The BBC ran a really cool story about a little known shipwreck back in 1997. A shipping container carrying 4.8 million Lego pieces fell off the boat never to be seen again. 17 years later the tide is still washing lodads of Lego onto beaches around Cornwall, England and places as far as Devon, Ireland and Wales. The container ship that was carrying the Lego, the Tokio Express,
“was hit by a wave described by its captain as a ‘once in a 100-year phenomenon,’ tilting the ship 60 degrees one way, then 40 degrees back.”
Funny enough, many of the Lego pieces in the container were nautical-themed, from the Aquazone line. For years, children and adults have been combing the Cornwall coasts in search of Lego. Local Tracey Williams has even created a Facebook page that chronicles her findings called “Lego Lost at Sea.”
According to reports the container was carrying the following pieces:
Toy kits - Divers, Aquazone, Aquanauts, Police, FrightKnights, WildWest, RoboForce, TimeCruisers, Outback, Pirates
Spear guns (red and yellow) - 13,000 items
Black octopus - 4,200
Yellow life preserver - 26,600
Diver flippers (in pairs: black, blue, red) - 418,000
Dragons (black and green) - 33,941
Brown ship rigging net - 26,400
Daisy flowers (in fours - white, red, yellow) - 353,264
Scuba and breathing apparatus (grey) - 97,500
Total of 4,756,940 Lego pieces lost overboard in a single container
Estimated 3,178,807 may be light enough to have floated
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