From Baird Maritime:
The long coastline of Western Australia is replete with shipwrecks. There are probably still many unknown ones to be discovered.
At first they were all Dutch ships. Mostly they were wrecked on their outbound voyages from the Netherlands to Batavia and other parts of the East Indies. Without chronometers, longitude was rather a problem for them.
The arrival of French and British explorers and then British colonists in the late eighteenth century changed the national composition of the wrecks. Once the West Australian settlements were established as a colony, the ships were almost all British even if locally built.
The author is Australia's leading and best known marine archaeologist who started in the trade at the age of 16. He knows his subject and he also knows how to make it attractive to the general reader.
The ship wrecks are catalogued in a most attractive way highlighted with first rate photographs and some good contemporary lithographs. Excellent end notes and an extensive bibliography makes further study easy.
A very useful reference, that is a pleasure to read for its own sake.
Ordering Information:
University of Western Australia Press