Tales from the Quarterdeck

Category: Shipwrecks

  • Capture of the Harrington, 1808

    Brig – similar to the Harrington.

    Robert Stewart was not your typical convict born into England’s poverty-stricken underclass and sentenced to transportation for committing some petty crime. Rather, he came from a comfortable though modest middle-class family. Born in 1771, the first ten years of his life would have likely been idyllic, but then his father died, and a year later, his widowed mother enrolled him into the Royal Mathematical Institution. There, he joined the ranks of boys learning maths and celestial navigation, preparing them for apprenticeships in the merchant marine or Royal Navy. Had he graduated, Stewart would have had a respectable and rewarding career that would one day see him master of his own ship. However, Stewart harboured ambitions of one day enjoying the sort of wealth and privileges that “higher-born” gentlemen took for granted.   

    In June 1785, Robert Stewart’s rebellious nature and frequent absences led to his expulsion from the institute.  He then joined the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman and over the next 12 years rose to the rank of Petty Officer. But in 1798, aged 27, he deserted, likely embittered that he would never be promoted into the officer ranks.  Three years later, he stood trial on fraud and forgery charges. Stewart had purchased goods while posing as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and paid for them with a forged cheque. Caught, charged and found guilty, he was sentenced to transportation for life and sent to Van Diemen’s Land.

    Sydney Cove c1809. Courtesy State Library of NSW.

       Stewart arrived in Hobart on the Calcutta in 1803 and did not attract any undue attention for a year or so. However, twice, he attempted to escape by seizing small colonial vessels and setting sail. Both times ended in dismal failure, and he was returned to Hobart to face punishment. After his second attempt, he was sentenced to death. Stewart was only spared that punishment due to a blanket pardon given to all prisoners under capital sentence by the recently appointed Governor of NSW, William Bligh. However, in 1808, he was sent to Sydney to serve a period of time at hard labour.

       But Stewart never gave up hope of regaining his freedom. This time, he had his eye on the 180-ton brig Harrington anchored in Sydney Cove. She had recently returned to Port Jackson from China with her hold filled with tea after delivering a cargo of Fijian sandalwood. So lucrative was the trade that the Harrington’s captain was set to do it again.   The ship was stocked with enough supplies to last the crew several months and was to sail any day.   

    At 10 o’clock on the night of 15 May 1808, Stewart led as many as 30 fellow convicts out to the waiting ship in two boats they had just stolen. They came alongside as quietly as they could so as not to alert any sentries. But when Stewart climbed over the side, he found he had the deck to himself. The rest of the men swarmed over the gunwales. Some went forward to secure the crew. Others went aft to take care of the officers. The Harrington’s Chief Officer, Arnold Fisk, woke to the sight of Stewart holding a pistol to his head. The brig’s captain and owner could not be found, for he had gone ashore earlier that day. As Stewart and his men took control of the ship, the captain was blissfully asleep in his home overlooking Sydney Harbour.

    Sydney Gazette 22 May 1808, p. 2.

        With the ship’s company under guard, the convicts cut away the anchors and used the two stolen boats to tow the Harrington the length of Sydney Harbour. Once they reached the Heads, the sails were unfurled and the wind took them out to sea. By 7 a.m., they were about 20 nautical miles (40 kilometres) off the coast.

       Stewart ordered the Harrington’s crew into the two boats so they could make their way back to Sydney. They pulled into Sydney Cove later that afternoon to learn the alarm had already been raised. Earlier that morning, Captain Campbell had looked out across the Harbour to find his ship was not there.

       It took authorities three days to organise a ship, the Pegasus, to go in pursuit. By then, Stewart and the Harrington were long gone. The Pegasus cruised the Fijian Islands and then sailed on to Tonga before returning to Sydney via New Caledonia. She was gone nine weeks and arrived back empty-handed. For a time, it looked as if Robert Stewart and his band of bolters had made good their escape. Stewart had sailed the brig nearly 8000 kilometres north and was approaching Manila in the Philippines when their luck ran out. HMS Dedaigneuse spotted the unfamiliar vessel, and her captain sent a boarding party across to investigate. By then, the Harrington was flying American colours, and Stewart presented the officer with papers purporting that the ship was of American origin. The forged documents did not fool the officer in charge of the boarding party who seized the ship. Stewart, now calling himself Robert Bruce Keith Stuart, was taken back to the Dedaigneuse while the rest of the convicts were locked in the Harrington’s hold, now under the command of a British naval officer and a prize crew.

