The Mahogany Ship Legend Revisited
    - was it really a Portuguese Caravel.?

An artists sketch of a typical Portuguese Caravel

Some ten years later, (in 1846) Captain John Mason from Port Fairy had taken his horse for a ride along the beach and came across the wreck and made, what is now the first credible report on the wreck, which he described as being a vessel of about 100 tons, with deck and spars missing and constructed of what he thought to be either mahogany or cedar, however it wasn’t until 1869 that he mentioned it in conversation with the local superintendent of the Post Office and at that point he suggested that it may have been the wreck of a Spanish or Portuguese vessel. The next mention came in 1891 when Joseph Archibald, the curator of the Warrnambool museum urged local officials to search out and uncover the wreck and to measure the hull so that the vessel’s identity could be found. The fact that he suggested that the hull should be uncovered tends to indicate that the ships remains had now disappeared beneath the sand.

The recent launched, full -size replica of a Portuguese caravel is the work of local Woodford resident, Graeme Wylie. The vessel is now anchored in the Moyne river at Port Fairy

Another 40 years went by before any more public interest was shown and in 1933 the Melbourne Herald carried an article claiming “Wide interest is being shown in the supposed wreck of an old Spanish ship in the sandhills west of Warrnambool,” as reported in The Herald a few days ago. Mr J. Mc Kerr, city solicitor, and former member of the staff of the Public Library, has written, urging the Warrnambool Progress Association to locate and exhume the vessel for use in the Centenary celebrations.”
The article pointed out that there are numerous points that require investigation, and their solution was seen in the exhumation of the wreck itself and the members of the Historical Society of Victoria would have been well acquainted with the legend of the Mahogany ship.

The photo above of the Portuguese Padrao on Cannon Hill in Warrnambool

By the mid 1990’s there hadn’t been any new evidence uncovered and many people had accepted McIntyre’s view that the Mahogany ship was probably a Portuguese Caravel, one of three ships on a voyage of discovery led by Portuguese navigator Mendonca. The local tourist authority were also active in promoting the legend of the Mahogany ship and were keen to promote some sort of tourist activity associated with the legend, and they decided to erect a Padrao on Cannon Hill overlooking Lady Bay. The decision to erect a Padrao was also considered a bit controversial as a Padrao is generally considered to be a marker to indicate the farthest point of discovery in distant lands by Portuguese navigators, and not a memorial to their past endeavours. The inscription on the padrao at Warrnambool avoids a direct claim that the Portuguese discovered Australia in the 16th century, but its presence there has implications that could be easily misinterpreted.

Another photo of Graeme Wylie's replica Caravel tied up on the Moyne river

By the turn of the century (2000) everyone thought all the theories about the Mahogany ship legend had been laid to rest, however in 2002, ex british naval commander, Gavan Menzies published a book entitled “1421 The Year China Discovered the World", in which he proposed the Mahogany ship was actually a part of a huge Chinese fleet which had charted and explored Australia (and the Pacific region) in 1421, and then in 2005 Dr Murray Johns published a paper in which he concludes that there may have been anything up to three separate vessels in the sand dunes around Tower Hill, and that they weren’t Spanish or Portuguese in origin but Australian built vessels and most likely were used by convicts escaping from Tasmania.
As far fetched as it sounds, Dr Johns research brings together a large amount of contemporary scientific and research material that was not previously available and makes very compelling reading. His paper is available on the Internet via this link.
It is still conjecture, and until we have positive evidence the legend of the Mahogany ship will live on.