Albany Wreck Inspection, Terrestrial Inspections and Perth Conservation studies

Author/s M. Gainsford

Year of publication 2005

Report Number: 206

Introduction
The period February 7–11 2005 was selected for wreck inspections in Albany as part of the Department of Maritime Archaeology’s ongoing wreck inspection program. Sites to be investigated had not been inspected for some time. Advances in technology in this intervening period, required sites to be re-positioned. Further to this, an additional program of remote sensing was undertaken using a side scan sonar and magnetometor. Other survey objectives included the land sites related to whaling in the Albany region as well as an assessment of unprovenanced artefacts in the collection at the Albany museum by Corioli Souter and Alistair Patterson from the University of Western Australia (UWA).

Conservation studies were also incorporated into the fieldwork. Vicki Richards, Jon Carpenter and visiting conservator Dr. David Gregory from the National Museum of Denmark, conducted chemical measurements on the Perth wreck site with assistance from the Department of Maritime Archaeology.

Another aim of the fieldtrip was to identify possible student projects and locations for fieldwork for the upcoming Post Graduate Diploma/Masters programme scheduled for 2005 run by the Department in association with the University of Western Australia. It was decided that the chemical measurements of the Perth would proceed during mornings and the wreck inspections would occur in the afternoons. Operations would commence and finish at Princess Royal Harbour, but a changeover of personnel would occur at Frenchmans Bay at the end of the conservation studies.