| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | Zanoni |
| Owner | Thomas Royden & Son |
| Builder | W. H. Potter & Co |
| Launched | 1865 |
| Maiden voyage | 14 February 1866 (1866-02-14)Liverpool toLima, Peru |
| Fate | Sank in bad weather, 1867 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Barque |
| Tonnage | 330 tonnes[1] / 338 tons[2] |
| Length | 139 feet (42 m)[2] |
| Propulsion | Sail |
| Crew | Captain plus 13 crew |
34°30′43.8″S138°03′48.4″E / 34.512167°S 138.063444°E /-34.512167; 138.063444Zanoni was a ship built inLiverpool,England in 1865 byW. H. Potter & Co as a 338-ton composite barque. It was owned byThomas Royden & Sons who intended to use it for theEast India trade.[2]
It sank inGulf St Vincent inSouth Australia in 1867. The wreck is now the best-preserved merchant ship wreck remaining in South Australia from the 19th century.[3]
Zanoni left Liverpool on 14 February 1866 forLima, Peru. There she unloaded the cargo from England and loaded 400 tons ofguano bound forPort Louis, Mauritius. At Port Louis, she loaded 4551 bags of sugar forPort Adelaide, South Australia.[2] and arrived on 13 January 1867. She unloaded the sugar, then loaded 15 tons of bark and some wheat, and proceeded up the coast on 2 February toPort Wakefield to load more wheat, intending to return to Port Adelaide then return to England.[2]
The ship encountered a violent squall on the way from Port Wakefield back to Port Adelaide carrying the bark and a total of 4025 bags of wheat and sank without trace. The 16 people on board (captain, 13 crew and twostevedores) were all rescued, but the hull was not located until 1983.[1]
Despite several searches and a £100 reward in the weeks following the sinking,Zanoni was not found in 1867. A new attempt to find it in the early 1980s gained information from a retired fisherman and the wreck was found and identified, about 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi) northeast of the position the survivors had reported, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) southeast ofArdrossan, in 18 metres (59 ft) of water.[2]
The site of the wreck ofZanoni is now protected by a 550 metres (1,800 ft) exclusion zone declared under the South AustralianHistoric Shipwrecks Act 1981 on 26 May 1983.[4] No boating of any kind is permitted inside this zone, in an attempt to protect what remains of the ship from damage from fishing nets and boat anchors.[3]
TheNo 5 dumb hopper barge (also known as the Zanoni Barge[5]) was scuttled in 1984 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) south ofZanoni to provide an alternativeartificial reef for fishing and diving.[2] An American documentary,The Zanoni Project, on the shipwreck was broadcast in 1986.[6] Adelaide-based bandJuly 14th provided its soundtrack.[7]