All language subtitles for S02E02 - Shipwreck Hunters Australia Abrolhos Islands

The Abrolhos Islands...

it's wild, but beautiful.

I spend a lot of time out here.

I've got a little aquaculture business.

And I just love this wild isolation,
I suppose.

When it gets rough here,
it's so rough, mate.

You don't want to hit this reef in a boat.

No way. Good luck in surviving.

Over the last 400 years,

there's a lot of ships
that have come to peril on this reef.

It was a ship trap.

Still is today.

I still hold hope that there is
some hidden wrecks and hidden gems

beneath the seas around here.

One of them's called
the Ridderschap van Holland,

a very important historic Dutch ship.

It left Holland, was never found.

Like, not even a trace of it was found.

So, this is the one
that some believe might be on this island.

It's gonna be awesome to find.

In the unpredictable waters
of the infamous Abrolhos Islands...

If they get caught
in one of those breakers,

they're just going to be high and dry,
smack into the reef.

...the shipwreck hunters
are chasing

one of the greatest maritime mysteries.

This reef is so low-lying
they would never see it at night.

So there's a very good chance
we could find a wreck.

And a discovery
could make history.

This whole mission's coming down
to this moment.

That... Oh!

What is it, Al?

They look like cannons.

Andre, you know what "Abrolhos"
means in Portuguese?

No.
"Watch out. Keep your eyes open."

-Makes sense.
-Big time.

You haven't been to the Abrolhos
until you hit the bottom.

The Abrolhos Islands
sit 60 kilometers

off the Western Australian coast.

The web of 122 low-lying atolls
and hidden reefs

has been a shipping hazard for centuries.

It's also the location
of the shipwreck hunters' next mission.

But first, they're diving
the known wreck, Ben Ledi,

to check their equipment and procedures.

We've just pulled up at Long Island
and we're gonna go for a test dive.

Here, on the shore,
there's a beautiful wreck.

So this kind of training will help
dial us in.

The team, they're gonna absolutely love it
because they can see the rib structures

all camouflaged in all the coral.

And it's good for future searches
so they know what to look for.

We're going in on scuba.
Gives us more time on the bottom

and the opportunity
to be really meticulous.

We've got all of our camera gear as well.

I'm actually really excited.

The water down here is so clear.

It's so crazy, Nushy.

Plenty of fish.

Beautiful structure.

Right. Big ribs and...

So good.

So much amazing fish life.

It's surreal down here.

How are those big admiralty anchors
in the guts?

Nice, beautiful sharks.

Between the three of us,
we should have heaps of data.

That's great, good work.

We'll see you
back on the surface shortly.

Here they are now.

So sick!

That was just crazy.

-Didn't want to get out.
-So many fish?

That was pretty epic.

It's amazing.

Let's get moving, get back to camp.

The Abrolhos Islands are home
to a lobster fishing community.

For part of the year, Ash also lives here,

tending to his sustainable seaweed farm.

For the next 10 days, it'll also be home
for the shipwreck hunters...

-Coming in hot!
-...while they search

for one of history's great missing ships.

There you go, mate.

So, this is the ship that vanished.
The Ridderschap.

"Ridderschap" means "knighthood" in Dutch.

And it left Holland
back in the 17th century.

And we're in the small pocket
where it could be.

Mate, it's been my dream to find it.

In 1693,
Ridderschap van Holland,

one of the largest ships
of the powerful Dutch East India Company,

set sail for a distant trading outpost.

On board was one
of the most important men of the time,

Admiral Sir James Couper,
the new Consul Extraordinaire to Batavia.

After resupplying
at the Cape of Good Hope,

the next stop should have been
the spice capital of Batavia.

When approaching
the little-known southland,

Ridderschap van Holland had orders
to turn north

and track parallel
to modem-day Western Australia.

But somewhere along this route,

the ship and its 300 crew vanished.

One theory is that it disappeared
in the waters of the Abrolhos Islands.

The Abrolhos is sticking out here
as a trap off the coast.

And so, you might be sailing up the coast
thinking you're in clear water

and suddenly you're on the reefs.

