The mystery of the missing VOC shipwreck in the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, Western Australia

Author/s Jeremy Green

Year of publication 2018

Report Number: No. 20

The Zeewijk, a VOC retourschip (returning vessel) sailed for the Indies in 1726; it was wrecked in the Pelsaert Group of the southern Houtman Abrolhos islands in the following year. The survivors managed to reach a nearby island, where they lived for nine months. Using material salvaged from the wreck, they built a rescue vessel and eventually reached their intended destination of Batavia. A number of extant documents, recording the events that occurred, refer to evidence, seen by the survivors, of a second wreck in the area. In the 19th century, after European settlement in Western Australia, early surveyors also reported finding evidence of both the Zeewijk and a second wreck. These written reports led to speculation, after the discovery of the main Zeewijk site in 1968, about the possible location of a second wreck site. In the 1970s the Western Australian (WA) Museum conducted three major survey and excavation projects on the Zeewijk but found no evidence relating to a second site. Subsequently, in 2008, a privately sponsored aerial magnetometer survey was undertaken of the northern section of the southernmost group of the Houtman Abrolhos, with ambiguous results; but no evidence of a second site. Finally, in 2014, the Museum, with private sponsorship, commissioned an extensive aerial magnetometer of the whole of the group. A number of interesting magnetometer targets were identified and subsequently investigated; however, once again there was no evidence of a second wreck. This paper discusses, in detail, the historical evidence, and the archaeological findings. It draws some tentative conclusions; in particular, given that there is a large number of independent written records of a second wreck, the archaeological findings do not support this theory, raising the significant question of the veracity of archival information.