Ceremonial flowers were cast onto the water while dignitaries and relatives made
speeches last week during the
centenary service for one of
Australia’s most famous maritime
tragedies, the SS Yongala.
On the evening of 23 March
1911, one of the most capable and
experienced captains to work the
busy Australian coastal route
aboard a stout and well-maintained
vessel sailed past the lighthouse on
Dent Island in the Whitsunday
Passage and was never seen again.
On board the SS Yongala as she steamed leisurely out of Mackay were 49 passengers,
73 crew, a racehorse named “Moonshine” and a prize bull.
What 14-year veteran Captain William Knight didn’t know was that a cyclone warning
had just been received and with her brand new Marconi radio still on its way from
England, the frustrated keeper could only watch her sail away.
He was the last person to ever see the Yongala.
Three days later, concern escalated and Yongala was posted as missing.
Every possible vessel was thrown into the search but apart from some debris washed
up on the beaches, no trace was ever found and the subsequent inquiry was inconclusive.
It stated in conclusion:
“with no desire to indulge in idle speculation, (we) simply find that after
becoming lost to view by the light keeper at Dent Island, the fate of the
Yongala passes beyond human ken into the realms of conjecture, to add one
more to the mysteries of the sea”.
The only body ever to be recovered was Moonshine’s that washed up in a creek near
Townsville.
Sightings of a ghost ship kept public interest going for a few years, but the outbreak
of WWI all but erased her from memory.
During WWII, a minesweeper fouled on something eleven miles east of Cape
Bowling Green and a subsequent search by an RAN survey vessel all but confirmed
the Yongala’s location in around 25m of water.
But the Navy did nothing.
It wasn’t until 1958 when local skin-divers, Don Macmillan and Noel Cook, brought
back a steel safe from a wreck that the world was forced to remember the Yongala.
The anticlimactic opening revealed only mud, but the safe’s serial number was traced
back to Chubb in the UK who confirmed it was installed in the pursers cabin aboard
SS Yongala in 1903.
The wreck is now a world famous wreck dive attracting some 10,000 divers annually.
It is protected by legislation, so
divers can only visit the wreck with
a licensed operator.
It is at a perfect depth for OW
Advanced divers, but OW divers
can still enjoy the
experience at their 18m limit as no
penetration of the wreck is permitted.
Ironically, Cyclone Yasi blasted
off much of the century’s marine
growth, revealing detail and
artefacts never seen before.
SS Yongala, and her ghostly
complement, now await thousands
more submarine visitors.