It's a mystery that has
fascinated geologist and shipwreck hunter,

Alasdair Cooke, for decades.

The Ridderschap's
a really important ship,

has just an incredible story.

Alasdair has shipwreck hunting
in his blood.

In the 1960s,
here in the Abrolhos Islands,

one of his relatives co-discovered
another historic Dutch wreck, Batavia.

As a kid, I just remember thinking,
"What a cool thing to do,"

you know, like, what a great interest
to have in your life,

researching these missing wrecks.

Alasdair has combined
historical records

and geophysical surveys
of the Abrolhos Islands,

trying to find telltale signs
of a shipwreck.

If it's on the West Australian coast,

it's a big area to cover.

However, there are ways
you can narrow down the odds.

-Let me show you.
-Awesome.

-The Abrolhos...
-Here you go.

Good on you, thanks.

So, we've been looking for 25 years
up and down the West Australian coast.

And the way we're doing it
that's different

is we're using a airborne magnetometer,

like a metal detector
strapped to a helicopter.

And fly along the coast
right on the reef line.

We get anomalies when there's
some kind of steel object on the reef.

So any wreck that's got cannons
or anchors is going to show up.

When flown
close to the surface,

a magnetometer will detect objects
that are dense in iron

and could be part of a shipwreck.

Alasdair has scanned a section
of the Abrolhos Islands

with some intriguing results.

So if there's two locations
where there's strong anomalies

that'd mean there's definitely steel there

and they don't correlate
with any known wrecks.

And we've tried to dive this area,

but we just couldn't get out

with the swell conditions
the way they were.

But that's where
you guys come in.

We'll give you the exact coordinates
of where these magnetic anomalies are

and then you'll need to run in
between the waves,

get right over the top
of those coordinates

or as close as you can,
and see what's on the bottom.

And, Al, how do you know that the way
that you read the data actually works?

We know it works because all of the things
that we've flown over,

all of the known wrecks
show up really well.

And we found quite a lot of wrecks already
using that data.

One of them's up here in the Easter group.
We've dived on it once

and we've found things
that suggest it's definitely a wreck,

it looks like it's an old wreck.

It doesn't look like it's Dutch,
but it looks like it's interesting.

-Wow.
-That's super-exciting.

We've shown the museum
what we'd found up there,

and they think it's a boat
that went missing in the 1860s

called the Cochituate.

And so the museum have asked
if we have the opportunity,

go and have a look at it,
film it in more detail.

That might help them positively
identify this as the Cochituate,

and as a new discovery.

-That's wicked.
-That's so cool.

All right, so the two main jobs
that we want to do,

we want to get out
on to the potential Cochituate site

and see what we can find,

and then the other is to come
down here onto Half Moon Reef,

get out there amongst the swell,

and look at these targets
that we haven't been able to get onto.

Hopefully, find a Dutch wreck
that's been missing

-for hundreds of years.
-Pretty keen.

-All right, let's go.
-Can't wait.

The shipwreck hunters now have

an incredible double mission
ahead of them,

help Alasdair find
the famous Ridderschap van Holland,

but first, discover evidence
to confirm the identity of another wreck,

the 160-year-old Cochituate.

-I wish we'd get going.
-Well...

And everyone's going back
for more cereal. It's like...

One more trip and we'll be ready.

Another trip? Okay.

Cochituate was captained
by American George Bangs.

The 347-ton barque smashed into a reef

at 3:00 a.m. on June 14, 1861.

Although they would endure weeks
of great hardship,

the crew lived to tell the tale.

And so we've really got our work
cut out for us today.

We've got to try and positively identify
that this wreck site is the Cochituate.

There's still a few missing pieces,

but it's really about gathering
more evidence

to try and fill in those gaps.

With local lobster fisher,
Jesse Liddon, at the helm,

the team is heading
12 nautical miles northwest

to the outer edge
of the notorious West Reef,

where Cochituate is said to have sunk.

Here, they'll be exposed
to the full force of the Indian Ocean.

