The Mahogany Ship is a putative early Australian shipwreck that is believed by some to lie beneath the sand in the Armstrong Bay area, approximately 3 to 6 kilometres (1.9 to 3.7 mi) west of Warrnambool in southwest Victoria, Australia.
[5][6][7][8] Three Mahogany Ship Symposia have been conducted in nearby Warrnambool: in 1981, 1987 and 2005, attracting significant public and academic interest and the contributions of Manning Clark, Barry Jones, Kenneth McIntyre, Lawrence Fitzgerald, Ian McKiggan, Bill Richardson, Edmund Gill, Jack Loney and many others.
[9] While there is no conclusive evidence such a wreck exists today, nineteenth-century accounts of the relic persist both in popular folklore and in publications of varying academic rigour.
"[10] McKiggan took a more liberal view, sharing the opinion of well-known local historian Jack Powling, who wrote "When people knew it, and could see it, they called it 'The Old Wreck;' it was only after it disappeared... that it was given the romantic and slightly misleading name of 'The Mahogany Ship.'
Tyers wrote that the wreckage (including a keg containing a boat compass by maker Devot of Havre) indicated an unknown French whaler had been lost in the area.
In trying to land there, their boat capsized in the surf... [They] succeeded in reaching the shore naked, and they travelled back along the coast to Port Fairy... On this journey they found the wreck of a vessel, supposed to be a Spanish one, which has since been covered by the drifting sand.
[6][22] Joseph Archibald, curator of the Warrnambool Museum, made strenuous efforts to document accounts and stimulate local interest in the wreck in the early 1890s.
In 1891, Archibald delivered a paper entitled "Ancient Wreck at Warrnambool", to the Royal Geographical Society, and this appears to mark the end of his active involvement.
However, its shape and state indicated it was probably part of a shipment of white oak being carried on the sailing vessel Falls of Halladale, which was wrecked at Peterborough in the early twentieth century.
According to McIntyre[26] the Mahogany Ship was part of a secret expedition, under Cristóvão de Mendonça, that set out from the Spice Islands in 1522 to look for the Isles of Gold.
McIntyre suggested that all of the original documents have since been lost or destroyed, except for references to Jave la Grande, which appear on the French Dieppe school of maps.
Lawrence Fitzgerald also supported McIntyre's theory connecting the Mahogany ship to a Portuguese voyage in his 1984 book, Java La Grande.
"[28] Bob Nixon (2001) and Murray Johns (2005) have both criticised McIntyre's account for adding confusion to the story of the Mahogany ship through his identification of the wreck as a caravel and his selection and transcription of evidence.
It also accounts for the finds of wood from northern New South Wales (where the Unity had been built), and the nineteenth century descriptions of the Mahogany Ship as crude construction.
In some editions a footnote at the bottom of the page reads: "Such a ship may be seen in the eastern end of Portland Bay, near the modern town of Port Fairy.
Murray Johns believes the footnote is a reference to the well documented wreck of the cedar built Schooner Sally Ann in Portland Bay.
The novel explores the mythological shipwreck through the perspectives of 16th Century Portuguese sailors under Captain Mendonca, the indigenous Peek Whuurong people, invaders and colonists, and modern Australians.
In July 1999, shipwreck searcher Des Williams discovered wood fragments buried under the sand dunes in the area the ship was supposed to have been seen.
[42] The area of greatest interest to contemporary researchers is Armstrong Bay east of Gorman's Road (formerly Lane) and west of Levy's Point near Dennington.