Shipwreck stories...

From The Age

Going, going, gone ...

Vin Maskell reports there are almost 200 sunken ships in the waters of Port Phillip Bay.

When the party hire boat the Maheno sank near the mouth of the Yarra River two weeks before Christmas, it joined a long list of vessels that have come to grief in the not-so-benign waters of Port Phillip Bay, not far from the beaches that Melburnians flock to over summer.

Heritage Victoria estimates there are 130 shipwrecks in the bay, with a further 50 at the narrow Port Phillip Heads between Point Lonsdale and Point Nepean.

In the bay itself, these include the 19th-century warship HMVS Cerberus, an 1890s wooden pleasure yacht, cargo boats and passenger ferries.

Five people died when the steel steamer the Kakariki collided with another steamer, the Caradale, off Williamstown at 11pm on January 29, 1937.

The Kakariki sank within minutes and later salvage operations were hampered by the vessel being stuck in four metres of mud.

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