It's such a remote place,
the Abrolhos.

It's miles offshore
on the coast of Western Australia,

plus, on the west side,

it's, like, thousands of nautical miles
to South Africa,

thousands of nautical miles to Antarctica.

Got such a massive expanse of ocean.

The first thing it hits
is Abrolhos Islands.

All that energy from the waves
coming from such a huge distance.

So, that's always a massive danger
for the divers.

Alasdair has two locations
for the team to dive.

One, in dangerous surf
breaking on the reef,

the other in the calmer waters
of the lagoon.

We're now moored
just in the lagoon here.

If we start off running along the inside
here, see if we can pick up

any signs of the wreckage
that might've come over the reef.

So, the ship we're trying
to identify was wooden?

It's one of the biggest ships
lost in the Abrolhos and never found.

So if we can get good photographs,

we should get enough information
to positively identify it.

For three months, Cochituate
was stuck on this remote reef.

After removing anything of value,

a salvage team bunt the ship
to the waterline

to expose valuable metals
such as copper, used for nails.

Cochituate then disappeared into history,

its exact location lost forever.

Alasdair believes evidence in this spot

will finally identify
the long-lost shipwreck.

If it's the Cochituate, it was
a wooden wreck fastened with copper.

So the things you'll see will be the stuff
that the algae doesn't grow on.

So the copper should be
the easy thing to find,

but there might be some ceramics,

and there might be other paraphernalia
off the wreck, potentially.

So the team will be equipped
with all cameras,

we'll document the whole thing,

try and get some real evidence
of what's laying here.

It will be a methodical search.

The team will capture evidence on camera

for the Western Australian Museum
to examine.

Any time we dive on a wreck site

we're following
cultural heritage guidelines,

which really means
everything stays in situ.

You can't actually touch
or affect the site at all.

And that's the reason
with photography and videography,

if we can take the stills,
take the video, bring that back

and review it over periods of time
to piece it all together,

and get a really good understanding
of what's on the seafloor.

That's the treasure, really.

Cool. Let's get in the water.

All right, bye, bye.

On the inside of the reef,

Alasdair has already found evidence
of possible shipwreck debris.

The team quickly finds more.

These stones,
they don't look at home here,

so it's another clue
that there's a shipwreck.

It's a really good sign.

So it's called a ballast trail.
It's a really good indicator

that we're on a shipwreck
of a wooden sailing boat.

Ballast is a heavy material,
often bricks or rocks,

placed in a ship's hull
to increase stability.

The site soon reveals more secrets.

There's this huge copper nail
just sitting there in the sand,

it's in really good condition.

Much bigger than normal nails
we see every day,

so it stuck out really well, and it means
we're definitely on the right site.

Looks like the wrecks
just hit the wall here,

and then all the artefacts
have just been splayed out

hundreds of meters all over this reef
in the middle of nowhere.

The ballast trail
and the copper nails

are part of a plume of debris
washed in from the wreck.

It lines up
with Alasdair's aerial magnetometer hit

on the outside of the reef.

Whatever's there could be
significant enough

to confirm the ship's identity.

I reckon it could be anchors, mate.
Hopefully.

We got to get out there
while the swell's good.

Hold on, Johnny.

We saw some fastenings,
so it's definitely a wreck site.

The wrecks come over the reef.

I reckon maybe there's an anchor
or something out there,

or the main bit of structure.

You can see

we're coming into the gutter now.

There's a lot more swell and surge
coming over that area,

so it's gonna be harder to dive there.

We'll just free dive it. It's easier,
we're more agile in the water,

and if it all goes pear-shaped,
we can get out quick.

Andre drops a marker
in the middle of the target zone

to focus diving operations.

-Back on the money there?
-We're on the money!

With a dangerous swell
building, the team must work quickly.

Whoo-hoo!

It's one of the favorite parts
of shipwreck hunting,

the anticipation
before you get in the water.

Everyone's going as fast as they can,
and the conditions are good.

-Andre's already down there.
-Small fear of dying, too.

Just to keep you on your toes.

