Cempaka Maritime, Marine and Fisheries: Couple Find 19th Century Shipwreck

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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Couple Find 19th Century Shipwreck

Jakarta Globe, Feng Zengkun -Straits Times Indonesia, May 01, 2011

The Viscount Melbourne, a British cargo ship, was stranded on a coral reef
after being hit by a squall. The wreck was recently discovered by Australian
part-time marine archaeologists Hans and Roz Berekoven. (The Berekovens Photo)

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Singapore. A ship that sank more than 150 years ago in Borneo waters after visiting Singapore has been found by two Australians.

Part-time marine archaeologists Hans and Roz Berekoven - who are married to each other - said their find was unlikely to yield any treasures as the ship had been a British cargo vessel, but it could add to knowledge of trade then.

'No gold,' Mr Berekoven, 64, said in an interview in Singapore. 'Just cutlery and a few bottles of really well-aged wine.'

In 1842, the Viscount Melbourne sailed from India en route to China and docked in Singapore to pick up supplies and passengers. It left with more than 70 people on board.

Three days after it left Singapore, the vessel was hit by a squall. It was left stranded on a coral reef.

The ship had to be abandoned as the cotton bales it carried would expand when wet.

One survivor wrote in his diary that the bales would 'swell and inevitably blow up the ship'.

The crew and passengers, evacuated in boats, spent weeks at sea before reaching nearby Borneo. Their journey was fraught with dangers such as bad weather and encounters with pirates.

Britain even sent a second ship, the Royalist, to look for the survivors. The Viscount Melbourne was left on the reef since it carried nothing of value. It eventually sank.

Newspapers in the region reported on its loss at the time but interest faded and the wreck was abandoned to its fate.

Then in 1950, The Straits Times published a series of articles on the survivors' struggle to reach Borneo. The series, titled 'A perilous sea voyage', gave the Berekovens the key to finding the wreck.

The couple had seen vague references to the wreck and its survivors while researching another project (see sidebar).

An Internet search led to excerpts of The Straits Times articles, which in turn led them to the National Library in Singapore, where the full articles were kept.

'We spent five days in the archives working out the route the survivors took,' Mr Berekoven said. 'The diarist kept an incredibly detailed log.'

Tracing the route backwards, they were able to find the wreck within 25 minutes of dropping anchor. 'There was no cotton left of course,' Mrs Berekoven, 53, said. 'When we saw that the hull had burst outwards, we knew what had happened.'

That was in April last year. Since then, the Berekovens have revisited the wreck several more times, each time bringing up small artifacts such as spoons and bottles of preserved fruit.

The bad weather that had befallen the ship remains to this day, preventing more frequent visits, the couple said.

The depth of the wreck at 40m underwater and the limitations of their equipment mean they can spend only nine minutes at a time on the ship before they have to resurface.

'We're saving up for better equipment like scuba gear,' Mr Berekoven said.

Their salvage project is partially funded by Chinese Malaysian businessman Troy Yaw, whose father Yaw Teck Seng is one of Malaysia's 40 richest people.

The Berekovens said artifacts from the ship will go to a maritime museum about the region that the younger Mr Yaw intends to set up.

The couple's own goal is to make a documentary about the survivors.

Mrs Berekoven said: 'It'll make a great story. The ship was named after the Prime Minister of England then. It had a woman on board with a baby and a two-year-old boy, and what they went through in the open waters already reads like a movie script.'

The boy, George Mildmay Dare, also returned to Singapore and became a local celebrity in his time, Mr Berekoven added. Mr Dare was the first person to be buried in the old Bidadari cemetery.

The archaeologist said: 'The ship came here, it disappeared, and it was eventually 'found' again in the National Library here. Its story is part of local history.'

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 2553 5055.