       Shortly thereafter, the Harrington ran aground off the island of Luzon. Most of the convicts were reported to have got ashore where they fled on foot. However, there is some evidence to suggest that their “escape” might have been fabricated, and they were actually press-ganged into Royal Navy service.

       Stewart, on the other hand, had a much easier time of it. He spoke and carried himself in a gentleman-like manner, professed to have enjoyed a liberal education and that he had connections to some of Britain’s most prestigious families. Stewart claimed to have once been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy before he fell victim to the penal system. As a result, he was accorded considerable leniency by the Dedaigneuse’s captain.    Captain Dawson allowed Stewart “every reasonable indulgence and forbade to place him under personal restraint.” That was until Stewart tried to escape and came very close to succeeding. After that, he was placed under close confinement. Stewart was eventually delivered to British officials in India, where he continued masquerading as a gentleman in need of help rather than the escaped convict that he was.

    Calcutta circa 1809.

       He knew he could not hide the fact that he had committed an offence serious enough to warrant transportation to New South Wales. So, instead, he fabricated a preposterous story about his conviction. Stewart claimed he had eloped with a young lady from a very respectable family, though chivalry required him to leave her unnamed. But, after they were secretly wed, a junior Baronet who also had desires for the lady broke into their apartment. Stewart said he had shot and injured the young aristocrat in what he described as an affair of honour. Stewart said he had been unfairly found guilty of attempted murder and sent to New South Wales. That sounded more in keeping with a gentleman than being caught for the more tawdry crime of passing a forged cheque. His tale garnered much sympathy from the colonial administrators in Calcutta. The Chief Magistrate even went as far as to champion Stewart’s cause, penning a letter to his superior suggesting he should be released.

       But then, in August 1809, Stewart’s time ran out. The British officials could not ignore that he was a fugitive from justice, and the Governor General ordered him to be returned to Sydney. He was placed on board a ship bound for Australia, but before it sailed, Stewart went missing. At first, the captain claimed he had jumped overboard and likely drowned, but it later transpired he had been whisked away in a boat by one of his many admirers and taken back to Calcutta.

       So, Robert Stewart may have escaped justice and settled in India under yet another assumed name, or caught the next ship leaving port. No one knows for the trail grows cold then. One thing is certain: he never returned to New South Wales to serve out his sentence. Nor did he face punishment for masterminding the seizure of the brig Harrington.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • The Invercauld shipwreck, 1864.

    Illustration of the Invercauld. Source: The Castaways, Andrew Smith, 1866.

       In recent years, the loss of the Invercauld and its tragic aftermath has been held up as an example of what can go horribly wrong when leadership fails. In contrast to the wreck of the Grafton, on the same island at the same time, where all five men survived, only three of the Invercauld’s 25-man crew lived through the ordeal. The considerable loss of life has sometimes been blamed on the captain’s failure of leadership. But that harsh criticism is based largely on a version of events contained in a memoir written by one of the survivors, some 60 years after the event. Robert Holding had little to say in praise of his captain, but his chronicle stands in stark contrast to the only contemporary account left by one of the other survivors. His story is one of grinding struggle against the elements, a hostile landscape, and a scarcity of food.

       The Invercauld was a 888-ton merchant ship under the command of Captain George Dalgarno. She sailed from Melbourne on 3 May 1864, bound for the Peruvian port of Callao to load up with guano.

       Almost from the outset, they were plagued by foul weather. As they bore southeast in a long, sweeping arc that would take them deep into the South Pacific, they battled strong winds, high seas, rain, sleet, and snow. Then, a week after leaving Melbourne, the lookout sighted the dim outline of land ahead through the pouring rain. Dalgarno took the sighting to be the Auckland Islands, south of New Zealand, at 61 degrees south. He had been unable to take any sightings due to the weather, but had calculated that he was likely approaching their southernmost point. He altered course a few degrees south to clear them with a safe margin.    To Dalgarno’s great surprise and alarm, the lookout called land ahead again. Dalgarno’s navigation had been off more than he had anticipated. He realised, too late, that his ship was in mortal danger, for they were being blown towards a lee shore. By now, the sun had set as the storm continued to rage around them. He spied what he thought was a narrow passage separating two islands and decided that this was his best chance to save the ship. He brought the Invercauld around to the north and heaped on as much sail as he dared, hoping to pass unscathed through the channel into calmer waters beyond.  