It's almost a race to get in the water,
to be honest,

and I'm losing,
so I better get in.

To thoroughly search the area,

the divers work together to cover
a 200-meter zone around the marker buoy.

Skipper, Jesse Liddon,
and his brother, Sam,

who know the dangers of this reef well,

are ready for any emergency.

Slowly, shapes
from the wreck emerge.

Alasdair uses a detector
to confirm they're made of metal.

The team fights the swell and current,

determined to capture evidence on camera.

Hopefully, it's enough to identify this
as the Cochituate wreck site.

There's a few bits of metal.

Couldn't find any wood.

-No.
-Just steel...

...just sitting in the holes in the reef.

I'd say it's been there a long time,
there's not much left of any structure.

I guess not.

It's as if the captain
didn't even deploy any anchors,

and just hit the reef and kept going.

You're literally at the mercy
of the ocean in there.

Like, I couldn't even really move
with these giant fins against the current.

There's so much water movement.

But it just makes you think about,
you know, those guys,

if they're wrecking here,

they've just got this constant push
up against shallower and shallower...

And this is a good day.

Imagine in the storm on a big day.

And they're fully clad in clothes
and overboard.

-Might not have known how to swim.
-Makes you feel for them,

if you think about what they went through.

To find out why Cochituate
hit the reef and what happened next,

Johnny has discovered a newspaper report
from 1861.

The human story is so wild,
and it says,

"The Cochituate had experienced
heavy gales

"for some days previous to the accident,

"but at the time it occurred,
it was about 3:00 a.m."

Obviously, it was a massive cold front
that they were stuck in.

It'd be horrendous.

Sleepless nights.

-Heaps of broken rigging and repairs.
-Cold, always wet, right?

You can't get dry
when you're working on a deck

-in a storm.
-No, no.

"At the time it occurred,
there was a light wind.

"And when the breakers were first seen,
the ship was close upon them.

"And when attempted to be put about,
she misstays,

"when the man at the helm had
his shoulder bone broken

"by the spokes of the wheel."

-Oh, my God.
-It's crazy.

The wheel would've just got flicked
out of his hands when the rudder hit reef.

-Yes.
-It would be chaos.

Imagine the noise, the timber cracking up.

Oh, my God.

And then it'd get pushed over
with the breaker.

The waves smashing it against the reef,

the screaming of everyone,
like, a lot of them couldn't swim.

Like, it doesn't get scarier than that
as a sailor, does it?

Middle of the night, hitting a reef.

You can only just imagine it.
It'd be horrible, mate.

In the chaos of the wreck,

the crew somehow managed to abandon ship,

scramble into two small lifeboats,

find their bearings,

and sail for the mainland
60 kilometers to the east.

Two days later, they landed
on a remote stretch of coastline.

With few provisions,

Captain Bangs, an American,
and his crew of various nationalities

were now in a desperate situation.

"The second mate and party

"started to walk along the beach
to Fremantle,

"each man living on dead fish and birds
which they picked up along the beach."

That's like 400 Ks away.

By foot.

"The captain was said to be very sickly

"and having a very old man in his party,
too infirm to travel.

"The weather continuing unfavorable,

"they left following the route
of their companions."

So you've got an old bloke
that's slowing you down.

-Keeping you back.
-Bring him or leave him to die?

What would you have done, Ash,
if there was an old boy keeping you?

You mean you'd leave him to die?

Go ahead, Johnny.

-I don't wanna get stranded with you.
-No.

The rest of the article goes on.
"On Saturday evening,

"the town of Fremantle was thrown
into a state of great excitement

"by the arrival of a man
in a state of starvation

"who stated that he was a Dutchman

"belonging to the barque Cochituate,
of Boston, United States.

"Mounted police
and search parties were sent out,

"and fairly quickly,
the rest of the survivors were found.

"They were in poor condition but alive,
including Captain Bangs.

"We were informed
that the captain was not aware

"that Champion Bay was settled,
nor did he know of such a place."

Champion Bay,
where there was a settlement.

-Geraldton.
-Geraldton.

