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Oceanography Workshop (1991)

NSK Kormoran: Looking down on bow. Note davit turned outboard.Copyright: Australian War Memorial.

Science of Oceanography

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In 1991 Mike McCarthy of the West Australian Maritime Museum and Kim Kirsner of the University of Western Australia coordinated a workshop to determine the most likely area for Kormoran.

The keynote speakers were oceanographers or search and rescue experts. Their analyses converged on the area supported by the Kormoran survivors, near 26° South 111° East

Oceanographic approaches cannot be used to define a precise site (e.g., Pearce, 1991); uncertainty in the direction and velocity of current and wind is too great.

Despite the fact that the oceanographic evidence provided no support for a wreck near the Abrolhos Islands, more than 200 nautical miles from the true site of the wrecks, the Parliamentary Inquiry (2001) failed to reject map dowsing, oral history or navigation-based claims for a search near the Abrolhos, and the RAN subsequently implemented extensive and expensive searches off the Abrolhos Islands

111° East

26° South

Hughes (1991) Search and Rescue

FSF (2008): Position of Kormoran established

in 2008

Chart shows search areas recommended by professional Oceanographers and Search and Rescue experts at 1991 Oceanography Workshop.

Steedman and McCormack explicitly rejected the use of reconstruction of the life-boat journey, the argument adopted by Whittaker when he turned away from map-dowsing

Steedman & McCormack (1991)

Oceanographers

Penrose and Klaka (1991)

Oceanographers“to the north of 26°34’

South 111° East