Holyhead

Meet the site

The Holyhead was an A1-class four-masted iron barque of 2,237 tons, 89.6 m long, built at Liverpool by R.J. Evans & Co in 1889 – one of the last generation of big iron sailing ships – and, like the George Roper beside her, she was lost on her maiden voyage. She left Liverpool on 28 November 1889 for Melbourne, arrived off the Heads in February 1890 and failed to obtain a pilot; at about 3.30 pm on 12 February 1890 she struck the Lonsdale Reef. The Queenscliff lifeboat took off all 51 of her crew within hours. Salvage recovered part of the cargo before the sea broke her up.

The Scuba Doctor listing describes a debris field roughly 100 m long in 6–10 m: the steering gear and the rudder, broken in two, at the seaward end; hull plating and mast stumps; the windlass; and cargo of slate and railway iron scattered across the reef. Because it lies a little deeper and further out than the Roper the iron is less buried, and the site reads more clearly as a ship. Kelp and coralline algae cover the plates, crayfish and abalone are in the frames, and the fish are those of the outer reef – bluethroat wrasse, sweep, morwong – with seals passing from the point.

The listing's description of the environment is the key to the dive: heavy surge in a 'highly oxygenated white water zone', dived only between the end of the ebb and the start of the flood, on the flattest of days. That makes it, with the Roper, one of the least-visited historic wrecks at the Heads despite being within a few hundred metres of a car park, and one of the most rewarding for a diver with the experience to choose the day. A protected historic shipwreck.

What you might see

Kelp and coralline algae, southern rock lobster, abalone, bluethroat wrasse, silver sweep, magpie morwong, zoanthids, Australian fur seal

Location

On the outer Lonsdale Reef just south-west of Point Lonsdale lighthouse, 31 m south-south-east of the George Roper wreck.

Facilities nearby

Free car park at Point Lonsdale lighthouse; public toilets by the lighthouse; no showers; cafes and shops in Point Lonsdale village 800 m away; nearest air fills Dive Victoria Group, Queenscliff (5 km).