A combination of technology, gut instinct and luck has helped unlock the answers to Australia's longest unsolved maritime mystery.
Despite scores of searches over 120 years, no one's been able to find the wreckage of the SS Nemesis after it sailed into a fierce storm off the southern coast of New South Wales in July 1904.
The steam ship went down, killing all 32 on board, including Aileen Merrett's grandfather.
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"It was a tragedy, really, and for my father who was only eight at the time it would have been terrible," she said.
"I grew up with the fact that we always knew grandpa James was lost at sea and long before television we'd make up stories that maybe he was knocked unconscious and was somewhere else under a different name."
Tim Smith from Heritage New South Wales said the shipwreck left "a lot of women with kids destitute".
"The families went down to the beach and were looking, scouring amongst the wreckage that was coming ashore for days and weeks after the incident looking for their loved ones," Smith said.
Three bodies washed up, but unidentifiable, they were buried without ceremony.
For 120 years the grave of the unnamed victims has remained unmarked and largely unloved because either no one knew who was buried here or no family members had come forward.
But a chance discovery by a salvaging company means another maritime mystery could be solved.
Ed Korber, who runs Subsea Services, said one of his vessels was looking for containers washed off a ship.
"We were given a scope of an area to search which was quite a large area," he said.
"We were there for about a month. We never found the containers."
Instead as it's equipment scanned the ocean floor, they noticed something curious.
"It was certainly completely by accident that we came across this," Ed said.
"We could have quite easily discarded that as debris, a big debris field, but there was one image that came through and I could see that there was a shape of a bow."
Ed deployed an ocean drone at a cost of $20,000.
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His instincts were confirmed with the vision of the remains of a ship resting peacefully 160 metres below them on the sea floor.
"When we found the anchor we knew straight away this was something of the late 1800s early 1900's," Ed said.
"I knew straight away we were onto something quite significant."
Ed then reported the findings to Heritage NSW, who then engaged marine archaeologists to confirm the shipwreck was the SS Nemesis.
"They found this huge ship wreck, did the absolute right thing, did a sophisticated survey they have fantastic gear on their boat," Tim said.
"Gave the size of the ship, some initial imagery and sonar imagery.
"It's a worldwide search and we're really hoping we can connect to all of the families of those 32 crew over time," Tim added.
Like so many of the victims' family member, 92-year-old Aileen doubted she'd ever get answers.
"We talked about it as children growing up just wondering what did happen," she said.
"I'm just amazed that after 120 years it's been found.
"It just looks so peaceful sitting there with the little fish swimming around and I would like to think that grandpa is somewhere there."
As the word spreads about the discovery of the wreck, more family members are coming forward.
"It's a brilliant story and I'm so happy there's families coming forward and we can finally give them some closure on this," Ed added.
For more information, head to the Heritage NSW website.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiowFodHRwczovLzlub3cubmluZS5jb20uYXUvYS1jdXJyZW50LWFmZmFpci9zcy1uZW1lc2lzLWNoYW5jZS1kaXNjb3ZlcnktaGVscHMtc29sdmUtb25lLW9mLWF1c3RyYWxpYXMtYmlnZ2VzdC1tYXJpdGltZS1teXN0ZXJpZXMvODAxMzAwYzUtYzA1Mi00NWYxLWI1OTEtMmQwYmUzNDg4YTQy0gFEaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAubmluZS5jb20uYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS84MDEzMDBjNS1jMDUyLTQ1ZjEtYjU5MS0yZDBiZTM0ODhhNDI?oc=5
2024-03-15 08:50:58Z
CBMiowFodHRwczovLzlub3cubmluZS5jb20uYXUvYS1jdXJyZW50LWFmZmFpci9zcy1uZW1lc2lzLWNoYW5jZS1kaXNjb3ZlcnktaGVscHMtc29sdmUtb25lLW9mLWF1c3RyYWxpYXMtYmlnZ2VzdC1tYXJpdGltZS1teXN0ZXJpZXMvODAxMzAwYzUtYzA1Mi00NWYxLWI1OTEtMmQwYmUzNDg4YTQy0gFEaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAubmluZS5jb20uYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS84MDEzMDBjNS1jMDUyLTQ1ZjEtYjU5MS0yZDBiZTM0ODhhNDI
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