VISITORS can sink into shipwreck history as Port MacDonnell’s maritime museum showcases the Submerged – Stories of Australia’s Shipwrecks exhibition.
The free exhibition focuses on wrecks of passenger ships, merchant vessels, steamers, schooners, whalers and a submarine.
Among the historic wrecks featured on the display panels making up the exhibition is the SS Admella, which struck a concealed reef in 1859 off Cape Banks, where 89 of 113 passengers and crew lost their lives.
The oldest wreck featured is Western Australia’s Batavia.
Its 1629 loss on Beacon Island is still subsequently one of the most dramatic events in Dutch and Australian history.
The exhibit reveals one shipwreck from outside Australia, Australia’s second submarine HMAS AE2, which was lost in 1915 during the World War I in the Sea of Marmara, Turkey.
Other displayed wrecks include Sanyo Maru, a Japanese motor vessel lost in 1937 in Boucaut Bay, Northern Territory, British merchant ship Sydney Cove lost in 1797 off Preservation Island, Tasmania and the paddle steamer Wagga Wagga, which sank at Narrandera, New South Wales, in 1913.
Submerged Stories of Australia’s Shipwrecks is on display at the Port MacDonnell Maritime Museum on Charles Street until November 20.
