; see the Historic England list entry for details.
The bow section of the hull lies to the north, and another section, believed to be the stern lies to the south. It appears that when the ship sank, the hull breached amidships.
A single cannon was recovered from the vicinity of the site in 1966 and further guns were identified in 1977. Excavations and surveys were undertaken in the 1980s which resulted in the recovery of late seventeenth to early eighteenth-century artefacts. Wessex Archaeology undertook remote sensing in 2014 which identified more cannon near the site. The designated area was therefore increased in order to protect these new finds.
Frequent surveying of the site is ongoing.
Location
- Recorded position: 50.7522, -0.8593 (Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: English Channel
- Nearest coast: England
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Hazardous (ship) (revision 1347969368), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “The wreck”, “Discovery and investigation”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Protected Wreck data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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