       High cliffs loomed out of the inky darkness on the starboard side, and then they were caught in breaking surf. Dalgarno lost all control of the ship. She ran aground broadside on a rocky shore. Huge waves crashed over the deck. There was no time to get the lifeboat over the side, for the Invercauld almost immediately broke apart under the pounding. The men ditched their boots and heavy oilskins as the ship came apart under their feet. Twenty-five men were swept into the turbulent sea to be washed ashore in a small cove backed by towering cliffs. Only 19 men survived the sinking, and all were battered and bruised from being bashed against rocks and wreckage.

       The sodden survivors huddled together for warmth during that first freezing night as the sea spray, rain, and sleet beat upon them. In the early hours, they gathered some of the wreckage to build a lean-to, which gave them some shelter from the worst of the elements. When the sun rose, they got their first proper look at where they had been tossed ashore. They were trapped on a narrow crescent of rocky beach hemmed in on three sides by towering cliffs. The only food they had been able to find washed ashore from the wreck was a kilogram of salt pork and a kilogram bag of sea biscuits, not much to sustain 19 cold and hungry men. One item that would aid them in the future, once it had dried out, was a soggy box of matches that the steward had found in his pocket.   

    To remain where they were would spell the end of them all. The only option they had was to scale the cliffs and see what lay at the top. The climb would claim another sailor who slipped and fell to his death. When Dalgarno and the 17 surviving crew reached the top, they found an inhospitable landscape of dense scrub and coarse grass as far as they could see. Dalgarno thought they would have a better chance of surviving on the more sheltered eastern side of the island. So, off they set, barefoot through the thick vegetation. It took them two weeks to cross the island. Two weeks of pushing through dense scrub, of being lashed by freezing wind and rain, of barely subsisting on a diet of roots and leaves, but for one day, when they caught a small pig.

    Newcastle Journal, 1 Aug 1865, p. 3.

       Four men died from fatigue and exposure during the long trek. Six others broke away from the main group led by Dalgarno, wanting to return to the shipwreck site. Holding was one of them, but he rejoined the main group a few days later. The other five were never seen again.

       By the time they reached a bay on the eastern shore, the party had been reduced to just nine men. There, they found an abundance of limpets fixed to the rocky shore and feasted as only starving men could. But even that plentiful supply was eventually exhausted. They decided they would cross a ridge to the south, hoping they would find another bay filled with shellfish.

       As they crested the ridge, Dalgarno saw two huts on the edge of a bay. They were the first signs of civilisation they had seen since being tossed ashore. When they reached the huts, they found them to have been abandoned, but they provided welcome shelter from the winter elements and the hope that someone might return during the summer months. In fact, the huts were the remains of Endeby’s short-lived whaling station on Ross Bay, which had lain abandoned for the past decade.

       For a time, their fortunes improved. For men who had nothing, the huts were a treasure trove of rubbish that could be repurposed into useful tools of survival. Empty tin cans became boiling pots for limpets. A sheet of iron served as a hotplate over their cooking fire. The discovery of an old adze and hatchet made cutting firewood so much easier. On their first day, they caught a seal, which they feasted on that night. Unfortunately, that was the only one they found, so their diet primarily consisted of limpets, wild roots and greens.

       When they had exhausted this bay of shellfish, remaining any longer seemed pointless. Dalgarno and three others remained at Ross Bay while Andrew Smith, the chief mate and narrator of the only contemporary account of the wreck and its aftermath, Robert Holding and the other two sailors set off to find a better source of food further along the coast. By the time they found a suitable cove and returned to collect the others, only Captain Dalgarno was still alive. The others had succumbed to the cold and starvation. Two more would die in the coming months, leaving just Dalgarno, Smith and Holding still alive.

       Again, their fortunes seemed to improve, at least for a while. After hunting down a couple of seals, they constructed a canoe by stretching the skins over a sapling frame. Now they were able to venture further afield in their relentless search for food. Surviving on a diet of fish, sea birds and the occasional seal, they made it through to summer, but that brought a new set of miseries. Sandflies savaged them, and any seal meat or fish left uneaten for more than a day or so became fly blown.

