Western Australia Historic Shipwrecks

Western Australia has 830 known wrecks, of which 103 have been located and are protected under State or Federal legislation and currently come under Museum legislation or administration. The earliest site is the English East India Company ship Trial lost off the Montebello Islands in1622. Four Dutch East India Company shipwrecks include the Batavia lost in the Houtman Abrolhos in 1629, the Vergulde Draak, lost north of Perth in 1656; the Zuiddorp lost north of Kalbarri in 1712 and the Zeewijk lost in the Houtman Abrolhos in 1727. Four nineteenth century ships were lost before European settlement in Western Australia that occurred in 1829: the British whaler Lively (c. 1809); the American China trader Rapid (1811); the Portuguese advice boat Correio da Azia (1816); and the British sealer Belinda (1824). Wrecks continue to be reported and discovered and in the last year three new sites were recorded.