'Volition', 2025

Even with modern navigation aids, even with favourable seas and weather conditions, maritime accidents still occasionally occur.

A longliner fishing vessel, the ‘Volition’ ran aground on rocks off Dickinson Point, Bermagui, in the early hours of February 27th, 2025. It had put to sea on 24th February and was returning to Bermagui to unload its catch. As weather and sea conditions were favourable, it is likely it would normally have unloaded and then returned to sea.

When she hit the rocks, the ‘Volition’ immediately filled with water and the sea swell caused a ‘free surface phenomenon’ to develop (as the vessel is rocked from side to side, gravity causes the water and other liquids aboard (such as diesel fuel in its tanks) to slosh from side to side), causing rapid disintegration of the vessel from the repeated impacting with the rocks. Within days, ten tonnes of debris, including 2 tonnes of fish waste, had been recovered from the wreck.

The four men on board made it safely to shore.

Evidently, the ‘Volition’ was built in the 1970s in Lavender Bay, Sydney, and was previously known as ‘Angelica’ and ‘Lochiel’.

At least two other fishing vessels were wrecked in the vicinity of Bermagui in the last decade - the ‘Shoalhaven’ (details of this wreck would be greatly appreciated) and, in October 2020, the ‘Salvatore V’. (Again, details about this incident would be much appreciated.)