    …With rescue looking unlikely, the trio realised their only chance of escape lay in building a boat. It was a move born of desperation, for the nearest port was Invercauld in New Zealand, nearly 500 km away. They returned to the huts and pulled them apart using the timbers to construct a boat. However, no sooner had they finished building it than a storm lashed the island and swept it out to sea. They built a second boat with the remaining timbers and, over the next couple of months, used it to travel around Ross Bay and to nearby islands in search of seals and other food sources. They found that one island was thickly populated with rabbits, which eventually proved to be an easy source of meat and skins.

       As their second winter loomed, they built a sturdy sod-walled hut complete with a fireplace and chimney to see them through the coldest months. Then, on 21 May 1865, one year and ten days after being cast upon the island, a vessel dropped anchor in Ross Bay. It was the Portuguese ship Julian, which had pulled in for repairs while on a voyage from Macao to South America. The Julian’s captain had seen Endeby’s whaling station marked on his chart and had hoped to get some help repairing his badly leaking ship. All he found were the Invercauld’s three castaways. When the Julian set off for South America, Dalgarno, Smith, and Holding went with her.

    Main sources: The Castaways: A Narrative of the Wreck and Sufferings of the Officers and Crew of the Ship “Invercauld” of Aberdeen on the Auckland Islands by Andrew Smith, 1866; Captain Dalgarno’s letter to the ship’s owners published in the Birmingham Daily Post, 31 July 1865, p. 8; and A Narrative of the wreck of the “Invercauld” among the Auckland Islands by Captain Dalgarno in Wrecked on a Reef by Francois Raynal, 1874.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • Marooned for twenty months: the loss of the Grafton 1863.

    The last of the Grafton castaways are rescued. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874..

    On 12 November 1863, the 56-ton schooner Grafton sailed from Sydney on a sealing expedition among the islands of the Southern Ocean. Six months, 12 months, then 18 months passed without any sighting of the ship or its crew. Most people had given up hope of seeing them again, presuming they had been lost in that vast expanse of freezing ocean wilderness to Australia’s south. Then, on 27 July 1865, three of the lost mariners stepped ashore at Invercargill, New Zealand. Their leader was the missing ship’s captain, and he reported that his other two shipmates were still stranded on a remote island to the south. This is their remarkable tale of endurance and survival against the odds.

       The Grafton was ostensibly on a sealing expedition funded by a consortium of Sydney businessmen. But it also had a more secretive mission to investigate if tin could be found on Campbell Island. The Grafton was to visit the isolated scrap of land some 650 km south of New Zealand and determine if the rumoured tin was there in mineable quantity. An experienced master mariner named Thomas Musgrave was appointed captain of the Grafton, and one of the business partners, Francois Raynal, served as his first mate. Two seamen and a cook rounded out the five-mancrew.

       The weather was atrocious for most of the voyage south through the roaring forties and then into the furious fifties. During one particularly heavy gale, the Grafton was laid over on her side by the force of the wind. But after three weeks of hard sailing, they finally reached Campbell Island, at latitude 52.6°S.  

    Illustration of the Loss of the Grafton on Auckland Island, 1863. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874.

       Prospecting for tin came to nothing, and there were few seals to be had. After a month, they had little to show for their time there. They had been gone for almost two months and had consumed nearly half of the four months’ worth of rations they had left with. Captain Musgrave decided it was time to start heading for home. No one disagreed. They departed Campbell Island on 27 December 1863 with the wind blowing hard from the northwest. As they approached the Auckland Islands, Musgrave found that he could not sail past them without getting dangerously close to land. He decided the safest course of action would be to find shelter in one of the inlets and wait for the wind to shift. They dropped anchor in what they would later learn was Carnley Harbour on 31 December. But soon after arriving, their haven turned out to be anything but when it was lashed by a powerful storm. On the night of January 2, the wind shifted and blew at hurricane strength, as the seas foamed and grew mountainous around them.  

    Site of the Grafton wreck site, Auckland Island. Courtesy, Google Maps.

        For a time, the Grafton rode out the maelstrom. Then one anchor chain snapped, and the second anchor began to drag. At midnight, the schooner was driven up onto a rocky beach. “Within fifteen minutes, she was nearly full of water, with heavy sea breaking over her,” Musgrave later wrote of the ordeal.   

