Bass Strait

 

(băs) , channel, 80 to 150 mi (129–241 km) wide, between Tasmania and Victoria, SE Australia, connecting the Indian Ocean and Tasman Sea; Port Phillip Bay and Melbourne are on the northwest coast. Bass Strait is an important fishing area. The exploration of the strait by Englishman George Bass in 1798 proved that Tasmania was not a part of the Australian continent.

Bass Strait (IPA: /bæs/) is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland (Victoria in particular). The first European to discover it was Matthew Flinders in 1798. Flinders named it after his ship's doctor George Bass.

Approximately 240 km wide at its narrowest point and generally around 50 metres deep, it was almost dry during the last ice age. It contains many islands, with King Island and Flinders Island home to substantial human settlements.

Like the rest of the waters surrounding Tasmania, and particularly because of its limited depth, it is notoriously rough, with many ships lost there during the 19th century. A lighthouse was erected on Deal Island in 1848 to assist ships in the eastern part of the Straits, but there were no guides to the western entrance until the Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse was completed in 1859, followed by another at Cape Wickham at the northern end of King Island in 1861.

Strong currents between the Antarctic-driven southeast portions of the Indian Ocean and the Tasman Sea's Pacific Ocean waters provide a strait of powerful, wild storm waves. By far most Australians refer to the waters at the Bass Strait's western end as the Southern Ocean. To illustrate its wild strength, Bass Strait is both twice as wide and twice as rough as the English Channel. The shipwrecks on the Tasmanian and Victorian coastlines number in the hundreds, although stronger metal ships and modern marine navigation have dropped the danger sharply. Many vessels, some quite large, have disappeared without trace, or left scant evidence of their passing. Despite myths and legends of piracy, wrecking and supernatural phenomena akin to those of the Bermuda Triangle, such disappearances can be invariably ascribed to treacherous combinations of wind and sea conditions, and the numerous semi-submerged rocks and reefs within the Straits. One of the most famous and well documented incidents is the Frederick Valentich Disappearance of 1978.

Islands

There are over 50 islands in Bass Strait. Major islands include:

Western section:

• King Island
• Three Hummock Island
• Hunter Island
• Robbins Island

South eastern section:

• Furneaux Group
  • Flinders Island
  • Cape Barren Island
  • Clark Island
  • and over 50 other islands

North eastern section:

• Kent Group
  • Deal Island
  • and 3 smaller islands
• Hogan Island
• Curtis Island

Natural resources

See also: Energy in Victoria

A number of oil and gas fields exist in Bass Strait. The eastern field, known as the Gippsland Basin, was discovered in the 1960s and is located about 50 km off the coast of Gippsland. The oil and gas is sent via a pipeline to gas processing facilities and oil refineries at Longford, Western Port, Altona and Geelong, as well as by tanker to New South Wales. The western field, known as the Otway Basin, was discovered in the 1990s offshore near Port Campbell. Its exploitation began in 2005.

Infrastructure

Transport

The fastest and cheapest method of travel across Bass Strait is by air. The main carriers are Qantas, JetStar, and Virgin Blue. Major airports include the Hobart International Airport and Launceston Airport; the smaller airports are serviced by Regional Express who generally fly only to Melbourne and the Bass Strait islands.

The domestic sea route is being serviced by two Spirit of Tasmania passenger/vehicle ferries, all based in Devonport, Tasmania. They travel to Station Pier in Melbourne.

Australian Olympic Bronze Medallist Michael Blackburn sailed a Laser Sailboat all the way across the Bass Strait. This crossing is also done semi regularly by experienced sea kayakers, usually by island hopping on the Eastern side.

See Transportation in Tasmania for more details.

Energy

See also: Basslink

The Basslink HVDC electrical cable has been in service since 2006. It has the capacity to carry up to 630 Megawatts of electrical power across the strait and is the longest submarine power cable in the world.

Alinta owns a submarine gas pipeline, delivering natural gas to large industrial customers near George Town, as well as the Powerco gas network in Tasmania.

Communications

The first submarine communications cable across Bass Strait was laid in 1859. Starting at Cape Otway, Victoria, it went via King Island and Three Hummock Island, made contact with the Tasmanian mainland at Stanley Head, and then continued on to George Town. However it started failing within a few weeks of completion, and by 1861 it failed completely.

Tasmania is currently connected to the mainland via two Telstra-operated fibre optic cables; since 2006, dark fibre capacity has also been available on the Basslink HVDC cable.

Other submarine cables include:

Date	Northern end	Southern end	Companies (Manufacturer / Operator)	Details
1859-1861	Cape Otway	Stanley Head	Henley's Telegraph Works Tas & Vic Govts	System 140 nm
1869-?	?	?	Henley's Telegraph Works Australian Govt	System 176 nm
1885-?	?	?	Telcon Australian Government
1909-1943	?	?	Siemens Bros Australian Government	System 285 nm. Was reused at Torres Strait
1935-?	?	?	Siemens Bros Australian Government	First telephone cable
1995-	Sandy Point	Boat Harbour	ASN Telstra	First fibre optic cable
2003-	Inverloch	Stanley	ASN Calais Telstra
2005-	Loy Yang	Bell Bay	Basslink	First electrical distribution cable

Popular Culture

On the popular Australian soap Neighbours, one of its most dramatic storylines unfolded when a 1940s themed joy flight to Tasmania was sabotaged by a bomb. The plane crashed into the water in the middle of the night and many characters lives were put at risk, with some drowing. See Neighbours Plane Crash.

References

• Tasmanian Department of State Development - Redi Map
• "Telstra plans second Bass Strait optical fibre cable", Sydney Morning Herald, 2 August 2002. 
• The Basslink Project.
• History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications.
• Broxam and Nash, Tasmanian Shipwrecks, Volumes I and II, Navarine Publishing, Canberra, 1998 & 2000.

Coordinates: 39°56′09″S, 146°04′52″E

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