Dark Side of the Moon gallery
The tale
The Sydney Cove left Calcutta, India destined for the British Colony of Port Jackson, New South Whales on 10 November 1796.
The merchant ship was loaded with Indian, Chinese and European goods set for sale after what was a journey of speculation: the crew would steer the vessel on a largely unexplored route across the Great Southern Ocean.
Wild seas and gale force winds sent the Sydney Cove entirely off course to the Furneaux Group; a collection of islands off Tasmania's north-east coast and some 1000 kilometres from the vessel's destination.
In February 1797, the Sydney Cove wrecked off what would become known as Preservation Island, and a tale of survival began.
What crew was left after the wreck established camp on the tiny island and soon a party of 17 left in a long boat to find help.
The group had intended to sail the boat to Port Jackson but high seas forced them to land early and trek through hostile terrain.
Four months later, three of the party arrived at its destination. The rest had succumbed to starvation and the elements.
A rescue party of two vessels was dispatched and on 10 June 1797 the remaining crew and what cargo had been salvaged from the Sydney Cove, were collected.
Adding further to a shocking tale of misadventure, one of the vessels, The Eliza, was lost at sea.
Although noted on a map by explorer George Bass in 1804, the Sydney Cove lay largely undisturbed in the icy waters of Bass Strait until 1977 when a team of dive enthusiasts examined the wreck. In 1978, in collaboration with the Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service, QVMAG took possession of an anchor and canon raised from the site.
Over the next 16 years, cumulating in an excavation program over the summers of 1991-1994, QVMAG became the repository of all excavated material, including Chinese ceramics, Indian pottery, bottles, parts of the ship such as the rudder and rigging, leather hides and footwear, and foodstuff items such as animal bones, peppercorns and tobacco.
Within the materials recovered from the Sydney Cove are what is believed to be some of the world’s oldest beer, wine and spirits recovered from a shipwreck. 37 intact glass bottles, of which 22 were still sealed with contents, were brought up from the excavation site. In 1993, the contents of some was removed and samples sent to the Australian Wine Research Institute in South Australia for analysis to determine their identity and condition. Rudimentary analysis was completed and the Institute’s report identified the samples as red wine and beer.
Years later in a collaborative effort, it was decided it was time to apply new science to samples and began by examining the bottle contents under a microscope.
QVMAG managed to isolate and extract live yeast used to brew beer, allowing a taste not experienced for centuries.
The Collection
The Sydney Cove Collection is on display at the Museum at Inveresk and represents significant examples of all excavated material from the wreck.
This includes parts of the ship, material used on board by the officers and crew, and importantly, examples of most cargo carried on board.
This cargo includes pottery, Chinese porcelain dinnerware, salted meat, leather, leather shoes, spices, indigo and other luxury goods and very large quantities of alcohol such as rum and gin in bottles and barrels. Due to the way the alcohol was bottled, some original beer or wine has survived 220 years under the sea.
In addition to the material from the ship itself the collection also includes material excavated from the survivors' camp on the island including bricks, pottery and animal bones.
While QVMAG has an extensive amount of objects from the wreck, much of it such as remaining hull timbers and cannons remain on the sea floor.
The Beer
A large part of the cargo of the Sydney Cove was alcohol and as many of the bottles were sealed with wax, the contents survived more than 200 years beneath the sea floor.
in 2016, a research team of expert scientists from the Australian Wine Research Institute and QVMAG successfully isolated live yeast from a beer bottle excavated from the wreck and used it to brew beer using period recipes.
The isolated yeast is an unusual three-way hybrid, unique to science, with links to bakers, brewers and wine yeasts. It is genetically different to the hundreds of yeast species that it has been compared with from Australia and around the world.