The 3-masted iron barquentine Speculant was built in 1895. It was wrecked at Cape Patten, Victoria under the command of Captain Jacobson on 10th February 1911.
(Source: "Shipwrecks Along the Southern Coast" by G.A. (Geoff) Nayler)
Details about the Speculant can be found in books such as "Wrecks and Relics" by Geoff Nayler, "Skindivers & Shipwrecks" by Doug Denmead and "Shipwrecks Along the Southern Coast" by G.A. (Geoff) Nayler.
(Source: "Skindivers & Shipwrecks" by Doug Denmead)
According to "Skindivers & Shipwrecks" by Doug Denmead, the Speculant was owned by a Warrnambool firm, and it was having a rough passage (during huge seas and gale force winds) from Portland to Melbourne. After rounding Cape Otway, it crashed onshore, with huge seas dumping it up onto the rocks at Cape Patten.
(Source: "Shipwrecks Along the Southern Coast" by G.A. (Geoff) Nayler)
Its bottom was smashed in but the crew managed to get ashore safely. Captain Jacobson was found guilty of careless navigation by a court of marine enquiry and he had his certificate suspended for 6 months.
Captain Jacobson was also fined and the money to be raised was to go towards the cost of the marine enquiry.
(Source: "Wrecks and Relics" by Geoff Nayler)
The Speculant is said to have measured 150 feet X 11 feet X 11.4 feet. Its tonnage is said to have been 393 "registered tons", although "Wrecks and Relics" by Geoff Nayler says that it was a 274-ton vessel.
The Underwater Explorers Club of Victoria recovered the larger anchor from the wreck around 1969 or 1970. The UEC (and the Shire of Otway) then winched the Speculant's heavy anchor up the cliff at Cape Patten. The anchor was later treated and then mounted on the foreshore at Apollo Bay.
(Source: "Shipwrecks Along the Southern Coast" by G.A. (Geoff) Nayler)
"Shipwrecks Along the Southern Coast" by G.A. (Geoff) Nayler says that the Speculant was in ballast at the time of the wrecking, and that "poor visibiity made a land sighting impossible until it was too late. Her crew all reached safety and after being fed and clothed by a nearby property owner, returned to the wreck to find that pounding breakers had taken their toll reducing the hull to a shapeless mass."
The wrecked bow section of the Speculant
(Taken months after the wrecking, courtesy of Miss L. Pengilley)
(Source: "Wrecks and Relics" by Geoff Nayler)
The remains of the wreck are said to be covered by many tons of rock and rubble as a reult of blasting operations by road workers on the Great Ocean Road. The wreck site is directly below the Cape Patten Lookout.
(Source: "Shipwrecks Along the Southern Coast" by G.A. (Geoff) Nayler)
Diving at the wreck site is difficult due to huge breakers that continually crash ontothe rocky beach, "making a safe shore entry virtually impossible".
(Source: "Skindivers & Shipwrecks" by Doug Denmead)
"Sail in the South - The Great Days of Sail aroud Australia and New Zealand" (Shipping photographs from the Edwardes Collection) by Ronald Parsons says that the Speculant was built in Inverkeithing, Scotland in 1895, and was a steel barquentine of 412 gross tons. "After serving under the Russian flag she was bought by Australians and was the largest ship ever registered at Warrnambool, Victoria.
A replica of the Speculant at the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village
(Source: "Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village Port of Warrnambool")
It then gives the year of the wrecking as 1910 and spells CapePatten as 'Cape Patton'. The book features this photo of the Speculant's crew "attired in shoregoing clothes": -
(Source: "Sail in the South" by Ronald Parsons - from the Edwardes Collection)
(I thank Geoff Nayler, Doug Denmead, Ronald Parsons and the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village for the details and photographs provided above.)
Comments