PAST MASTERS
PastMasters
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Contacts
    • Index & Links
    • No Relics, No Pilgrims
    • Latest News
  • Projects & Activities
    • First Contact
    • HMS Beagle >
      • Watch Vessel No. 7
    • Cairns & Burnt Mounds
    • D'Stretch Marks
    • Eyam - The Plague Days
    • HMAS Patricia Cam >
      • Pat Cam 75th Anniversary
      • The Men & Their Families
      • Ship's Knee MH7
      • Beattie's Yard
      • The Sandy Sanford Story
      • Sanford & Pat Cam Memorial
    • MACASSANS >
      • Pobassoo Island
    • Matthew Flinders - The Long Way Home >
      • Flinders & HMS Cumberland
    • Miscellany >
      • Capt. Cook - Bad Hair Day
      • The Loss of HMAS Armidale
    • Mystery Objects
    • NT Fleet Review
    • NT Image Makers & Takers >
      • Ted Ryko
      • Foelsche Centenary 2014
      • NT Painters & Sketchers >
        • Fakes & Forgeries
        • William Westall {Flinders}
    • OSL Beach Dating
    • Shell Mounds & Middens
    • Territory Treasures >
      • Boustead Jar & Shell Dunes
      • Dundee Beach Swivel Gun
    • Top End Timeline
  • ARNHEM LAND & BEYOND
    • ADELAIDE RIVER
    • COBOURG PENINSULA >
      • PM Expedition 2017
      • Fort Wellington at Raffles Bay
      • Macarthur Journal
      • Victoria Settlement >
        • Lambrick Family Archive
        • Port Essington Jack
        • Victoria Cemetery
        • VIPs at P.E.
    • DARWIN HARBOUR >
      • Top End Heritage Park >
        • Darwin's Heritage Assets
        • Historic Statues
        • Pre-fabrication of Australian History
      • Channel Is. Centenary - Quarantine to Lazarette
      • Doctor's Gully
      • East Point Reserve
      • Goyder's Camp & Early Darwin
      • Government House >
        • The Govt. House Gun
      • Overland Telegraph & Undersea Cables
      • Naval Fuel Depot WW2
      • Victoria Hotel
      • Wagait Beach
      • Z Special & Catalina Base
    • DOWN THE TRACK
    • ELCHO ISLAND PORTRAIT >
      • DT coin Elcho Is.
      • Elcho Past Muster - Workshops, Finds & Losses
      • Galiwin'ku Community
    • ESCAPE CLIFFS
    • GOVE PENINSULA >
      • Catalina Beach WW2
      • Control Tower Museum
      • Gove Airfield WW2
      • Gunyangara
      • Heritage Rangers
      • Nhulunbuy
      • Wurrwurrwuy Stone Pictures
      • Yirrkala
    • GAPUWIYAK
    • GOULBURN Is. Centenary
    • GROOTE EYLANDT >
      • Angurugu >
        • Angurugu Lifeboat
      • Bickerton Island
      • Emerald River
      • Umbakumba
    • MILINGIMBI >
      • Rangers & WW2 Strip
    • OENPELLI - Gunbalanya >
      • Oenpelli Mission 1953/85
      • Oenpelli Mission -Early Days
      • Oenpelli Buffalo Days
    • RAMINGINING
    • TIMOR & Oecussi
    • TIWI ISLANDS >
      • Bathurst Island >
        • Heritage Precinct
      • Melville Island
      • Carslow Beach & the Dutch
      • Fort Dundas & Garden Point >
        • Fort Dundas Bicentenary 2024
        • FD & Gdn Pt. Finds
        • Lady Nelson & Stedcombe
      • Snake Bay - Milikapiti
    • WESSEL ISLANDS >
      • Ancient Coins in Arnhem Land Expedition
      • Australians Bay
      • Hopefull Bay
      • Mary Bryant Story
      • Wessels 2018
      • Wessel Islands Radar 312RS
  • PastMasters Publishing
    • Wooden Weir - Milikapiti
    • Early Contact North Australia
    • Arnhemland's Lost Past
    • Truant Prau
    • PM Papers, Notes & Insights
  • PastMasters Log
  • New Home Page

THE WESSEL ISLANDS

Picture
This is the front page for a cluster covering expeditions and key stories from these islands which were first thought to be a single island by Dutch mariners and named Wesel Island for the ship Wesel and subsequently visited by Mathew Flinders twice in 1803 when he charted the area and perpetuated the name on former charts which recall the City of Wesel on the Rhine. 
Picture
Google Earth notated image
Picture
Detail of Flinders Chart - Voyage to Terra Australis
In considering Dutch charts it is useful to remember that the voyages of the VOC were almost entirely commercial - there was no interest in exploration only exploitation. The focus of their voyages in the Gulf was to find a passage eastwards as a short-cut back to Europe - they sought the absence of land thus when masters of their vessels did encounter land it was the practice to notate it as an irregular line along which were listed the names of board members as a defence against retribution. The Wesel was prefabricated in the Netherlands & reconstructed in Batavia whilst the Arnhem & Pera were seized as prizes from the Portuguese. None of these craft was suited to in-shore survey work in the tropics and neither were their crews. Whilst there is good documentation for VOC activity there were earlier voyages by many vessels whose journeys are not documented and whose fate is not known - yet.

Proudly powered by Weebly