On This Day June 4, 1629

Dutch trading ship 'The Batavia' is shipwrecked off Australia's western coast.

The 'Batavia' was a ship built in Amsterdam in 1628. On 29 October 1628, the newly built Batavia, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company, sailed from Texel for the Dutch East Indies to obtain spices. During the voyage two of the crew, Jacobsz and Cornelisz, planned to hijack the ship, with the aim of starting a new life somewhere using the supply of trade gold and silver on board. After stopping at South Africa for supplies, Jacobsz deliberately steered the ship off course away from the rest of the fleet, planning to organise a mutiny against the captain at some stage.

On 4 June 1629 the ship struck a reef near Beacon Island, part of the Houtman Abrolhos island group off the Western Australian coast. 40 drowned but most of the crew and passengers were taken to nearby islands in the ship's longboat and yawl. The captain organised a group of senior officers, crew members and some passengers to search for drinking water on the mainland. Unsuccessful, they then headed north to the city of Batavia, now Jakarta. Their amazing journey took 33 days and all survived.

After they arrived in Batavia, a rescue attempt was made for the other survivors, but it was discovered that a mutiny had taken place. Cornelisz had planned to hijack any rescue ships, and organised the murder of 125 men, women and children. The rescue party overcame the mutineers, executing the major leaders, including Cornelisz. Two minor offenders were abandoned on Australia's mainland, and others were taken to be tried in Batavia. The mutiny and murders brought infamy to the story of the lost Batavia.

On 27 April 1971, relics and artifacts from the Batavia wreck were salvaged, later followed by the stern of the ship. In 1972 The Netherlands transferred all rights to Dutch shipwrecks on the Australian coasts to Australia. Some of the items, including human remains, which were excavated, are now on display in the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, Australia. Others are held by the Geraldton Region Museum. Included in the relics is a stone arch which was intended to serve as a welcome arch for the city of Batavia.

Shipwreck - SS ADMELLA 1858

The wreck of the SS Admella in the early hours of August 6th 1859 was only the beginning of a horrific week for survivors who remained on board, in sight of land, while authorities struggled to rescue them from the stricken steamer. The loss of 89 lives, mostly due to cold and exposure, makes the wreck one of the worst maritime disasters in Australian history.

It was the first major rescue incident that involved the cooperation of a large number of organisations and individuals across the newly formed colonies of Victoria and South Australia. In many ways it was the basis of joining together these isolated communities into a regional group, and was the beginning of many ongoing organizations across the south east of Australia.

The Admella was sailing from Adelaide to Melbourne when it struck Carpenters Reef on the Southern Coastline of South Australia. A design fault in its iron hull caused the ship to break into three after only 15 minutes, leaving passengers and crew clinging to the wreckage with minimal water and food.

Early attempts to reach land were fruitless; people were swept out to sea or drowned in the boiling surf. It was nearly two days later when two seamen, Knapmann and Leach, made it to shore and made a 20-mile walk to Cape Northumberland lighthouse to raise the alarm.

The lighthouse was without telegraph and so lighthouse keeper Mr Germain, whose own horse had died a few days earlier, had to trek to a nearby farm to borrow a horse in order to reach Mount Gambier and to inform authorities in Adelaide 450km north east and Portland 150km west. The Corio left from Adelaide and the Ladybird from Portland but, due to poor information, both rescue boats had difficulty locating the now desperate Admella.

Meanwhile the wreck was battered by the heavy swell. Captain McEwan shared out what little food remained and had to prevent survivors from drinking salt water, which had begun to take the lives of those who drank it. Others, exhausted by their ordeal, simply slipped into the sea to their death. In the words of one lifeboat captain they were "...more like statues than human beings; their eyes fixed, their lips black, for want of water, and their limbs bleached white and swollen through exposure to the relentless surf..."
In Adelaide, the news of the disaster brought hundreds of people to the telegraph office to hear the story as it unfolded, and both Houses of Parliament adjourned.

On Wednesday 10th, it was reported that the Corio was beside the wreck and that around 20 survivors were still on board. Those on shore lit fires to help the vessel stay near the wreck site.

