Shipwreck hunter Ben Cropp finds 150-year-old mystery vessel at Sudsbury Reef off Cairns

Far North shipwreck hunter Ben Cropp has celebrated his 84th birthday by discovering a mystery vessel, believed to be about 150 years old, on the Great Barrier Reef.

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SHIPWRECK hunter Ben Cropp has celebrated his 84th birthday by discovering a mystery vessel, believed to be about 150 years old, on the Great Barrier Reef.

The Wonga Beach-based underwater explorer and his son, Adam, acted on clues from local mariners to locate the remains of an unidentified ship at Sudbury Reef, about 45km southeast of Cairns, last week.

Mr Cropp claims to have discovered more than 100 wrecks, including the HMS Pandora in 1977, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s 19th century escape ship, the Swiftsure, in 2015.

Cairns shipwreck hunter Ben Cropp

He said Cairns Marine founder Lyle Squire had provided him with a mud map of a keel belonging to an unknown ship that he found buried in the sand at the reef about 30 years ago.

“Last October, a friend of mine, Kerry Bailey, found an anchor on Sudbury Reef, fairly close to where the keel was found,” Mr Cropp said.

“So I knew there had to be a wreck there that had never been found nor recognised.”

After venturing into the water last Monday – the day after his birthday – Mr Cropp and his son found the anchor in deep water. But they knew this wasn’t the wreck site, due to an old practice sailors carried out to remove stricken vessels from coral reefs.

“The anchor was only taken out into deeper water to try and pull the ship off the reef,” Mr Cropp said. “This is pretty standard, but they failed to pull it off (at the time). So we search in from the anchor, about 50m in, and there was signs of ballast, the keel, steel frames – we knew we had found the wreck.”

Anchor from mystery sailing vessel found at Sudbury Reef, off Cairns. Photo: Adam Cropp

Mr Cropp, who operated the Port Douglas Shipwreck Museum until the early 2000s, said the vessel may be a 19th century iron-framed clipper that went missing after it set sail from Brisbane in 1873.

“All the other ships I know that sank in that area were much bigger, around the 1000-tonne mark,” he said.

“And I doubt this would have been 1000 tonnes.”

He said he would investigate shipping records to determine the ship’s true identity.

The find will be officially reported to the Department of Environment and Science.

There are nearly 800 recorded ship and plane wrecks resting at the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef marine park, with very few discovered, according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Originally published as Shipwreck hunter Ben Cropp finds 150-year-old mystery vessel at Sudsbury Reef off Cairns