Zuytdorp
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | Zuytdorp | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | shipwreck | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | Kingdom of the Netherlands, Australia | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Nearest coast | Australia | Natural Earth (public domain) |
| Position | -27.1861, 113.9365 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
Zuytdorp, also Zuiddorp (meaning 'South Village', after Zuiddorpe, an extant village in the south of Zeeland in the Netherlands, near the Belgian border) was an 18th-century trading ship of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, commonly abbreviated VOC).
On 1 August 1711, Zuytdorp was dispatched from the Netherlands to the trading port of Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins. Many trading ships travelled the Brouwer Route, using the strong Roaring Forties winds to carry them across the Indian Ocean to within sight of the west coast of Australia (then called New Holland), whence they would turn north towards Batavia.
Zuytdorp did not arrive at its destination and was never heard from again. No search was undertaken, presumably because the VOC did not know whether or where the ship wrecked, or if it had been taken by pirates. Expensive efforts had been made previously to search for other missing ships, which had failed even when an approximate wreck location was known.
Diving & visiting
The first dive in May 1964, and the sighting of a massive silver deposit in 1967, resulted in successful salvage attempts by teams led by Tom Brady of Geraldton and Perth-based Alan Robinson. They utilised the services of Clive Daw, who had visited the site by land on other occasions.
In 1971, Harry Bingham and his chief diver, Geoff Kimpton, were successful in recovering silver and other materials, as was a team led by Jeremy Green in 1976 and on other occasions. On his successful dives, Green noted that looting had occurred just prior to his visit and a watch-keeper was installed in a caravan near the wreck. The Museum's salvage work ceased in 1981 due to the perceived dangers of working the site, near accidents while using the bush airstrip, and the burning of the caravan. Thereafter a watch-keeper was appointed to guard the site.
The site, one of the few restricted zones under the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 and Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018, still requires a permit to visit and is under regular…
Location
- Recorded position: -27.1861, 113.9365 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Nearest coast: Australia
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Zuytdorp (revision 1375380776), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “First dives and salvage attempts”, “Western Australian Museum's work”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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