    The crew gathered provisions and warm clothing and piled it all on deck. Then everyone found shelter where they could, and waited for daylight as the storm raged around them. Francois Raynal had fallen ill sometime earlier, but his shipmates looked out for him during that bleak night. In the morning, they climbed into their small dinghy, which was already filled with supplies. Captain Musgrave tied a rope to the Grafton and slowly let it run out as the overloaded dinghy was pushed towards land. When they were close to the beach, one of the seamen, Alexander McLaren, jumped into the surf holding a rope tied off to the boat’s bow. He waded ashore and then wrapped the rope around a tree. As Musgrave let his line out, McLaren pulled his in, and the boat made it through the surf to land safely on the beach. It was that level of simple cooperating that would stand them in good stead during the months that followed.

    Captain Thomas Musgrave. Source: Castaway on the Auckland Islands, 1866.

        The castaways spent that night sleeping on the cold, wet ground, but were no doubt grateful that they had made it off the wrecked schooner alive. As for the Grafton, she was pounded to pieces, with no prospect of being repaired and refloated. After the weather had cleared sufficiently, they returned to the wreck. Their priority was to salvage the sails and timber spars, enough to build a small hut so they had shelter from the harsh elements. Despite being marooned on a remote island, Captain Musgrave and the others believed it would only be a matter of time before a ship passed by and they would be rescued.

       But as the months rolled by, their hopes of being found ebbed away and finally vanished completely. The small amount of water-damaged sea biscuit and salted pork they had saved from the schooner had run out long ago. Then, for the next 18 months, they survived on a diet comprised mainly of seal meat. Raynal, who over time recovered his strength, was able to brew a passable ale, which he believed would help keep scurvy at bay.

    Inside the hut on Auckland Island. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874.

         The castaways strengthened their hut, built a fireplace and chimney, and furnished it with stretchers, a table, and stools. Lanterns fuelled with seal oil gave the interior a warm, comforting glow. When not out procuring food and water or keeping vigil for any ship that might pass by, Musgrave taught his illiterate sailors how to read. The castaways also passed their time playing chess and dominoes with bone pieces Raynal had carved by hand. They also played cards for a time, but Raynal eventually destroyed the pack when it became evident that Musgrave was a poor loser. As their clothes deteriorated, they were replaced with seal-skin garments. In short, they made their home as comfortable as circumstances would allow.   

    After spending a second summer on Auckland Island without ever seeing another soul, the castaways decided to wait no longer to be rescued. It was now around March 1865, and another freezing winter was fast approaching. They considered constructing a new vessel from the Grafton’s wreckage, and they even built a forge to assist them. However, the venture was abandoned for want of an auger to drill holes through the timbers. Instead, they turned to making their twelve-foot (3.6 metre) dinghy more seaworthy. They extended its length by 76 cm, built up the sides and furnished it with a deck. When it was finished, Musgrave found it was so unstable that it would have been too dangerous to call all five of them to safety.

     

    Preparing the dinghy to escape from Auckland Island. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874.

       On 19 July 1865, Captain Musgrave set off in the dinghy with only two men, Francois Raynal and Alexander McLaren, promising to return quickly to rescue George Harris and the cook, Henry Brown. After five days of hard sailing through foul weather, they reached Stewart Island, 450 kilometres to their north. They put into Port Adventure and fell in with the Flying Scud. The next morning, Musgrave and his mates were taken the final 50 km across Foveaux Strait to Invercargill on New Zealand’s South Island.   

    After sufficient funds were raised by the good folk of Invercargill, a ship was chartered to take Captain Musgrave back to Auckland Island to retrieve his two shipmates. The Grafton’s story is a testament to what can be accomplished when a group of resourceful individuals, aided by a measure of good fortune, work together for their common good.

    As chance would have it, the survivors of another ship, the Invercauld, had washed up on the northern end of Auckland Island around the same time.   Unfortunately, theirs is a far different story and is the subject of a future blog.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • Cyclone Mahina & the loss of the North Queensland Pearling Fleet, 1899.

    Pearling luggers at Thursday Island. Courtesy State Library of Queensland.