So basically, they've hiked
400-odd kilometers over around two weeks,

when they could've walked 60 kilometers

-in the other direction.
-No...

That is brutal.

-They could've walked within a day...
-Oh...

...and been within safety,

but they've done two weeks.

-Oh, God.
-But they'd be rightly furious.

-Great story.
-It is a brilliant story.

Without knowing
there was a settlement just to the north,

the crew of Cochituate
instead walked south,

all the way to the port town of Fremantle.

While the crew's survival is documented,

the team need to confirm
if they've found the wreck of Cochituate.

So this is
some of the ballast stones.

And we also saw some other little things.

Like, we saw some
of the copper nails as well.

That really narrows it down.

At the very minimum,
it shows it was a sailing vessel,

and the copper nails show
that it was a wooden sailing vessel.

And, you know, that'll put
kind of a age wrap around it.

-That's awesome. Super cool.
-Amazing. That's so cool.

And you can see
these long iron ingots here.

It's really hard to tell what they are,

but they're immediately outside the reef
from where the ballast trail is.

So they're in the right position
for where the ship must've broken up.

We've just gotta find somebody who knows
about how they built ships in the 1860s.

Do you think that we should send
this imagery to the W.A. Museum?

Absolutely.

Those images are so clear. That's gonna be
a big help to identifying what they are.

Get it to the museum
and on to the next one.

On to the Ridderschap.

The next day,
a big swell makes it too dangerous

to launch the second phase of the mission,

diving targets Alasdair hopes
could be the wreck of a mighty Dutch ship.

Ridderschap van Holland was a flagship
of the Dutch East India Company,

which ruled the waves, if not the world,

throughout the 17th century.

The ship's failure to arrive at Batavia,

now Jakarta in modern-day Indonesia,

with Admiral Couper
and its much-needed treasury,

was a huge blow to the Company.

In response, three ships commanded
by Willem de Vlamingh

were sent to search
the West Australian coastline,

rescue Admiral Couper,
and secure the treasure.

De Vlamingh found nothing.

Many believe Ridderschap van Holland
lies here on the Abrolhos islands,

and for good reason.

As soon as they left Cape Town,
all the Dutch ships were directed

to sail due east to a certain distance

and stay well clear
of the mainland of Australia.

-Yep.
-And you can just imagine, like,

this is, like, the coast of...

They'd come towards Western Australia,

chosen a path northwards,

but what they didn't know was

there's this group of islands
further north called Abrolhos,

where we are now.

There's no moon, it's so dark,

there's no way you're gonna see
these low-lying islands.

-They would have no idea.
-Absolutely.

That's why there's been a couple
of found wrecks, Dutch wrecks,

let alone all the other shipwrecks.

The Ridderschap van Holland was instructed
to sail on the same route.

If the wreck site is
in the Abrolhos Islands,

any survivors would have experienced
pristine waters

and extraordinary wildlife.

Right now, surrounded
by some Australian sea lions.

They just decided to come out
and have a little swim.

They're so playful to swim with,
they're so interactive.

But unfortunately,
Australian sea lion numbers are in decline

and we've lost 60% over the last 40 years.

They're coming to say hi.

It's so interesting
because the sea lions that we see here,

their colonies only ever stick
to the same islands and beaches,

so they probably have some stories

that were passed down
through generation and generation.

Might know what happened
with the Ridderschap,

probably where it is and everything.

If only they could talk to us.

-Can you speak seal?
-Nah.

-Well, they'd have some good answers.
-Definitely.

While Captain de Vlamingh searched
the Western Australian coast,

a new rumor began circulating.

Johnny has found a 300-year-old letter

about de Vlamingh's search
for Ridderschap van Holland.

It says, "The subject of this voyage
was to get intelligence

"of a ship having on board
Sir James Couper with 300 men,

"which we thought to be stranded there.

"But since we have understood
that the ship has been taken

"by some pirates near Madagascar,

"and Sir James was by them killed."

In their mind, it's over there.

It's been taken by pirates,
and it's never made it over here.

There's still people
here in Western Australia

that think it's here,
that's why we're doing the search.

