Australia: Mystery ship found 120 years after disappearing

Finally, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a ship off the coast of Australia some 120 years ago has been resolved.

According to a report in ‘The New York Post’, in 1904, while delivering coal to Melbourne, the steamer SS Nemesis was caught in a strong storm off the coast of New South Wales, disappearing with 32 crew men on board. The whereabouts of the 240-foot ship remained a mystery even after bodies of crew members and pieces of the wreckage washed up in the following weeks.

The missing shipwreck was discovered by chance by Subsea Professional Marine Services, a remote sensing company looking for lost cargo off the coast of Sydney. Nearly 525 feet underwater, the wreck was found completely untouched.

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Officials suspected the wreck might be the SS Nemesis, but it wasn’t confirmed until last year when CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, was able to capture underwater imagery that showed the distinctive features of the ship.

“Our visual inspection of the wreck using the drop camera showed some key structures were still intact and identifiable, including two of the ship’s anchors lying on the seafloor,” Phil Vandenbossche, a CSIRO hydrographic surveyor on board the voyage, said in a statement.

The missing shipwreck was discovered by chance by Subsea Professional Marine Services, a remote sensing company looking for lost cargo off the coast of Sydney. Nearly 525 feet underwater, the wreck was found completely untouched.

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Officials suspected the wreck might be the SS Nemesis, but it wasn’t confirmed until last year when CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, was able to capture underwater imagery that showed the distinctive features of the ship. This is now, almost 120 years after the ship went missing.

Government officials are now looking for family members of the crew who went down with the ship.

“Around 40 children lost their parents in this wreck and I hope this discovery brings closure to families and friends connected to the ship who have never known its fate,” said NSW Minister for Environment and Heritage Penny Sharpe.

The video imagery collected by CSIRO will now be “stitched together” to create a 3D model of the wreck for further investigation, officials said. “The loss of Nemesis has been described as one of Sydney’s most enduring maritime mysteries and has even been described by shipwreck researchers as the ‘holy grail,’” Penny Sharpe said.

“Thanks to collaborative work with CSIRO and Subsea, using modern technology and historical records, Heritage NSW has been able to write the final chapter of SS Nemesis’ story,” the minister added.

(With agency inputs)