       On 2 March 1899, Cyclone Mahina formed near the Solomon Islands and began tracking south-west towards the Queensland coast. On the same day, a second weather system formed in the Arafura Sea northwest of Darwin. This “monsoonal disturbance” was named Nachon and began moving towards the southwest. Unbeknown to the Thursday Island pearling fleet anchored in Bathurst Bay, 400 kilometres down the Queensland coast, both of these powerful weather systems were bearing down on them. Mahina and Nachon would collide over Bathurst Bay, wreaking havoc on the fleet, resulting in the loss of as many as 400 lives.

    Cyclone tracks for Cyclone Mahina which devastated the Thursday Island Pearling fleet at Cape Melville on 5 March 1899

       The pearling fleet was based at Thursday Island in Torres Strait, but the pearlers regularly ventured across Queensland’s warm tropical waters in search of shells. Pearling schooners served as floating processing stations for their fleet of ten to 15 luggers and diving boats. It was those smaller vessels that ranged out over nearby reefs, collecting the lucrative shells from the sea floor.

       March 4 was a Saturday and, for the pearlers, the much-anticipated start to the weekend. After they had delivered their pearl shells to their respective station schooner, tending to any repairs and restocking with provisions for the next week, it was time to relax and catch up with friends and family whom they had not seen all week.

       The schooners Sagitta, Silvery Wave, and Crest of the Wave were anchored near Cape Melville just inside Bathurst Bay. As the prevailing winds had been blowing from the southeast for the previous three weeks, everyone was anchored close to shore where the mountains extending inland protected them from the worst of the wind.

    Opening and cleaning shell on the schooner Olive. Source: The Pearling Disaster, 1899.

       The schooners Tarawa, Meg Merrilees, Olive and Aladin were anchored about 75 kilometres away near Pelican Island on the northwestern end of Princess Charlotte Bay. The manned Channel Rock lightship and several other pearling vessels were scattered along the Great Barrier Reef in the path of the approaching storm. No one, including the local Aboriginal people, could imagine the violent mayhem about to be unleashed upon them.

       At 7 o’clock on Saturday evening, only a moderate breeze was blowing from the southeast. However, just four hours later, the wind had increased to hurricane strength. It had also begun shifting direction from the southeast to the southwest. As Cyclone Mahina tore towards Bathurst Bay, the wind continued shifting further to the west, and eventually it blew from the northwest. For much of the early hours of Sunday, 5 March, the pearling fleet was exposed to the cyclone’s full fury. Torrential rain lashed the vessels. Streaks of angry lightning arced across the night sky while peals of thunder, howling wind and crashing waves competed to drown each other out. The hundreds of men and women trapped on their boats could do nothing but pray that they survived the ordeal.   

    Then, around 4 a.m., a massive storm surge swept through the bay. By 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, the tempest had moved inland, and some sanity returned to the world. It was only then that the few survivors would learn the full devastating impact of the storm.

    Boats cleaning copper at Flinders Island. Source: The Pearling Disaster 1899.

       The Tarawa’s anchor cables had parted around 3 a.m., and she was swept onto Pelican Island. However, she was lucky for the damage would be easily patched, and she would limp back to Thursday Island. The Meg Merrilees dragged her anchors and ran onto a coral reef. All hands survived the wild night, but attempts to refloat the schooner were unsuccessful. The tender Weiwera was also lost. Of the 30 or so luggers anchored nearby, one-third sank with the loss of nine lives. The schooners Olive and the Aladin were more fortunate. Their anchors held, and they survived the night.

       The vessels lying off Cape Melville fared far worse. The 25-ton tender Admiral had only arrived in Bathurst Bay on the morning of the cyclone. She foundered at the storm’s height with the loss of her five crew and an unknown number of passengers brought down from Thursday Island to join the fleet. The Silvery Wave likewise was lost. Only a Japanese crew member named Sugimoto survived. The Sagitta was thought to have collided with the Silvery Wave and went to the bottom of Bathurst Bay with nearly 20 hands.   

    Captain W. Field Porter survived to give a harrowing account of that terrible night.  He recounted that his schooner, Crest of the Wave, was anchored near the other vessels off Cape Melville while about 40 luggers were in shallower water close to the beach. As the storm intensified, his anchors began dragging. Fortunately, the wind and current pushed the schooner into deeper water. “The intense darkness and driving rain prevented anything [from] being seen of the other boats or the land. The sea by this time was very rough, and enormous waves broke time after time on board,” Porter later wrote of his experience.