Like, "Where is it?"
It still needs to be found.

A new day,
and the conditions have finally improved.

Just so happy we've got good swell,

like, a 1.4-meter swell,

which is, like, couple of days a year

we get that chance
to dive this particular spot.

It'd just be amazing
to find this missing Dutch wreck.

The team races
to Alasdair's magnetometer hits.

This is their opportunity
to find Ridderschap van Holland.

So we're just coming in
on the ocean side of Wreck Point.

There's a few other wrecks that were
wrecked along here over the years.

It's a super wild place.

There's thousands of kilometers
of ocean that way,

and just swell rolling in,
smashing in against the reef.

Super powerful. Super raw.

Lot of big sharks around here.

So it's about as wild as you get
for places to look for shipwrecks.

This reef is so low-lying
they would never see it at night,

so it's a perfect place to catch
on these Dutch ships all that time ago.

So there's a very good chance
we could find a wreck.

We've never had a day like this
where you can get on top of the target

and see what it is.

There's gonna be something there
that has created a magnetic anomaly,

so it's not... it's not natural.

It has to be something.
Bit of anchor, you know, something.

Alasdair's targets are
on the edge of Half Moon Reef

near Wreck Point,

where many ships continue to be lost.

Everyone knows
it can be really dangerous here.

We're up against the big swells
because of currents,

a lot of white water,
and a lot of breakers.

And, of course, there's marine life here
that can cause a fair few injuries, too.

So, we've just got to be real cautious
of our surroundings,

and hopefully everything's gonna go well,

and we'll come back.

But, it always causes
a little bit of nerves before you jump in.

I reckon we're gonna find it,
that's for sure.

Let's go.

So they're just gonna drop the markers
exactly where we think the anomaly is,

and then they'll come back
and pick me up, very soon I hope.

Hopefully they don't find it
while I'm over here.

For this difficult
and dangerous phase of the mission,

Alasdair will direct operations
from the boat.

There must be something
that caused the anomaly, but...

it's possible that it's so overgrown
with coral that they can't identify it.

In which case, it'd have to be pretty old.

This is where local knowledge
just comes into it,

so now Jesse's holding us
about five meters

from the edge of the reef,
in the safe zone.

But if you go
just a little bit too far that way,

you go over the waterfall.

-Oh, Jesus.
-Far out.

Oh, my God.

The sharpest cheese-grating reef
you'll ever have.

Looks like they're on the right spot,
just inside the edge of the reef line,

so right where the waves are rolling over.

To find the targets,

the team will have to swim
right into the impact zone.

We've got a couple
of big sets coming through.

We've got some ski support.

We've got the drone in the sky
watching us as well.

Just got to find something now.

Ash returns to update Alasdair
on the search so far.

What'd you find, Ash?

Look, the waves have worn away
these big daggers of limestone walls.

So, if our boat was to hit it,
it's just all over.

There's some holes and cracks as well,

but you can distinctly see
what's in the bottom of those.

And we had a good pair of eyes
looking everywhere.

Well, that's all you can do.

Nothing abnormality-shaped down there.

I just don't want 'em
to say they can't find anything,

'cause there's got to be something there
that produces the magnetic anomaly.

It's a really clear target.

The worst thing is
when you can't explain it

and you're just left wondering
whether, you know, what you've missed.

What'd you see, fellas?

It looks like the perfect place
for a shipwreck.

Jagged rocks off turbulent water.

Except no shipwreck.

-No.
-Jesse, how close to the actual target?

Could you get shallow enough?

We got as close
to the back edge as we could,

but I think that target is
on top of the reef.

We gotta get up on top of the platform.
Have a look...

So maybe we'll go around
on the lagoon side and come in.

And there is
another distinctive magnetic anomaly

about 200 meters in the lagoon.

But I think we go back inside there
and do that.

-Okay.
-Yup.

Struggling to get close enough
to the target

from the outside of the reef,

the team relocates to approach
through the calmer waters of the lagoon.

On the way in,

there's an additional magnetometer target
to investigate.

