SAHRA Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage
January 8:
Staaten Generaal under Vice-Admiral Pieter Melville.
The Staaten Generaal was renamed 'Bato' after it had finished serving in the North Sea and was moved to Cape Town
“This day in our shipwreck and aeronautical wreck history”
1806: Bato, this 74-gun Dutch ship of the line was scuttled on Long Beach in Simons Town in False Bay in the Western Cape. The Bato was a 74-gun Dutch ship of the line built in 1784 in the Rotterdam shipyards. Initially named Staaten Generaal, she was renamed Bato after completing her service for the Dutch in the North Sea.
Edges of burnt timber on the Bato (1806) in 2012
She served in defending Amsterdam and then as part of the East India squadron, travelling between Cape Town and Batavia. On 27 February 1804, the Bato returned to Table Bay and would never leave South African waters again. Deemed unseaworthy, the vessel was used as a floating battery to defend Simon's Town.
What remains of the main site of the wreck of the Bato (1806) is visible on satellite images, with much kelp having grown over it
The crew was ordered to burn it when the Dutch lost the Battle of Blaauwberg to the British and a new occupation became inevitable. Today very little of the wreck remains, but because it is a very shallow wreck in a sheltered bay, it has seen been the subject of many maritime archaeological projects. Timber and conglomerated iron and kelp patches make this wreck visible on satellite images too. The unit last inspected this wreck in November 2020.
One of the Bato's (1806) guns which stands in front of the Simon's Town post office
1906: Spray, this wooden steam-powered fishing ketch wrecked on North Patch Reef at Bird Island in Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape. Two lives were lost as a result of the wrecking.
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