Meet the site
Federal was a steel screw steamer of 1,516 tons built by William Doxford and Sons at Sunderland in 1890, 88 m (290 ft) long with a 40 ft beam, a typical British tramp of the period employed on the Australian coast in the coal trade. On 21 March 1901 she was carrying coal from Newcastle bound for Albany, Western Australia, when she met a severe south-west gale in eastern Bass Strait. She was never seen again; wreckage and bodies came ashore along the East Gippsland coast in the following weeks. All aboard – variously recorded as 29 crew or 31 souls in total – were lost, making her one of the worst Victorian maritime disasters of the Federation year, and for more than a century the wreck's position was unknown. In 2012 recreational divers reported an unidentified sonar target far offshore, and in April 2019 the CSIRO research vessel Investigator, working the East Gippsland shelf with multibeam sonar, produced a 3D map of a wreck 34 km south of Cape Conran and 60 km south-west of Point Hicks in 115 m. It matched the Federal. The imagery shows a ship lying on top of a six-metre-deep scour, broken up, with the stern smashed and the starboard hull plating beginning to fall into the scour. Heritage Victoria declared an 800 m radius protected zone; a permit is required to enter it and anchoring is prohibited. At 115 m in open Bass Strait, a three-hour passage from the nearest bar harbour, the Federal is beyond anything currently dived in Victoria and no dive on her has been reported. Anyone planning an expedition would be pioneering; the realistic way to see the Federal is the CSIRO's sonar model.
What you might see
Unknown – deep shelf community expected (sponges, ling, deep-water crustaceans)
Location
In deep water about 34 km south of Cape Conran and 60 km south-west of Point Hicks off the East Gippsland coast, in 115 m; a declared historic shipwreck protected zone of 800 m radius.
Facilities nearby
Marlo boat ramp (bar crossing) or Lakes Entrance harbour; nothing offshore
Before you make plans
Conditions, access and operator schedules can change. This is a location guide, not a dive plan. Ask a local operator about current conditions and suitability for your training and experience.
Sources & further reading
scubadoctor.com.auRecord updated 26 Sept 2026. Source claims are being reviewed.