Page 223 - Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia, 1629

Journal on the morning of the loss:
Therefore we decided to put overboard the mairunast, in order that it would not immedIately push into the ground. But when i( was cut down. we found that it caused much damage, for we could not get it from aboard, so that we could not get Ille boat aboard through the big surf......But God, Ille Lord. chastised us with many rods for in spite of all the devoiI we made to cant the ship to leeward or to land. it turned out exacuy the opposite becawe of the uncvcnrocks uPJn which the ship was set, which so caused it that thepeop1e could only come out of the ship very Slowly.
This clearly states that the ship canted towards the prevailing sea, the SW, in other words, to the port. The section of the surviving hull structure was the stern port side of the ship which confums this finding.
Thus the group of four iron anchors slightly aft of the middle part of the ship would have been anchors stored in the hold; possibly they would have been stored upright on the aft side of the main hatch against the mainmasl. Their presence on the east side, together with the building blocks, suggests that they were stored low down in the ship. When the vessel canted over on its port side, the heavy cargo in the hold would have been deposited on the east side of the site.
One intriguing observation is that the site lies in a hole in the reef which, there can be lillle doubt, was caused by the ship rather than being a natural phenomenon. When the excavation of the site was finished, the bottom of the site at the stern was about five metres below the top of the reef. Pelsaert records that after the ship struck the reef, it was almost impossible to walk on the deck because of the bumping of the ship on the reef. In view ofthe factthat the
Batavia was of about 600 tonnes displacement, there would have been a considerable force striking the reef. The reef in this area consists of coral fragments consolidated with coraline algae. Although it is hard on .the surface, once the crust has been broken, the reef matrix below is loosely- packed and can easily be excavated. It is thought that the ship created the depression in the reef during the period when it was breaking up. Abrasion marks can be seen on the port side of the transom of the reconstruction of the
Batavia, evidence of the considerable forces to which the ship was subjected after the wreck.
These findings suggest that most of the heavy objects have remained in situ on the site in a position correspond- ing to their location on board as the ship broke up. The explanation for two guns found to the west of the site and the anchor on top of the reef could be that this material was washed off the wreCk, still attached to structural timbers,
and driven by the force of the sea to these outlying positions. Pelsaert mentions in his Journal that the fore- part ofthe ship and the slarboardside ofthe poop had been washed onto the reef.
The curious means by which some of the lighter artefacts were dispersed from the site raises some interest- ing questions. The inside reef area, where a large number of bricks, stoneware jug fragments and ceramic shards were found, starts at about 450 m from the fore-part of the main wreck site and extends a further 200 m forming a rectangle 100 m wide. This area is about 2 - 3 m deep, compared with the 400 m area on the reef-top where, depending on the tide and the sea conditions, it can be dry or,atmost, 1m deep.Thepresenceofbricksandshardsat thestartoftheinsidereefareacouldbeexplainedasbeing materialwashedovertheshallowreefbythehighspeedof the water, but fmds of the same material 200 m further on in the deeper and calmer water could not be explained. In 1985, a series ofexperiments was carried out to investigate the movement of artefacts. A variety of marked material which included modern bricks, plates and replica beard- man jugs was placed on the wreck site and the movement over the reef was monitored. An additional group of material was placed at the start of the inside reef area to record the movement there. Within a week, during which period there was a severe storm, most of the material that had been placed on the main wreck site had been washed onto the top of the reef and it was monitored travelling across it. Since the beginning of the experiment, there has been virtually no movement of material on the inside reef
area. This suggests that while the transport of light mate- rial,bricksandceramicsinparticular,overthereefandinto thecalmwatersoftheinsidereefareaisquiteplausible,the mechanism for the transport and distribution of this mate- rial over many hundreds of metres beyond the end of the reef-top is more difficult to explain. Possibly, it was the result ofPelsacrt's salvage activities; the study of this still continues.
Another interesting fmding is that Beacon Island was a fortuitous choice by the survivors for their main encamp- ment The survivors noted that at different times five leggersof water, one legger ofFrench wine, four and a half leggers of Spanish wine and one legger of vinegar floated ashore from the site. On one occasion during our excava- tion of the site, a writing slate that had been lost on the site some months before, was found washed up on shore, confmning the view that Beacon Island was in a direct line for material that floated off the site.
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