CONTINUING rumours alleging some historic Loch Ard shipwreck ballast has been lost by Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village have again been torpedoed by the city council’s tourism services manager Peter Abbott.
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He said people posting comments about the lead ingots loaned to the village had been misguided.
“I stand by my assessment that all the ingots will be located,” he said.
The issue came to light after a recent count of the historic relics showed a discrepancy of 66 ingots between a count in 2012 and another in 2014. The most recent count confirmed that 652 had been located.
Records show about 870 of the Loch Ard’s 944 ingots were made available to Flagstaff Hill in 1984 by the Commonwealth government. Each weighs about 69kg and measures 89 by 14 centimetres.
Many are stored in various places around the village and three apparently went to Port Fairy for ballast in the town’s historic lifeboat.
“There are definitely some in the Rowitta which will be retrieved when she is dismantled next year and others are in the mud,” Mr Abbott said this week.
“I’ve peered in and seen some and I trust our boat builder who knows there are ingots in there.
“If anyone had come in to steal them we would have seen signs of forced entry.”
Mr Abbott said there were inaccuracies with documentation of many of the 10,000 items in the Flagstaff Hill collection and the audit team was working to produce an accurate account.
The discrepancy was highlighted at the December Warrnambool City Council meeting when city chief executive Bruce Anson was asked by Cr Brian Kelson to explain.
Mr Anson replied most had been located in the bowels of the Reginald M display vessel at the village and the rest were probably in the Rowitta, which was too dangerous to climb aboard for retrieval.
After The Standard ran a story on the issue, several readers added comments to the conjecture.
Mr Abbott said measures had been taken to reduce the chance of display items being stolen, including replacing old bottles in the hotel with low-cost fakes.
“We are an open working museum and in the past people have jumped the counter,” he said.
One of the most notable alleged thefts was a bravery medal presented to William Ferrier for his daring rescue from the La Bella wreck in 1905.
