Trial

The Trial is the earliest known shipwreck in Australian waters. The English East India Company around April 1621 acquired this ship. It was ready for voyage to the East Indies in July that year. The Trial cargo on this voyage was small items such as hunt horns, sheathing nails, cartridges and sheet lead. There were also 500 silver reales (coins) and a quantity of spangles for the King of Siam. The ship sailed with a full cargo from Plymouth on September 4th under the command of Captain John Brookes. The Trial arrived at Cape Hope. Whilst here, The captain unsuccessfully tried to persuade the master mate to allow an East Indian man to accompany them as none of the ships officers had made the voyage from the Cape to the East Indies.

The vessel left the cape on March 19th, 1622. Brookes sailed to latitude 39o and then east, following the route an English Captain, Humphrey Fitzherbert had made in 1620. Brookes however, had sailed further east than Fitzherbert and sighted the Australian mainland in latitude 22o south, the region of North West Cape, on May 1st. North-Easterly winds for a time prevented Brookes from heading for Java, but on May 24th he was again moving north, past Barrow Island and the Montebello Island towards the uncharted reef which was eventually know as the Trial Rocks:

Transcript
The Trial struck this reef and sank, hence the reef’s name. Brooke’s left the ship in the skiff at 3 a.m. and a half hour later the fore part of the vessel broke up. Ten others got in the skiff, and 36 got in the longboat, the 93 other shipmates were left to perish. Brookes’ skiff contained a keg of water, 2 cases of bottles and a little bread.

The longboat, under command of Thomas Bright, had 6 kegs of water, a little wine and some bread. Brookes sailed towards Barrow Island, and may have briefly visited the Montebello Islands before turning northward. Brookes ended up in Java on June 8, and arrived in Batavia on June 25th, this was a month after the Trial wreck. Bright’s boat had remained half a kilometer from the wreck until daylight, high tide struck and they set sail for the Montebello Islands, searched for water on arrival, then turned north for Batavia.

After the two vessels reached Batavia, allegations arose that Brookes had stolen items form the Company, and had neglected the ships handling. Brookes had also seemed to put false entries in his Journal indicating that he had not gone further east than Fitzherbert in 1620. Brookes false entries placed the Trial wreck many kilometers west of the true wreck site and the Trial Rocks were not discovered until some 300 years later. In 1934 Ritchie’s Reef was discovered to be the true site where the ship went down and the Australian Pilot was changed to have this fact.

A wreck believed to be the Trial was encountered on the Trial Rocks in 1969 by some skin-divers from Perth their leader was Eric Christiansen and including Dr Naoom Haimson, Alan Robinson and Dave Nelly. Under the Maritime Act an ex gratia payment of $2,000 was sent to the group.