KOBENHAVN

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date01 December 1923

Object number00040968

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionThis photograph depicts the 5 meter auxilliary vessel KOBNEHAVN anchored above Longnose Point, now named Yurulbin Point. This image was captured on Saturday 1 December 1923 from a ferry. At the time KOBNEHAVN was the world's largest sailing ship and acted as a training vessel for the Danish Navy. It mysteriosly dissapeared in the Attlantic Ocean five years after this photograph was taken.HistoryKOBENHAVN was built in 1921 and was a sail training ship of the Dutch East Asia Company. The five-masted barque also had an auxillary engine and a capacity of 3900 tons. During a voyage from Buenos Aires on the 14 December 1928 heading to Melbourne, Australia the KOBENHAVN dissapeared and was reported missing on 21 December 1928. No wreckage was ever located even after an extensive search througout the Atlantic Ocean that lasted for more than a year.SignificanceThis photograph represents KOBNEHAVN and its visit to Sydney in 1923.

It is part of the F G Wilkinson Photograph Collection, comprising more than 700 glass plate negatives of ships in Sydney Harbour between 1919 and 1936. The collection provides an extensive and well-documented coverage of the changing styles of shipping in the port of Sydney before the gradual decline of the coastal trade, and in a period which was probably the peak reached by commercial shipping in Australia. The backgrounds also reveal the changing face of the city and harbour foreshores.