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Herbert arrived in Perth aged 22 in late 1968. He pretty quickly secured a reputation as a swimmer of extraordinary daring , swimming out several hundred yards from shore off City Beach Cottesloe and Swanbourne, invariably running into trouble with the police because of his actions, both in and out of the water. The media in Perth picked up on his regular swims, often attending his 'launch' from the beach, and quickly nicknamed him "Shark Bait". The horrible aptness of this tag became clear in mid March of 1969 when Herbert went for yet another swim apparently after being promised by friends two 18 gallon kegs of beer and a free lunch if he swam to Rottnest. The salmon were running off the coast, and with them were the sharks. Voigt swam out of sight, never to be seen again. Although it's not clear if he was taken by a shark or if he drowned, what is certain is that his disappearance caused a frenzy of local media and rescue activity - all to no avail. Theories about what went wrong centred on Voigts refusal to have an escort and that he was prone to suffer from cramps. The final chapter of the story occured when an escaped prisoner found a skull near the ship wreck of the Alkimos several weeks after Herbert's disappearance. Searches along the beach failed to turn up other remains. Police, using what for then were pretty sophisticated methods, superimposed pictures of Herbert over the skull and concluded that the skull indeed was his. They closed the file. Beyond this the only other aspects of the story are that Herbert worked in a restaurant kitchen in Hay St, Perth and stayed at a private hotal again in Hay St. He was very keen on a girl but she rejected his offer of engagement because she felt that she didn't know him well enough after such a short time. He had several male friends who lived in Cottesloe and had been offered him up to a thousand dollars to swim to Rottnest as his reputation grew. One of the few reminders of Herbert Voigts' daring is the picture below, which hangs above the bar of the Swanbourne Nedlands Surf Life Saving Club. Herbert has become our "patron" of way out ideas, such as preparing a Club Colour Cap Guide. For this reason the Club Cap Recognition System is named after Herbert Voigt. | |||||
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The Disappearance of Herbert Voigt is also detailed in Chapter 8 of 'Why Swim to Rottnest, When You Can Catch The Ferry? - Eighty Years of Open Water Swimming in Western Australia' by Lesley Meaney. On the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of Herbert Voigt, Bret Christian, editor of the Post Newspaper, wrote a comprehensive article on Herbert, which made front page! Bret was a cadet reporter for the Daily News and was at the beach when Herbert attempted his last swim. | |||||
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Swanbourne Nedlands SLSC |
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