The Joseph H Scammell was a three-masted wooden clipper of about 1,410 tons, built in 1884 at Eatonville, New Brunswick, Canada, from Nova Scotian softwood at the very end of the era of large wooden sailing ships. Bound from New York to Melbourne with a general cargo valued at around £80,000 – tobacco, printing paper, sugar, kerosene, turpentine, medicines, clocks, organs, perambulators and hardware – she made her landfall in dirty weather on the night of 7 May 1891. Her master mistook the Torquay area lights for the approaches to Port Phillip and the ship struck the reef about 400 yards off Point Danger (then Point Angle). Everyone got ashore, but the ship broke up within a day and cargo washed along six kilometres of beach from Torquay to Bancoora, triggering a well-recorded bout of looting and a Customs stand-off with locals. The wreck was a founding event in Torquay's history and the town museum still displays salvaged pieces.

Underwater, little coherent structure survives of a softwood hull that broke up in a single day 130 years ago. The site is a reef dive with a wreck theme: divers and snorkellers on flat days find an anchor, iron knees and fastenings, ballast and concreted lumps of cargo scattered in sand-floored gutters between low sandstone reef ridges in 4–9 m. The reef itself, now part of the Point Danger Marine Sanctuary, carries mixed brown algae and kelp, ledges holding southern rock lobster and abalone, and the usual Surf Coast fish – wrasse, sweep, zebrafish, leatherjackets and the occasional weedy seadragon on the sand edges. It is a modest dive that is more about the history and the location than the artefacts, and it suits confident Open Water divers who can read surf and swim a few hundred metres on the surface. Relics are protected under the Heritage Act; look and photograph, do not lift.

From Geelong take the Surf Coast Highway (B100) to Torquay, then The Esplanade south past the Front Beach to the Point Danger car park (about 1.5 km from the town centre). Park at the Point Danger or Cosy Corner car parks; the walk to the water is 50–150 m over grass and a sandy track. Enter from the sand at Cosy Corner on the east side of the point or from the rock platform on the west, and swim out toward the reef about 300–400 m off the point where the ship struck.

A small boat from the Fishermans Beach ramp (2 km north) puts you directly over the site in 10 minutes.

Point Danger faces straight into the Bass Strait/Southern Ocean swell and is a surf break most of the year. Anything over about 1 m of south-west swell breaks across the reef and makes the site unworkable; aim for under 0.8 m and light north to north-east winds. Southerly and south-westerly winds pile white water onto the platform.

Visibility drops for days after strong onshore weather and after heavy rain from Spring Creek. Low to mid tide with a rising tide is easiest for the platform entry; avoid falling tide at dusk. Realistically diveable perhaps 20–30 days a year.

Swim out on the surface from Cosy Corner along the eastern edge of the platform until you are roughly 300 m off the point, descend onto the reef in 4–6 m and work west across the gutters looking for the anchor, iron fittings, ballast stones and concreted cargo. Turn on a third of your gas or when the surge builds, follow the reef back toward the point and surface inside the lee of the platform. No safety stop is needed at this depth; a slow ascent in the shallows is enough.

No regular operator. Torquay-area clubs and Geelong dive shops (e.g. Dive Victoria Group in Queenscliff area, Torquay dive club members) visit occasionally; most visits are by local shore divers and snorkellers on flat days.