Resting place of Koning Willem de Tweede uncovered
Researchers affiliated with the Australian National Maritime Museum, Silentworld Foundation, South Australia's Department for Environment and Water, and Flinders University are confident they have located the shipwreck site of Koning Willem de Tweede, an 800-ton Dutch merchant sailing ship lost in Guichen Bay near Robe, South Australia in June 1857.
Only days prior to its loss, more than 400 Chinese miners destined for the gold fields at Bendigo and Ballarat in Victoria were discharged from the vessel. Tragically, 16 of Koning Willem de Tweede's crew of 25 were drowned and later buried in the dunes of Long Beach, which forms Guichen Bay's eastern shoreline.
The Koning Willem de Tweede Shipwreck Project commenced in April 2022 and its primary purpose has been to search for, locate, and archaeologically survey the shipwreck's remains.
Using a combination of marine magnetometer and underwater metal detectors, the team located what is believed to be iron components of the ship's windlass (a large winch in the bow used to hoist a vessel's anchors) partially protruding from the seabed, as well as a partially exposed iron frame. A well-preserved timber plank was noted beneath the windlass, suggesting more of the shipwreck's hull structure is present, but currently buried.
All exposed elements of the shipwreck site were documented and plotted within the larger complex of anomalies detected by the magnetometer. These anomalies were buried at the time of the survey but indicate the presence of other large iron artefacts and hull components.
The team is confident the shipwreck is that of Koning Willem de Tweede based on its location, which corresponds to historic accounts of the vessel's loss, and is the only known historic shipwreck event to have occurred on that stretch of Long Beach. In addition, the complex of magnetic anomalies approximately matches that of the ship's historically documented length (140 feet, or 42.7 metres), and no other large, complex magnetic contacts were encountered within a kilometre radius of the location where the windlass was found. Fragments of 19th-century Chinese coarse earthenware ceramic were located on the beach immediately adjacent to the shipwreck site in March 2023, further supporting its identity as Koning Willem de Tweede.
Future monitoring visits to the shipwreck site are being planned and will assess its condition and document additional hull remains and artefacts that may be exposed by changes to the seabed.
The Koning Willem de Tweede Shipwreck Project has been assisted by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands, Australia and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.
