The Wreck of the Zuytdorp
The Zuytdorp (“South Village”) was a Dutch East India Company merchant ship smashed against Shark Bay’s coastal cliffs in June 1712 whilst voyaging to Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia). Aboard the Zuytdorp were about 200 passengers and crew and a rich cargo, including 248,000 silver coins.
The precise circumstances of the wreck remain a mystery, because no survivors reached Batavia to tell the tale. Some did live for a time in Shark Bay, however, where they were helped by local Aboriginal people. This contact with Europeans was probably the first ever made by Australia’s indigenous people.
Although 33 m long and as tall as a three-storey building, the three-masted Zuytdorp was helpless as a gale flung her onto the rocks. Visit the cliffs that claimed the Zuytdorp here.
Protecting the wreck
The Zuytdorp wreck site is about 65 km north of Kalbarri. See where the ship lies here. Timbers, guns, anchors and a carpet of silver coins have been found strewn across the sea floor. In 1986 divers from the Western Australian Maritime Museum raised artefacts from the Zuytdorp.
But the waves, cliffs and currents that claimed the Zuytdorp are still dangerous today. Diving on the wreck is treacherous – and illegal. The wreck site and artefacts and the coast adjacent to the wreck are protected under Commonwealth and Western Australian law. A 500-m radius protection zone encircles the wreck, and permission is required from the West Australian Maritime Museum to enter the area.
Map of the likely route taken by the Zuytdorp 1712
The mystery of the castaways
It is believed that there were numerous survivors of the Zuytdorp wreck. No-one knows exactly how many people came ashore, or what happened to them, but evidence of large fires and the discovery of artefacts on the cliffs and surrounding areas indicates that at least some survived for a period afterwards.
Here are some other clues:
- In 1927 stockman Tom Pepper found silver coins, bottles and other artefacts at an old camp site at the top of the cliffs. In 1954 geologist/historian Dr Phillip Playford exploring the area was shown the coins. He confirmed that they were from the Zuytdorp.
- There are accounts of Aboriginal people living in Shark Bay in 1869 who had Dutch coins.
- In 1834, Aborigines in Perth told the story of the Shark Bay ‘Wayl men’ who knew of a wreck strewn with coins. About 50 km north of the wreck site is a fresh water soak called Wale Well, a major Aboriginal camp site. In 1990 researchers visiting Wale Well found a brass tobacco tin inscribed with the name ‘Lyden’ (the present Dutch city of Leiden) which closely matched one from the 1727 wreck of another Dutch ship, Zeewijk. (The Zeewijk was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, south of Shark Bay.) There can be little doubt that the brass tin came from the Zuytdorp, and was carried to the well by either a survivor or an Aborigine.
First contact?
It is now probable that the wreck of the Zuytdorp was the first known contact between Europeans and Australians. Fresh water is scarce along the coast, and without knowledge of soaks further inland the Dutch would have perished in the hot dry summer. But is it possible the two peoples lived together, and even had children?
Researchers are currently investigating the possibility of a genetic link between Zuytdorp survivors and local people. The relatively high frequency of an otherwise rare inherited condition, Ellis-van Creveld Syndrome, in Aboriginal people in Western Australia is thought to be connected to the Dutch castaways, since the condition was rife in Holland at the time of the shipwreck.
- There are also published accounts from early European settlers, an explorer and an ethnographer of some local Aboriginal people having relatively light-coloured skin and ‘European’ features.
The story of the Zuytdorp, its survivors and the people who helped them will continue to intrigue for years to come.
Discover more about Shark Bay’s shipwrecks at the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery Centre in Denham.
The survivor’s camps
From objects found on the land opposite the wreck, there is little doubt that at least some of the estimated 280 people on board reached the shore and set up one or two camps. Unfortunately, archaeologists of the WA Maritime Museum recently found evidence that the sites, which were discovered in 1927, and were first reported in 1939 by stockman Tom Pepper, were much disturbed by 20th century visitors.
Despite earlier visits, the Museum team led by Mike McCarthy, made significant finds during excavation in April/May 1987 – including a small French copper coin or token, a uniform button, smoking pipe and glass fragments, and ship’s fastenings – suggesting that survivors carried equipment and belongings to the reef platform and cliff top opposite the wreck.
In 1954 Dr Playford, then geologist with Western Australian Petroleum, identified the site from records in Holland and through other research. He kept a record of his activities and published his findings in 1959. Books and articles now in preparation will include Playford’s early work as well as his current research as part of the Museum team.
The Zuytdorp, a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was lost in the winter of 1712 on a voyage from Holland to Batavia (now Jakarta). Of five East India Company ships known to have been wrecked off the coast of Western Australia – Trial (1622); Batavia (1629); Vergulde Draek (1656); Zuytdorp (1712) and Zeewijk (1727) – the Zuytdorp is the only wreck from which survivors did not reach the European settlement at Batavia to tell the tale. The remains on the seabed and nearby shore are of vital significance as they hold the only known clues to the wreck and the fate of the ship’s passengers and crew.
