Mahogany Ship

In popular Australian culture the term The Mahogany Ship refers to a putative, early shipwreck that is purported by some to lie beneath the sand in the Armstrong Bay area, approximately 3 to 6 kilometres west of Warrnambool in southwest Victoria, Australia. In many modern accounts it is described as a Spanish or Portuguese caravel after the wreck was associated with the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia by Kenneth McIntyre in his 1977 book, The Secret Discovery of Australia. The most recent research has questioned this theory and provided other explanations.

Three Mahogany Ship Symposia have been conducted in nearby Warrnambool: in 1981, 1987 and 2005, attracting significant public and academic interest and the contributions of Manning Clark, Barry Jones, Kenneth McIntyre, Lawrence Fitzgerald, Ian McKiggan, Bill Richardson, Edmund Gill, Jack Loney and many others.

While there is no conclusive evidence such a wreck exists today, nineteenth-century accounts of the relic persist both in popular folklore and in publications of varying academic rigour. In the 1980s and 1990s, writers Jack Loney and Ian McKiggan documented the accounts of a number of purported nineteenth century eyewitnesses to the wreck. While these were of varying degrees of detail, they indicate a strong local tradition about the wreck in the area. Commenting on the surge of interest in the wreck that appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, Loney observed that research on the wreck was often based around "loosely written words, sometimes presented from hearsay, sometimes from people who could barely read or write, and in most cases from some recalling memories forty or fifty years old." McKiggan took a more liberal view, sharing the opinion of well-known local historian Jack Powling, who wrote; "When people knew it, and could see it, they called it 'The Old Wreck;' it was only after it disappeared... that it was given the romantic and slightly misleading name of 'The Mahogany Ship.' Much has been written about it, and much of what has been written has been frankly a good deal of nonsense... Legend by now it may be, but the Old Wreck is no myth..." In 2005, Dr. Murray Johns also documented the nineteenth century eyewitnesses to the wreck, but found they fell into three distinct groups – those who placed the wreck in the sea, a second group who said it was on the beach, a third group who identified it as high up in the sand dunes. This has led Dr. Johns to conclude the accounts were describing three separate wrecks.

...
Wikipedia