100 years forgotten: The mystery of local sailors' bottled message in Australia

That is perhaps why in the Moruya Examiner from January 3, 1925, an article was published about such a discovery without a headline or any fanfare. 

 

It was also not reported anywhere else, the only acknowledgement of the bottle’s existence confined to a single short article - a bottle was found on Bingie Beach, what the note inside said, and nothing else.

 

No name of the person who found it, no quote, no further information. 

 

So what did that note say? 

 

The article read as follows, pictured right:

 

While this bottle’s age was not noteworthy at the time, today it would be the oldest message in a bottle ever found in Australia, and one of the oldest in the world. 

 

Its connection to Scotland keeps running a tradition of notable messages in bottles with Scottish routes. A previous world record holder for the oldest bottle found was discovered by Andrew Leaper on a Shetland fishing vessel. This message was also written by a Scotsman, released in 1914 by Captain CH Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation.

 

The article in the Moruya Examiner was uncovered by long-time historian Julian Armstrong, who thought it warranted a deeper investigation. 

 

He managed to confirm the arrival of the Loch Rannoch in 1877, trace her journey and even the manifest of her cargo. But that was the extent of what could be uncovered. 

 

Nine sailors named, eight with a confirmed point of origin, and seven of them local to Oban and the Isles. But absolutely none of them can be traced. 

 

They experienced life on the west coast of Scotland in a completely different way to those of us today, and set out to ventures new, only to seemingly vanish from history’s pages.

 

And the worst part? Nobody knows what became of the bottle or the note. They have been lost to time. 

Discussing the whereabouts of the bottle, Julian said: "Unfortunately, [it was] most likely thrown out with the garbage soon after it was found.

 

"The bottle itself was 48 years old when it was found in 1925, so I’m assuming that the finder didn’t regard it as particularly noteworthy.

 

"I grew up in the 1970s and the bottles from then are not much different to those of today, so I wouldn’t be too excited to find a bottle from 1977.

 

"However, it would be a different story if I found one from 1877.

 

"Also, there was no museum in Moruya in 1925 – today that might be an obvious place to take such a find.

 

"Maybe, just maybe, the finder kept the piece of paper with the message on it – what chance that was passed down through a couple of generations and still survives?"

 

Julian is certain that despite the lack of physical evidence, the bottle was indeed real.

 

"I have no reason to doubt the story, for several reasons," he said. 

 

"Peter Hobbins from the Australian National Maritime Museum said that ’the more mundane a message, the more likely it is to be real’. This message was quite mundane, with no claims of shipwreck, treasure, marooning or reward for discovery.

 

"It seems a stretch to fabricate the names and origins of nine seamen – why not just make up two or three?

 

"The only thing that struck me as not quite right was the fact that the message ended with ’Steamer, Loch Rannoch, under full sail’. 

 

"Any sailor would know that the Loch Rannoch was not a ’steamer’, it was in fact a sailing ship. Perhaps this was just an embellishment to make the ship seem grander."

 

The feeling that the story is authentic is also shared by message in a bottle hunter Clint Buffington. 

 

Over years of searching, Clint has found 100+ of bottles, the oldest of which was 48 years old at the time of discovery, the same age as the Bingie Beach bottle when it was found. 

 

He agrees that the mundanity speaks true, citing the fad of false messages from this time period often containing hoaxes of ships in distress. 

 

"The great mystery now seems to be, where is this bottle?" said Clint.

 

"Of course I think it’s thrilling to imagine this bottle sitting in someone’s attic.

 

"Finding it now would be like finding it all over again, maybe even more exciting given the great passage of time since the reporting in 1925."

Julian thinks the sailors could have abandoned ship and changed their names once they reached Port Phillip in Melbourne, as was common at the time. 

 

But there is unfortunately no way of knowing if they did claim new lives down under, or if they returned home - yet. 

 

The mystery surrounding these sailors is crying out to be solved - and The Oban Times wants to help unravel it.