WA Shipwreck Museum

Another day trip in Western Australia, and this time down to the Port city of Fremantle, where we had come to see the Old Gaol, but later also added in this Shipwreck Museum so that we could reconnect with our adopted country of Netherlands and the various shipwrecks that the Dutch VOC left on the West Australian coastline.

Like many of the colonial buildings in Western Australia, the limestone building that houses the museum was built by convict labour.

The star attraction of the museum is the partial restoration of the Batavia, partly due to the quality of the surviving shop skeleton and the insights into 17th century Dutch shipbuilding, but also due to the fantasical tale of mutiny, massacre, and rescue of the crew and passengers. Over 2/3 rds of the complement were killed by the end of the story!

But first, a few photos of the reconstructed stern of the old ship.

Done small artefacts survived in relatively good condition, but as always, the shop cannons were the most resistant to the centuries of submersion in the ocean and battering against the reefs.

One especially interesting cannon was a pair of composite iron and copper cannons. The copper being integrated in layered sheets to reduce weight and cost. Technology at its best in the 17th century!

A well preserved skeleton of one of the massacre victims, bludgeoned with a sharp implement to the skull by one of the mutineers.

And something that puzzled the scientists for a while was the existence of lots of stones... Originally thought to be ballast, but when reconstructed it was the portico destined for the VOC base in Batavia!