This whole mission's coming down
to this moment.

We've got two more anomalies to check out.

This is our last chance
to find the Ridderschap.

While the conditions
are calmer here,

Mother Nature has thrown up
another challenge.

It's, like, a big clump of coral
right where the mark is.

-A foot.
-Right over the top.

-Probably got a foot of coral on it.
-Big clump.

So there probably is something under it.
We just don't know what it is.

So, that anomaly is right in the middle
of some huge staghorn coral gardens.

If something's beneath it,
there's no way we're gonna see it.

Staghorn coral is made up
of living animals,

little, tiny polyps
that can often attach to wreckage,

and then just start excreting
this calcareous substance

and creates that outer skeleton,

and then over hundreds of years,
it just keeps building up

and whatever it first attached to
is pretty much buried.

We don't want to damage
the marine environment,

so we're just gonna have to leave
whatever wreckage might be buried beneath,

and the ocean will keep its secrets
under the coral.

One more spot.

One more spot.

The team moves
to the final magnetometer target,

the one they tried to reach earlier
from the ocean side of the reef.

Far out, it's right on the reef,
whatever it is.

Just somewhere...

at the bottom here.

Down here.

-On this inside of this ledge, Dre.
-Under there, all that.

In this whole...

Right here.

There's stuff here and back there.

So, there's a lot of structure around.

-Look.
-That... Oh!

Look, there's a cannon here, look.

-What?
-Change in depth...

Here it is.
It could be even this big black...

-Really?
-We're right over it.

-You're right.
-Look at that!

-You kidding?
-They look like cannons?

Just have a look.
Might be underwater.

Under there. All that.

Hey, Al.

Al! Al!

What is it, Al? Anything, mate?

Looks like Nush's coming over.

Any cannons?

They look like cannons?

Oh, my gosh, I just got so excited.

I thought I saw, like, three
or four cannons sitting on the bottom.

And then I went and swam 'round the front,
and I realized that they were gas bottles.

I was so disappointed.
I was, like, "We're onto a wreck."

We're onto something. And then, no.

-They look similar from the back.
-From the back, they look similar.

But when you swim around the front,
you feel like, "No, what's this?"

-A gas bottle.
-Spewing. It's a letdown.

It is.

Despite not finding
Ridderschap van Holland,

for Alasdair,
the mission has been a success.

Well, we've closed off a lot
of the loose ends we've had from the past.

We've managed to get onto all the targets
we've never been able to look at before.

And one day, we'll go up to one
of those magnetic anomalies,

find what we're looking for.

But in the meantime,
we've just got to work through them.

Still searching for answers,

Johnny has taken a closer look
at the story of pirates

capturing Ridderschap van Holland
off the coast of Africa.

So, I know the VOC did do
a search of Madagascar.

They sent two ships there to search
and they didn't find anything.

-Really?
-Not a trace.

So, they've hit up all the locals
around Madagascar.

They probably chased pirates
around the sea for a bit.

And you know how ruthless
they'd have been.

-They'd have found evidence.
-Oh.

So, I feel like that kind of shuts out
that pirate story. Do you?

Be hard to pirate it.

So, there was like hundreds of men

and army soldiers on that boat.

-I don't know...
-I mean, it's a massive ship.

There'd be signs of it,

if it was salvaged
or turned into a pirate boat

-or scrapped for timber, and cannons...
-100%.

-...and they'd find.
-You can't just disappear

-with something like that.
-It's gotta be underwater somewhere.

-It's a pretty cool mystery.
-It is very cool, and it's crazy to think

that it's just sitting there underwater
somewhere in the world,

like, it could be between here and Africa,
or it could be, I don't know.

It could be a kilometer off there
sitting under our noses,

but maybe we'll never find it.

Maybe someone else will.

In the search
for Ridderschap van Holland,

the team found evidence
of a more recent wreck.

But the large, old gas bottles
inside the reef have them stumped.

I first come up to these gas bottles,
I'm like, "Oh, my God, it's cannon."

They looked a lot
like they could have been the real thing.

