La Bella

Meet the site

The La Bella was a three-masted steel barquentine built in Norway in 1893. On 10 November 1905, inbound from Lyttelton, New Zealand, with a cargo of timber for Warrnambool, she was caught by a rising sea while waiting for the pilot and driven onto the reef just outside the breakwater. The town watched from the shore as the crew clung to the rigging through the night; the lifeboat capsized on its first attempt, and it was a young local fisherman, William Ferrier, who sculled his small dinghy out through the surf alone and brought back survivors, an act that made him a national hero and earned him a Royal Humane Society medal. Seven of the twelve crew died. The wreck is the best-known of the Lady Bay losses and the most substantial, and the rescue remains one of the great stories of the Warrnambool coast.

The La Bella lies on her port side in 13 m about 300 m south-east of the end of the breakwater, bow to the south-west. Heavily covered in kelp and weed, she is nevertheless relatively intact for a wreck of her age on this coast. The bow section stands about 5 m high, with the bowsprit, both anchors and their chain, catheads, winches and hawsepipes clearly visible; amidships are a donkey engine, fragments of rigging, decking frames, a deck winch, bilge pumps and bollards, and the hull plating runs on toward the collapsed stern. An information plinth placed by the Maritime Archaeology Unit marks the site. The wreck and the surrounding reef carry abundant marine life – the Historic Shipwreck Trail notes describe it as one of the richest sites on the trail – with schools of sweep and bullseyes over the hull, wrasse, magpie perch, boarfish and leatherjackets in the structure, crayfish in the plating, and rays on the sand. It is the best wreck dive in the Warrnambool area, shallow enough for Open Water divers, five minutes from the ramp, and the natural first choice for a visiting diver with access to a boat on a calm day. It is a protected historic shipwreck; nothing may be removed.

What you might see

Sea sweep and bullseyes in schools, blue-throat wrasse, magpie perch, longsnout boarfish, leatherjackets, southern rock lobster, smooth rays, kelp and encrusting sponges on the hull, occasional Australian fur seals

Location

Steel barquentine wrecked in 1905, lying on her port side about 300 m south-east of the end of the Warrnambool breakwater in 13 m, with the bow section intact.

Facilities nearby

Lady Bay boat ramp with trailer parking, toilets and showers at the breakwater; Warrnambool Diving for air and gear; Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum; cafes and accommodation in town.