Mermaid wreck found in reef waters

A wreck found on the Great Barrier reef in far north Queensland is almost certainly that of the historic vessel HM Colonial Schooner Mermaid, wrecked on June 13, 1829.

Archaeologists from the Australian National Maritime Museum were scanning Flora Reef, 13km east of the Frankland Islands off Cairns, when they found an anchor and other metal fittings.

They believe the discovery marks the final resting place of HMCS Mermaid, a government vessel that ran aground and broke up on a voyage from Sydney to northern Australia.

The 21-metre wooden vessel, built in India, was well known in Australian waters in the late 1820s, having circumnavigated the continent on a voyage of exploration under the command of Lieutenant Philip Parker King RN.

Later, the Mermaid was directly involved with the establishment and supply of new colonies at Port Macquarie, Moreton Bay and Norfolk Island.

The HMCS Mermaid sailed from Sydney, NSW, with stores for Port Raffles in what is now the Northern Territory, on May 10, 1829, under the command of Samuel Nolbrow.

Although Nolbrow was under strict instructions to follow the safer, but longer, inshore passage to the Torres Strait he decided to hazard the more dangerous outer route.

On the morning of June 13, 1829, the Mermaid struck a coral reef and the crew were forced into lifeboats as the ship broke up and sank.

After spending 11 days in the boats they were rescued by the Admiral Gifford on June 24, 1829.

The search team hopes to find further evidence in the next few days to confirm the wreck's identity.

"This is an historically significant shipwreck, and there have been several attempts to locate where it happened - all of them unsuccessful so far," the leader of the museum team, maritime archaeologist and curator Kieran Hosty, said.

"There's great excitement among the team at the strong prospect we've found it."

The search team, which includes National Maritime Museum archaeologists and divers as well as scientists from James Cook University and the Museum of Tropical Queensland, set out from Cairns on New Year's Day specifically to search for the Mermaid wreck site.