ONE of South Africa’s foremost experts on shipwrecks, particularly off the Eastern Cape coast, says claims that the wreck of the Waratah has been discovered cannot be officially accepted until there is firm evidence. Gideon Smit, a conservationist at the East London Museum, said the evidence would have to be in the form of identifiable pictures of the Waratah on the seabed, or an object such as a ship’s bell. Although he declined to give the exact location, marine explorer Emlyn Brown said on July 15 he had found the wreck of the Waratah 11km off the Transkei coast.
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