Winston Peter Sweeting

Fred Sweeting emigrated from Wales, via England, arriving in Fremantle in 1927 at the age of 21 years. He travelled to the Kalgoorlie area, where he met Gladys Starr and married her in Coolgardie in 1935. In 1941 the birth of twins Winston Llewelyn “Peter” and Desmond Idriess “Des” on 22 February 1941 was noted in local newspapers. There are records between 1941 and 1953 of the family living at Mt Monger, and Fred gold mining there with a Mr Cecil Starr, a member of Gladys’ family.

The family later moved to Geraldton and Winston, more commonly known as “Peter”, was residing at Forrest Street. He was employed as a deckhand on the Batavia Road. She was built in Fremantle by H. Wilmott & Cofor Archdale “Dal” Gage and Alan Fox, two Geraldton fishermen. She was registered as the first boat of 1947 as a ketch rigged vessel of 15.9 ton vessel with LBD of 80.6 x 18 x 10.5 feet [18.5 x 5.6 x 3.2 meters]. She also had a diesel Gray motor of 225bhp and could travel at 8 knots. She was bought and sold multiple times prior to the 1970s when she was operating as a carrier vessel, carting rock lobster from the Abrolhos Islands to Geraldton. She was licensed as G5.

On 3 May 1971 Batavia Road was moored at North Island, the northmost island of the Abrolhos Islands. Peter and another deckhand, Kim Stevens had visited the island and were rowing the dinghy from island back to the vessel at 6.45pm when the dinghy overturned and the men were thrown into the water. Kim swam around searching for Peter, but when he could not locate him, he swam to the closest vessel and climbed to safety.

A search was started the next morning, and Peter’s body was found at 10am, and was taken back to Geraldton on a fishing vessel. Peter was buried in Geraldton, in the Utakarra Cemetery. Peter was mourned by his mother and brother.

The Batavia Road continued work for another three years. She foundered on rocks approximately 32 kms north of Geraldton, on 25 January 1974. Although the crew were rescued, attempts to move the vessel off the rocks were unsuccessful. The Geraldton museum has a model of the Batavia Road on display, built by Mr Bob Sweet in the 1950s to commemorate her illustrious career in the local cray fishing industry.