Two Hobsons Bay residents are using technology to find out if an unidentified shipwreck under the West Gate Bridge could be a rare example of a surviving Victorian colonial navy ship.
Williamstown historian Lloyd Clearihan and Newport maritime archaeologist Jane Mitchell are setting out to prove the shipwreck is the HMVS Nepean, a second-class torpedo boat purchased by the Victorian government in 1882.
They are recreating 3D models, much the same way as a computer-generated face can be recreated from a skull.
Mr Clearihan said the pair were the first in Victoria to pioneer 3D ship modelling, generated from more than 1300 photographs taken of the partly submerged hull lying in the Stony Creek backwash at Yarraville.
“One exciting theory is that it’s a ship from the Victorian colonial navy. If this turns out to be true, it would be big news,” he said.
“It would be the [second] surviving accessible Victorian navy ship, along with the HMVS Cerberus.
‘‘There were two Victorian navy torpedo boats – the HMVS Lonsdale and the HMVS Nepean – and they worked alongside the Cerberus.
“We know that the HMVS Lonsdale was taken down to Point Lonsdale.
“But the Nepean, which was the sister ship and looked identical to the Lonsdale …nobody ever knew what happened to it.
“So the theory is it was being towed down the Yarra to be dumped … and it started to take on water and started to sink.
“We think that as it started to take on water, they towed it out of the Yarra because it would have blocked the channel and just dumped it here and that’s where it’s remained ever since.”
Ms Mitchell said there were 10 torpedo boats in Australia’s frontline defences in the late 19th century, when there was a perceived threat of invasion by the Russians and French.
“HMVS Nepean would be historically significant as a rare and representative example of a Victorian second-class torpedo boat,” she said.
“The Nepean demonstrates technical significance as an early example of the development of the fast-attack torpedo craft, culminating in the PT [patrol torpedo] boats used so effectively in World War II.”
Ms Mitchell said Victoria’s colonial navy was the largest and possibly best equipped in Australia before federation.
“But once these boats were considered obsolete they were often abandoned orscuttled.
“There’s very little remaining of the Victorian colonial navy.
‘‘HMVS Cerberus lies rusting at Blackrock, HMVS Countess of Hopetoun is under water off Swan Island, and HMVS Lonsdale lies under the sand in the grounds of the Queenscliff maritime museum.’’
Ms Mitchell said there was a chance she and her colleague could be proven wrong.
“Shipwrecks can be reminders of our past and tell the stories of how we got here … this particular wreck may not be the Nepean.
‘‘It maybe a ballast lighter, a late 19th century pleasure vessel, but it has borne witness – literally – to the development of the area.
‘‘Hopefully part of this study will be to bring these stories back to life.”
