Sunday Seminars: Heritage Festival 2025

Ship Trap with Annie Boyd, author and shipwreck enthusiast.

Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef has long been recognised as a natural wonder—both a unique coral ecosystem and a visiting place for true ocean giants. But behind its beauty lies a treacherous past, as it has become a graveyard for a dozen large ships, mostly sailing vessels of the nineteenth century.

In this illustrated lecture, Annie Boyd will explore the natural and human factors that have come together to create this one-of-a-kind ship trap. Hear about the identity of the mystery ship discovered in 2004, lying in Australian waters very close to the Portuguese vessel Correio d’Azia. 

For maritime history enthusiasts and the general public, this is a presentation not to missed.

Annie Boyd started her professional career as a computer programmer, and later as a researcher and writer. Her book Koombana Days, details the disappearance of SS Koombana in 1912, with a new book on the way. She currently serves as Expert Researcher for the Disney+ television series, Shipwreck Hunters Australia.

Lost Stories from the Abyss in our Backyard: Diving the Shipwrecks of the Rottnest Deepwater Graveyard with WreckSploration.

The deep waters behind Rottnest Island conceal stories of over 50 shipwrecks. The Graveyard is home to vessels of all kinds. Technical divers have been systematically diving these sites and producing detailed 3D models of each site with the aim of identifying each wreck and connecting the site with its history. 

Specialised camera rigs are used by the team to produce 3D models of The Graveyard wrecks at depths of up to 120m, far outside the reach of recreational and commercial divers. These models are amongst the deepest diver-produced photogrammetry models ever made. 

Hear the fascinating histories of these shipwrecks, and the incredible technical challenges the team have overcome to identify them.

WreckSploration are a local team of six technical divers preserving history by documenting deep shipwrecks in WA and around the world. Many dive beyond the reach of recreational SCUBA divers, specialising in photogrammetry at depths of up to 120m. The team have developed techniques and equipment to safely collect photogrammetry datasets in these environments.

Alex Aberle-Leeming is a seasoned technical diver and co-founder of WreckSploration. He developed an interest in technical diving after a transformative cave trip to Mount Gambier in 2013. Alex is passionate about the role that WreckSploration plays in connecting the untold stories of shipwrecks to the communities of whose histories they are a part.

Finding the oldest shipwrecks in the Swan River with Patrick Morrison, Assistant Curator, Department of Maritime Heritage, WA Museum.

There are more than a thousand shipwrecks in WA, but only 300 have been located by archaeologists. Learn about several recent discoveries made using open multibeam datasets, databases of historic vessels, and underwater photogrammetry techniques. This includes the oldest known wreck in the Swan River and several other wrecks spanning more than 100 years of Australia’s history. Hear about the exciting work planned in the coming year—with innovative techniques that will allow us to reveal the buried extent of the wrecks without disturbing them.

Join us on International Museums Day for a local story that has been concealed and preserved in the silted banks of the Swan River.

Patrick Morrison has discovered several wrecks, including the oldest shipwreck in the Swan River and the Dutch WWII submarine K XI, co-authored the first discovery of submerged Aboriginal artefacts underwater on the Australian continental shelf, and teaches Maritime and Historical Archaeology at UWA. He has recently recorded two significant shipwrecks with the WA Museum (Trial 1622 and Zeewijk 1727) using innovative 3D photogrammetric techniques. Patrick is currently completing PhD research on how people responded to changing climate and rising seas over the last 10,000 years in Murujuga, Northwest Australia.