Shipwreck Hunters Australia discovers 100+ year old shipwrecks | TV tonight

Shipwreck Hunters Australia Has made two maritime discoveries and long forgotten shipwrecks both more than 100 years old.

Filming for S2 of the Disney+ series took place last year in combination with the Western Australian Museum.

The 73-meter steamship Rodondo sailed from Adelaide to Perth in 1894 with 200 people on board. But after five days at sea, the tragedy struck when it came to sadness on the remote Pollock -Rif and Sank.

For more than 100 years it has been lost until the Shipwreck Hunters Australia Team found it during filming. The story will form the basis of episode 1 of the new season.

Brendan Hutchens, producer / director: The Redondo is a huge 70+ meter steamship that was lost in 1894 during the peak of the gold rush. It was full of people who came to earn their fortune in West -Australia. But all those people were stranded on a remote island, Salisbury Island, 140 kilometers from Esperance.

Ryan Chatfield, diving leader, underwater camera: It is still remote now. You are going there now, and it is like the end of the earth. Imagine how it was more than 100 years ago, it would have been absolutely frightening.

All the stories that go with it are so compelling. They left the ship and tied a baby on a buoy and then threw it for a lifeboat. He fell into the water, so they had to pick him out of the water. There are just some great stories

Discovered in episode 3 is also a mirror defend ship, the Langston, which sank during a storm in 1902. It also played a role in the death of a 22-year-old sailor that was left on an isolated beach.

RC: It is funny, you go out to find shipwrecks, but you never expect you to find them. To make these discoveries after all these efforts and all this time, with your best friends, is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

BRA: There were six separate expeditions that we had to assemble. Usually you can only do one or two if you were the museum, for example. But they were spread apart with a few weeks of gap between expeditions. So it was a pretty intense production period.

How many boats do you use to film the series?

RC: There is the big mother ship, as we call it, and then a single tender. Many of the wide shots are also shot from the drone, but usually at least two boats almost every expedition, precisely for that reason, to separate the crew and the boys. Sometimes we do double things. One crew can explore the country and where the survivors were walking, and the other boys were mapped the seabed. So we just try to maximize our time and try to find these shipwrecks.

BRA: There are many areas that we are responding to that are really treacherous with crashing waves, shallow waters, big swellings. You must be agile and be able to move quickly. So it’s a legitimate experience, that’s for sure!

What is the law on discovering lost ships? Can anyone go hunting?

RC: You can certainly. But you do not realize how vast the ocean is until you are looking for something that is just a peanut. It’s so big. Historically, many of the shipwrecks are often not found of people looking, but accidentally. So it can be a man who spear fish, or he drops his anchor for a fishing spot, and it lands on something. They have often come across. And there are huge scale expeditions that cost millions of dollars, and they go outside for months and find nothing. It is therefore a sliding scale of success. But everyone can look for it. In all respects you just have to have the will and the possibility to do it.

BRA: The saying is that you will never find a ship if you are deliberately looking for it. It’s one of those things. But Ryan is humble. There are a number of very high -tech equipment that is used to perform a specific search … Magneto meters and side scanning equipment. The ships used have very experienced divers. So it is a fairly unique skills and also a pretty expensive operation.

RC: You can look for it, but if you find something, you can’t touch and you have to report it immediately to the WA Museum. That is the legislation,

BRA: There is absolute protocol. The days have disappeared from treasure hunt. This is much more about telling the historical story. But if you find something, the laws are very strictly around it.

So the WA Museum is holding your secret to the series of screens?

BRA: Loose lips sink ships, right? It is really difficult to keep things secret. … It is a tight knitted community up and down, so it’s really difficult to keep things secret.

RC: The WA Museum was actively involved in the series. We take one of their maritime archaeologists on a few expeditions. It was a great partnership, because they had 30-40, years of expertise and research and knowledge in the shipwreck history in WA. So it has been a cooperation approach with them. We have also worked for this series and the previous series. A huge team and an enormous effort is needed … A lot of knowledge, expertise and research to subtract something like that. It is very difficult to do it yourself. So we really enjoy surrounding ourselves with experts from the industry to make it as successful as possible.

What else can you reveal? Is there a buried honey?

RC: One of the most rewarding things was that we managed to contact a living descendant of those children on board at the Redondo and we were allowed to connect them. They had no idea of ​​the history of their family and what the crossings had experienced. We brought this new chapter of their family history to life, and it was really emotional and super rewarding.

BRA: The research is just as intense as the expedition itself really great. The team is absolutely obsessed with it. They are very compelling stories.

Before you know it you will find a descendant who lives in South Australia, of these children who happened to survive this incredible shipwreck.

RC: That’s what the treasure is now. You no longer raise silver coins. The treasure is those stories.

Shipwreck Hunters Australia Screens Wednesday on Disney+