214th anniversary of lost anchors

The two Matthew Flinders anchors found by members of the Underwater Explorers Club of SA in 1973 were lost by Flinders on 21st May 1803. At daylight on that day, Matthew Flinders was preparing to depart from Middle Island in the Recherche Archipelago off of Western Australia. Middle Island is the largest island in the archipelago. A fresh breeze started driving the Investigator towards rocks before the sails were loosed. Flinders used the ship’s spare anchors to hold her. He then had to cut two anchor cables just before the ship cleared the rocks at noon. Flinders had lost both his best bower anchor and stream anchor. A bower anchor is one at the bow of the ship. The Investigator’s best bower anchor was over 4m long and weighed over 1 tonne. It had giant flukes sharply offset like a massive arrow. Both anchors were located in Goose Island Bay on 14th January 1973 by members of the Underwater Explorers Club of SA. The anchors were both raised up by the lighthouse ship Cape Don on 19th January 1973. They have now been preserved and restored. The best bower anchor is now located at the SA Maritime Museum at Port Adelaide. The stream anchor was placed in Canberra along with an anchor from James Cook’s Endeavour.