Ship Horn Sounds - Free Download
A ship's horn is one of those sounds you recognize long before the ship itself comes into view. Low, heavy and a little mournful, it rolls over the water and comes back off whatever stands on the shore. This collection brings together horns and foghorns recorded on real vessels and in real ports, from small harbor boats to cruise liners the size of a city block.
Almost everything here was captured on location, so there's usually more going on than the horn alone. In some files the blast echoes off the hills around a fjord, in others you can hear the engine idling underneath, wind across the deck or waves against the hull. Among the recordings you can listen online:
- Foghorns up close and far away, a few of them recorded in genuinely thick fog
- Ferries signalling before they cast off, including the Color Fantasy, King Seaways, Maquoit II and Wabanaki
- Cruise ships, with the Queen Mary 2 heard from a distance and another liner giving three short blasts
- Harbors in Bergen, Valletta and Marseille, plus the Bosphorus Strait, where several ships end up answering each other
- An old tugboat, a river hooter with a double blast, and a whole port sounding off to welcome the New Year
A single deep blast works well for a departure scene or a documentary about the sea. The distant ones sit nicely under a quiet port town at night, and the low, moaning foghorns hardly need any processing to feel unsettling in a thriller or horror project. All files are shared under a Creative Commons license and are available as a free download.