Mysteries of the Zuytdorp Wreck – the Search continues
Investigations at the Wreck site
Once the land sites had been identified by Phillip Playford, there was great interest in the possibility that the wreck might be nearby, but his team was unfortunately prevented from diving on the seabed by the heavy and dangerous swell. It was not until 1964 that the first successful dives confirmed his convictions that the wreck lay against the reef platform immediately opposite the remains found on land. He believed the ship had either crashed into the base of the cliffs, without warning, or that it had been blown ashore despite anchors being dropped.
If the ship had, without warning, struck the honeycombed reefs in turbulent water at the foot of the cliffs, there would have been no time to launch boats. The ship would have been flung on to its side, and few survivors would have got away. Anyone who succeeded would probably have been crushed against the reef platform or sucked into the blowholes underneath. The only hope for those on board would have been to scale the rigging (if the masts still stood) and drop onto dry land, or jump from the poop deck on to the reef platform.
If, on the other hand, there had been time to set the anchors, there would have been a chance for survivors to leave the ship, perhaps with part of the cargo of silver normally carried by East India Company vessels. If that was the case, their remains would now lie somewhere between the wreck and their intended destination, Batavia. The answer to that puzzle lay in the number of anchors on the wreck and the number that might be found further out to sea. As East India Company ships carried at least five anchors, unless they were found on the wreck, it seemed likely the vessel had set some anchors to seaward.
On the first dive, in 1964, Tom Brady and the Cramer brothers of Geraldton saw 2 anchors, iron guns (cannon), lead ingots, ballast stones and a small, badly eroded brass cannon. Although unable to see the whole site, they began the difficult and dangerous work of drawing a plan of the wreck.
The divers made their research available to the Museum, and the site was declared a protected wreck. It was not until 1967 that Brady, Gordon, Hancock, Eric
The news spread fast and the Geraldton team was soon followed by other groups, such as the Underwater Explorer’s Club, the controversial salvage diver Alan Robinson, and the Royal Australian Navy. More details were added to the site plan, more cannons and numerous schemes put to the Museum (which at the time had no divers on its staff). During these expeditions, only two anchors were seen and recorded.
The discovery of the Batavia and the Verglude Draek in 1963, and the Trial in 1969, led the Museum to establish a team of its own divers, including Geoff Kimpton, Colin Powell and Harry Bingham, who dived on the site with the assistance of local crayfishermen John Alchin and the late Ernie Crocas.
As the Dutch wrecks were proving richer than expected, a maritime archaeologist Jeremy Green was appointed to the Museum staff in 1971. With the assistance of the owner of nearby Murchison House station, Mr Jah. Green led a number of successful shore-based dives on the site. Although a large amount of coin and other artefacts were recovered and more details added to the site plan, once again the divers reported seeing only two anchors, their positions varying from one report to another.
Work on the wreck was made very difficult and dangerous, even on the occasional good days, by rapid changed in conditions, changes that could take place during the course of a dive. Teams were often called out by the resident watchkeeper on a good day, only to find the site too dangerous by the time they arrived five to six hours later. As a result of these and other pressures, the Museum called a halt to work in 1981. Work resumed in 1985 and a feasibility study was carried out the following year.
In mid 1987, for example, one dive showed the wreck to be completely covered in sand, only to reveal ten days later, cannon, ingots and coins from which the sand had been washed away in the intervening period.
During reasonably good conditions in May and June 1988, the team at last located eight anchors grouped around what was once the bow of the vessel. Four appeared to have been housed in the traditional fashion, two each side of the bow. A further two lie in shallow water just aft of the bow anchors on top of a large rock, against which the wreck lies, another two 12 metres forward and lightly inshore of the bow anchors.
The entire wreck lies within a few metres of the reef top and the foot of the cliff, and artefacts have been recovered from as close as two metres from the reef. Neither anchors nor cannon were found seaward of the site.
These new discoveries suggest that the ship struck the reefs without its anchors set, but came to rest close enough to the reef platform to allow some of those on board to bridge the tantalisingly small gap and reach apparent safety. Neither those on the wreck nor those who got ashore survived to tell the tale.
Work is still underway and it will be some time before an answer to the question ‘What happened to the Zuytdorp and its crew? will be found.
Why did the earlier groups record the discovery of only two anchors on the wreck? The reason is now obvious. Difficult conditions and seasonal sand build-up hid some of the anchors from time to time. Although those early divers recorded only two anchors on three separate plans, they had actually seen six altogether, wrongly assuming that the slight differences in position were due to the poor conditions under which they worked. Just one of many surprises we are certain the Zuytdorp still holds in store.
Sourced and copied from the Zuytdorp Restaurant, Kalbarri – historical newspaper archive collection.
Also Sourced from: Sharkbay World Heritage Website