Over the next few days, several rescue attempts were made by the Corio and Ladybird rescue boats. Rockets were fired to try to get lines aboard but mountainous seas and severe storms continually drove the rescuers back and lives were lost as the lifeboats were swamped. Ffurther attempts were made to launch one of Admella's own lifeboats, which had washed ashore and patched with soap and canvas, but it too was unsuccessful.

By Saturday, eight days after the wreck, the Admella's lifeboat and the Corio's boat were launched from the beach and managed to crash through the surf and reach the wreck. Eventually three people made it to shore in one boat, but the second boat capsized, drowning a man saved from the wreck.

The lifeboat Portland, which had been towed to the scene by the Lady Bird had made an earlier attempt to reach the wreck but was driven back by the raging seas. Now it was finally successful in coming alongside the wreck and the remaining 19 survivors jumped and fell into the boat. They were transferred to the Lady Bird which returned to Portland. The lifeboat is now housed in the Portland Maritime Museum.

Following the commission of inquiry into the wreck of the Admella, the loss was attributed to the effects of a current which pushed the vessel off course, although investigations were also held into a magnetic disturbance in the area of Cape Northumberland which may have affected the compasses on iron hulled ships. The inquest also resulted in the installation of the telegraph at the Cape Northumberland lighthouse.

One further story was that of the horses on board. Hurtle Fisher was transporting racehorses on the Admella and both he and his champion horse, The Barber, miraculously survived and went on to race in Melbourne, but never won again.

In an unusual turn of events, another ship called Corio sank in exactly the same location in the 1950s.
Today the Admella Dunes and nearby Admella Flats stand in memory of the fated steamer and the 89 aboard who perished.

On This Day April 10, 1912

The RMS Titanic departs on its maiden voyage.

 The RMS Titanic was the largest passenger steamship in the world at the time of its launching. It was a White Star Line ocean liner built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland and, along with its sister ships Olympic and the soon to be built Britannic, was intended to compete with rival company Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauretania. The interior of the luxury ship was completed in January 1912, and the finishing touches were completed by early February. the Titanic was considered the pinnacle of naval architecture and technological achievement, and reported by The Shipbuilder magazine to be "practically unsinkable.

The Titanic underwent sea trials near Belfast for a total of 30 minutes in the opening days of April, and the trials were deemed successful. The ship then departed on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, bound for New York City, New York, the day after the sea trials, Wednesday, 10 April 1912, with Captain Edward J Smith in command.

On 14 April 1912, the Titanic sank. Captain Smith, in response to iceberg warnings received via wireless over the previous days, had altered Titanic's course about 20 km south of the normal shipping route. At 1:45pm, a message from the steamer Amerika warned that large icebergs lay in Titanic's path, but this warning, and others, were never relayed to the bridge. The ship hit an iceberg shortly after 11:40pm on the 14th, buckling the hull in several places and popping out rivets below the waterline over a length of 90 metres. The watertight doors closed as water started filling the first five watertight compartments, one more than Titanic could stay afloat with. The huge volume of water weighed the ship down past the top of the watertight bulkheads, allowing water to flow into the other compartments. While some passengers were able to access the lifeboats quickly, third-class passengers, many of whom were immigrants hoping to find a better life in America, were unable to navigate their way to the lifeboats through the complex of corridors. All first- and second-class children save one survived the sinking, but more third-class women and children were lost than saved. In all, 1517 people were lost in the disaster, whilst 706 survived.

Titanic - 100 Years

This month marks the 100th anniversy of the sinking of the Titanic - one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and by far the most famous.

RMS Titanic was a class passenger liner. The second of a trio of superliners, she and her sisters, RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic, were designed to dominate the transatlantic travel business for the White Star Line.

Built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, Titanic was the largest passenger steamship in the world.  Titanic's designers used the most advanced technology available at the time and the ship was popularly believed to be "

During Titanic's maiden voyage unsinkable."she struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday April 14, 1912, and sank two hours and forty minutes later, after breaking into two pieces.