The Clipper

The Clipper

“The Clipper” as it is colloquially known by the dive community, or “Graveyard (Site 06) Unidentified” in the WA Museum Shipwreck Database

Sitting on the sand at around 65m, coming up 2m from the seabed. The wreck was always thought to be 45-50m long, the survey showed this to actually be 62m.. This wreck is dived fairly regularly as an introductory deep technical dive, so it is surprising that it has not yet been formally identified.

It looks to be an iron hulled clipper, but little more is known about it than this, and despite consultation with the WA Museum the wreck is still unidentified

Dr Ross Anderson of the WA Museum states:
– Sesa (64.5m), Tamerlane (59.9) and Bankfields (59.6m) are the only hulks we currently have records of with the length in the approximate range of 62m.
– Site 06 appears to have a remnant of the beakhead at the bow, which Bankfields does not have in the scuttling image.
– No mizzen top visible on Bankfields’ mizzen mast being scuttled (See photo’s below), a mizzen top is evident on mizzen lower mast on Site 06. Therefore this indicates the site is not Bankfields
– We do not have any other sailing ship hulks recorded with a similar length, so having discounted all known ships of similar length Sesa, Tamerlane and Bankfields, Site 06, it could be an unidentified hulk that we do not have a record of.

Collection of data for photogrammetry on this dive was quite difficult due to strong current and low light.
Survey performed 22 April 2023

We are grateful for the help afforded to us by Patrick Morrison (https://padmorrison.com/) from the Maritime Archaeological Association of Western Australia (http://www.maawa.net/) for his assistance in generating this model.

3D Model

Animation