Case file · Folklore / legend
Mahogany Ship, Warrnambool
From 1836 whalers and settlers reported the wreck of an old dark-timbered ship in the dunes west of Warrnambool. It vanished under the sand and has been hunted ever since as possible proof of Portuguese or Chinese voyages.
1836 CE · -38.40, 142.38 · status: legend
The sceptical view
Surveys have never relocated it, and the earliest accounts are reminiscences written decades later. Historians consider it more likely a wreck of a colonial-era vessel, if it existed at all.