![]() After three hours of rowing the 14 survivors reached nearby Moreton Island. This Danish barque was wrecked on 24 February 1894 off the southern Queensland coast whilst on route to New York. This US warship was sunk by Japanese bombers during the first air raid on Darwin in 19 February 1942. The shipwrecked sailors salvaged timber from the Porpoise, build a cutter they called Hope and over the next nine days sailed more than 1200 kilometres to Sydney. It later reported that the other two ships were lost. The Porpoise and the Cato ran aground on a sandbank in the Coral Sea off Queensland on August 17, 1803, while the Bridgewater was able to avoid the disaster. Along with the companion ships the Cato and the Bridgewater, it left bound for India under the command of Lieutenant Robert Fowler in August 1803. The Spanish-built sloop, the Porpoise, was a 10-gun store ship. 6. SS Llewellynĭiscovered in 1997, 35 km east of Mackay on the Great Barrier Reef, the American transport tanker disappeared during heavy gales on 17 July 1919 as it sailed from Rockhampton to Bowen. Considered one our worst maritime disasters, the ship’s sinking drowned 112 people only 22 survived. ![]() Captain James Pearce tried to free the steamship from the reef but it sank in the early hours of the morning. The Gothenberg was wrecked on the night of 24 February 1875, in cyclonic conditions on the Great Barrier Reef near Holbourne Island. All 122 passengers and crew on the Yongala’s 99th and final journey died. For years after its disappearance, this 100 m-long passenger and steam freighter ship was rumoured to be seen as a ghost ship in the area. Wrecked on 23 March 1911 during a cyclone on the Great Barrier Reef, 48 nautical miles south-east of Townsville, The Yongala is perhaps one of Australia’s best-known wrecks. One of over a hundred vessels used to transport 60,000 South Sea Islanders to work in Queensland’s cane fields, all aboard the Foam died, included the 84 Islanders returning to the Solomon Islands. In February 1893, this schooner was wrecked on Myrmidon Reef near Townsville in Queensland and discovered in 1982. Wrecked on 13 June 1829 on the Great Barrier Reef in north Queensland, it was discovered in 2009. This 21-metre, wooden vessel built in India, had circumnavigated the continent on a exploratory voyage and was used to supply the colonies at Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay and Norfolk Island. It is very similar to Australia’s Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. In 2001, UNESCO devised the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage status, to help countries effectively protect and preserve their wrecks. This law also currently protects half a million historic shipwreck relics and artefacts in various public and private collections. More than 6500 of our near 8000 wrecks are protected under this Act. At the time a world first, this act recognises the cultural significance historic shipwrecks have and protects them against commercial salvage. ![]() ![]() Historic shipwrecks with protected statusĪny wreck 75 years or older is automatically protected under Commonwealth law by the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. Later in that same year in Sydney Harbour, the Japanese midget submarine M24 also sunk during a raid, only to be discovered by amateur divers in 2006. Then there is also the USS Peary, a destroyer sunk in Darwin Harbour when the Japanese first bombed Australian soil on 19 February 1942. It took an American shipwreck hunter six years to discover the wrecks in 2008. Then there were the World War II casualties, such as Kormoran, the German auxiliary cruiser and Australia’s HMAS Sydney that both sunk in 1941 after a mutually destructive battle off the coast of Western Australia. Later in 1791, HMS Pandora, that was unsuccessfully despatched to find HMS Bounty and her mutinous crew in the Pacific, sank with all hands lost on the Great Barrier Reef near Cape York. Sharing this heritage with other countries, some Australian shipwrecks are associated with significant events in international history, such as the flagship of the 1788 first fleet, HMS Sirius, which was lost at Norfolk Island in 1790. The English vessel Trial, lost in 1622 on the northwest coast of Western Australia, is our nation’s oldest-recorded shipwreck. In the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Dutch East India Company dominated the seas, their ships the Batavia, Vergulde Draeck, Zuytdorp and Zeewijk also fell foul to the Western Australia coast. ![]()
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