Generations
of Jesse Liddon's family

have worked these waters.

He thinks he might know the answer.

I've never seen the gas bottles
'cause they blend in,

but I always fished
around those railway irons,

and we were always told this story

about this massive freezer boat,
the Atlantic Ocean,

and it's run aground on that reef,

and it's just sitting up there
on its side. It's rolled over.

They've brought in a team
to re-weld the boat, refloat the boat.

For three months,
they're living on the boat,

-and they at some point ripped it off...
-Oh, my God.

...and left a few things behind.

What a job, mate.

Jesse, what were
the gas bottles for, then?

Well, we don't really know,

but my mum reckons
it was as rollers to float it out

and rip it off the back edge.

And then it was that spot

we always called the Atlantic Ocean.

But, and they corresponded exactly.
So, at least your magnetometer works.

The magnetometer picked them up,
they looked like the distribution

you get from a wreck
with cannons scattered around.

And then you hear a story like that,
and you go,

"Well, who would ever dream that up?"
How could you ever expect that?

That's how it works.
You gotta get out and look at everything,

and eventually you get onto one
that's the real thing.

So, we've covered it
fairly thoroughly, I think.

Unless you have more spots
you'd like us to check,

that, you know, passed down
in the family history.

There's a couple
of other wrecks out there.

Maybe next trip.

At the start of the mission,

Alasdair and the shipwreck hunters
discovered copper nails,

ballast and iron objects at West Reef.

Hoping it might be the wreck site
of the 160-year-old Cochituate,

they sent vision
to the Western Australian Museum.

Maritime archaeologist Dr. Deb Shefi
is about to deliver the verdict.

-Hi, Deb.
-Hey, team, how are you?

Good to see ya, mate.

But first, she has news
about the gas bottles.

Thanks a lot for sending footage
of the gas bottles.

This is an exciting find.

We had absolutely no idea
that it was there.

Look, I've done some digging
in our records.

And here, look, this is Atlantic Ocean.

Now, you have found the salvage site
of this vessel that was built in 1961.

-That's great, Deb.
-That's awesome.

What's even more exciting,
I think, is, look here.

So, here's a picture
of the vessel on the reef itself,

taken after it wrecked in 1964,
just three years later.

-So good.
-So, pretty exciting

that we now have this footprint left
of a wrecking event from 1964,

which we had no idea was there.

-And this means...
-That's so exciting. Awesome.

-It's pretty exciting. So, thanks so much.
-Mate.

Now onto that first site,
the one you think is Cochituate.

I've had a look at the footage.

I don't know the site,
but what you've shown me,

that iron structure,

those copper fasteners
which clearly are part of a wooden vessel,

the ballast which doesn't belong there

and the lack of evidence
of any other material

suggests a heavily salvaged vessel.

So, I'm happy to say

that we can confirm
that this is Cochituate.

So good, Al.
That's awesome, that's very good.

-Congratulations, Al.
-Amazing.

-That's so cool.
-Well done, team.

Really exciting that we get to add
another known shipwreck

off the coast of W.A.

-Tick one off.
-We have more to go,

so keep up the good work.

Cheers.

Thanks, you guys.

It's been a fantastic week.
We've made a positive ID on the Cochituate

so we could tick that box and make sure
that we did know what it was.

And we'll all get to say,
"Well, we've found a historic wreck,"

and I hope one of many to come, I hope.

It's been
a successful expedition.

The shipwreck hunters have made
two remarkable breakthroughs.

They've confirmed
the wreck site of Cochituate,

and they've also discovered
the salvage site of Atlantic Ocean.

But the ultimate prize of finding
the missing 17th century Dutch trader

and solving one
of history's great maritime mysteries

remains elusive for now.

The Ridderschap van Holland,
that was the one I was eager to find,

and we had a good search.

You must get in the water

and investigate these magnetic lumps
that have been spotted.

I reckon it's in deep water somewhere.

Just sitting there, encrusted in coral
on the bottom of the ocean.

I think someone's gonna come across it

and go, "What the heck is this?"

Amazing.