In 2018, workers digging down what is now the Barangaroo Metro rail station dug up a ‘survivor’ of Sydney’s colonial past – a 200-year-old timber boat.
And the country’s oldest surviving colonial boat has now become a permanent addition to the Australian National Maritime Museum collection.
The nine-metre boat was uncovered under layers of tidal sand and mud during excavation work for the Barangaroo Metro station in 2018.
The NSW Government says the boat is believed to be around 200 years old, of which 150 of that was spent buried under wharves, warehouses and shipyards.
Transport Minister John Graham says: “Sydney Metro is the most modern form of transport in Sydney.
“It is a nice bit of symmetry that it was construction of the Metro line that unearthed the nation’s oldest colonial era boat,” he says.
“I want to thank those who carefully excavated the boat, preserved it and the Australian National Maritime Museum for giving it a permanent home.”
DIGGING UP A BARANGAROO STORY
Museum Director and CEO Daryl Karp calls the boat “an eyewitness to history to the first tentative decades of European settlement, when Port Jackson was the conduit for transport and trade and vessels of all types plied its waterways”.
“The storytelling opportunities for this are truly exciting. It is more than a Sydney story; it is a national story – it marks a pivotal moment in the country’s maritime history,” she says.
“We look forward to bringing life back to the vessel over the coming years.”
Paul Nicolaou, Executive Director of Business Sydney, says they intend to secure corporate support for the boat’s preservation and exhibition.
“This is a story that goes to the very heart of Sydney’s identity,” he claims.
“As the nation’s first major commercial centre and with the Sydney Chamber of Commerce marking 200 years in 2026, this vessel represents the origins of our city’s economic journey and Australia’s broader trading story.”
Karp says they expect to open it to the public mid-way through 2027.
“It is a gateway to the past that we know visitors to the museum will enjoy investigating,” she says.
ABOUT THE BOAT
The Barangaroo Boat is made from Sydney blue gum, stringybark and spotted gum timber sourced in the Sydney basin.
It was built using the ‘clinker’ technique (overlapping timber planks to make the hull) and is believed to have been used as a transport around Sydney Harbour and Parramatta River.
The boat was delivered to the museum in a refrigerated truck container and museum staff are currently preparing it for permanent exhibition
The 294 individual timber pieces have been treated with polyethylene glycol to reinforce the cellular structure of the wood and reduce further degradation. (This has been used on several other historic recovered shipwrecks including the Mary Rose, Bremen Cog, Batavia and Vasa.)
The polyethylene glycol was added in increasing concentrations into tanks holding the timbers which was kept in the solution for 18 months.
The boat was then snap frozen and taken to Braeside, Victoria, to be freeze-dried.
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