Tryall

The "Tryall" (also spelt "Tryal" and "Trial" ) was a British East India Company owned East Indiaman captained by John Brooke which was wrecked off the north-west coast of Western Australia in 1622. Its crew were the first Englishmen to sight Australia and the wreck is Australia's oldest shipwreck except for perhaps the Mahogany Ship.

The ship of approximately 500 tons departed Plymouth on her maiden voyage for Batavia on 4 September 1621, carrying a precious cargo including silver for trade in the East Indies as well as a gift for the Sultan of Siam. She stopped at Cape Town for supplies. The East India Company had only recently issued orders requiring that its ships sail south of 32°S when en-route to the East Indies, as this course made use of the so-called "roaring forties" and could save up to six months travel time off the more traditional northern route. Neither Brooke nor any of his crew had sailed via the new southern route previously (or to Batavia in fact) and they asked for assistance in Cape Town in the form of any sailors willing to join their crew. Thomas Bright was subsequently recruited off the "Charles" (1000 tons) as first mate. They departed on 19 March 1622 and sighted the Australian coast on 1 May 1622, apparently mistaking Point Cloates [Cordinates of Point Cloates: coord|22|43|00|S|113|40|00|E|type:cape_region:AU -22.718, 113.672),
http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/gazd01?rec=264930] ] off North West Cape on the mainland for an island which had been encountered by captain Lenaert Jacobszoon and supercargo Willem Janszoon (captain of the "Duyfken" in 1603) in the Dutch East India Company ship "Mauritius" in 1618 and which is now known as Barrow Island. This navigation error was brought about by having sailed too far east, despite explicit instructions given by the ship's owners.

Wreck

Turning north, they then encountered several weeks of fresh north to north-westerly winds which impeded progress. Finally, the winds turned to favourable south-westerlies and they started to make good progress to their destination of Batavia. On 25 May 1622 at between 10 and 11pm she struck uncharted submerged rocks about 32 km (20 miles) north-west of the outer edge of the Montebello Islands group, the southern boundary of which is about 8 km (5 miles) north of the northern tip of Barrow Island.

The reef is named Tryal Rocks after the ship and is located at coord|20|16|51|S|115|23|34|E|type:isle_region:AU (-20.2809, 115.3929). [http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/gazd01?rec=282861]

Captain Brooke, his son John and nine men scrambled into a skiff and Thomas Bright and 35 others managed to save a longboat. The two boats sailed for Batavia separately with the skiff arriving there on 5 July 1622 and the longboat 3 days later — a voyage of over 1,800 km (1,120 miles). Of the 143 men who had left England, 93 people perished at the wreck site [cite web | url = http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/heritage/nsd/nsd_form.pl?search_id=3987 | type = database | title = "Trial" - wreck id: 3987 | work = National Shipwrecks database - wreck details | accessdate = 2007-07-02] and one person died in the skiff.

Investigation

On his arrival in Batavia, Brooke wrote to his masters in London blaming Captain Fitzherbert who had been the first British captain to pioneer the southern route across the Indian Ocean after Dutch captain Hendrik Brouwer. Brooke declared that he had followed the route specified by Fitzherbert and had struck rocks where Fitzherbert had said there were none. He said Fitzherbert's incorrect mapping had been the cause for the disaster and denied any responsibility. He claimed that the reef site was well west of the actual site in an attempt to hide his easterly course and furthermore, that all of the cargo including the silver and the ship's papers had gone down with the ship when it broke up and sank at about 2am.

Thomas Bright secretly and separately wrote to London in which he directly blamed Brooke for the loss of the ship and his men because of his poor navigation and for not posting a lookout. He said that after striking the reef, Brooke had hurriedly abandoned the ship into the skiff which had room for additional men. According to Bright, Brooke had departed the site immediately leaving many men in the water to drown. Brooke's longboat was full to capacity and stood about a quarter mile off the wreck due to the danger of capsizing if any of the men in the water attempted to climb on board. He further contradicted Brooke in stating that the ship had not sunk until mid-morning the following day.

Subsequent analysis of these reports and other documents as well as searches of the wreck site have raised suspicions that Brooke had secretly removed at least part of the silver from the ship into the skiff before it had sunk and had managed to get it to Batavia without telling anyone.

Brooke's later career

After he returned to London, Captain Brooke was given the command of another British East India Company ship, the "Moone". The ship was wrecked off the coast of Dover, apparently deliberately. A two-year court case during which Brooke was imprisoned ended with the case being dropped. [cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/shipwrecks/wa/trial.htm|title=Shipwrecks|work=Australian Broadcasting Corporation|accessdate=2006-08-20]

Discovery

The wreck was not located until 1969, after researchers John MacPherson and Eric Christiansen determined the location after the discovery of Thomas Bright's letter and despite the confusion of records left by Captain Brooke. [cite web|url=http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/hansard/hans35.nsf/(ATT)/61C2EC098DB9028A482565F400160694/$file/A0611007.PDF#search=%221622%20Tryall%22|title=Maritime Archeology Amendment Bill, Second reading|work=Hansard, Parliament of Western Australia|author=Pendall, Phillip] An exploration team went to the remote area predicted by Christiansen as being the likely wreck site and diver Naoom Haimson found the wreck virtually immediately.

Shortly after the discovery, another man, Ellis Alfred (Alan) Robinson was involved in a scandal in which the wreck was virtually destroyed through the use of explosives on the reef in an attempt to salvage treasure from the wreck. Robinson's illegal salvage attempt failed to recover anything of value. He was also involved in an earlier and similar operation involving the "Vergulde Draeck" wreck near Kalbarri and other salvage operations. Robinson was charged for crimes against the Maritime Archeology Act and ultimately hanged himself while in prison. While in prison, Robinson became known in the local press as the "the gelignite buccaneer" and his actions led to increased penalties for illegal maritime salvage work.

Divers from the Western Australian Maritime Museum did a detailed examination of the wreck site in 1971, discovering six cannon, several anchors and other minor artefacts. Twenty recovered items are housed in the museum's display in Fremantle. To date there is only circumstantial evidence that the wreck is actually the "Tryall", although the consensus amongst maritime investigators is that it almost certainly is.

ee also

*Shipwrecks of Western Australia

Notes

References

*Green, Jeremy "Australia's oldest wreck, The loss of the Trial, 1622", British Archaeological Reports, Supplementary Series 27, 1977
*cite book|title=Phantoms of the Tryall|author=Henderson, James A.|year=1993|publisher=St. George Books|location=Perth|id=ISBN 0-86778-053-3
*cite book|title=Australian & New Zealand Shipwrecks & Sea Tragedies|id=ISBN 0-908001-10-X|author=Edwards, Hugh|publisher=Phillip Mathews, Publishers|location=Milson's Point, Australia|year=1978
*http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/southland/All_Voyages.pdf
* Ida Lee, "The First Sighting of Australia by the English," in The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (April, 1934); reprinted in the Royal Australian Historical Society Journal, Vol. XX., Part V., pp. 274-6.