    “Mr Outridge, preparing for deep sea diving and assisted by Captain Porter of the Crest of the Wave.” Source: The Pearling disaster of 1899.

       The eye of the cyclone passed over his ship around 4.30 in the morning. After ten or fifteen minutes of dead calm, Captain Porter recalled, the wind suddenly came from the north-west, “with such terrific force that the schooner was thrown on her beam ends and [was] almost buried in the raging sea.” With much difficulty, the masts were cut away, and the ship righted itself. But by then, she had taken on a lot of water. The bilge pump was manned, and every spare hand bailed with buckets to keep the ship from sinking. Eventually, it was discovered that the water was entering through the rudder trunk. The leak was plugged with blankets and bags of flour, and the ship was saved. However, for 12 long and terrifying hours, the crew battled the elements, not knowing if each moment would be their last. Finally, the wind and seas started to ease, and Captain Porter and his men began to think they might just survive. As for the luggers, they either foundered at their anchorage or were driven ashore, where most were smashed to pieces. Some wreckage was found almost half a kilometre from the beach, taken there by the massive storm surge which swept several kilometres inland in places. Only a handful of the luggers were able to be refloated.

       The Channel Rock Lightship, moored between Cape Melville and Pipon Island, was nowhere to be seen after the storm passed and was believed to have sunk at her moorings with the loss of four lives. The bodies of Captain Gustaf Fuhrman and the mate Douglass Lee were later found near Cape Melville amongst debris from the lightship.

    Wreck of the Zanoni at Cape Melville, Source: The Pearling Disaster, 1899.

       It is estimated that some 300 pearlers lost their lives that night in Queensland’s most deadly natural disaster. While a dozen Europeans perished, most of the casualties were men and women from Torres Strait, the South Pacific, Japan and Malaya. Most were buried where their bodies were found with simple timber markers noting their final resting place. It was thought that as many as 100 local Aborigines were also killed during the storm and its massive tidal surge.

       On Flinders Island, several dolphins were found washed up on rocks almost five metres above the high tide mark. One witness painted a vivid picture of the destruction at Bathurst Bay. “There is quite a forest of mastheads and floating wreckage, the boats having evidently sunk at the anchorage. There are tons of dead fish, fowl, and reptiles of all descriptions, and the place presents the appearance of a large cemetery. All the trees have been stripped of their leaves.”

       Four schooners and 54 luggers were wrecked beyond repair, which devastated Thursday Island’s pearling industry. The human cost was even higher. With so many casualties, barely a family on Thursday Island escaped losing a loved one.

    Cyclone Mahina memorial at Cape Melville which marks the loss of 300 people during the storm. Photo: CJ Ison.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • The 1878 Loch Ard Tragedy

    “The Wreck of the Loch Ard near Sherbrook River.” Source: Illustrated Australian News, 8 July 1878, p. 20.

       In early June 1878, the Scottish merchant ship Loch Ard was expected to arrive in Port Phillip Bay at any time. But that was not to be. News soon reached Melbourne that the ship had been wrecked near the Sherbrook River, some 50 kilometres west of Cape Otway, with a fearsome loss of life.

       The Loch Ard was a 1623-ton fully rigged sailing ship belonging to the Glasgow General Shipping Company. But she proved to be an unlucky vessel. On her maiden voyage, she was twice dismasted. The first time it happened was shortly after she departed Glasgow on a voyage to Melbourne in December 1873. She was struck by a powerful storm and had to return to port to undergo a refit. She then set sail again in January the following year. This time, as she was crossing the Southern Ocean, she lost all three masts and nearly foundered during a ferocious storm. The resourceful captain was able to set jury-rigged masts from spare spars and limp the rest of the way to Melbourne.

       On this most recent voyage, the Loch Ard sailed from London on 27 February 1878 under the command of Captain George Gibbs with around 25 to 30 crew, 17 passengers and over 3,000 tons of cargo. But as she neared the end of her voyage, the weather closed in on that most dangerous stretch of Victoria’s coastline.

    The Loch Ard. By Allan C. Green – State Library of Victoria.

       The weather became squally, and the sky remained overcast for several days, preventing Captain Gibbs from making any observations as his ship ran before the wind under close-reefed topsails. Sailing instructions warned mariners to remain far out to sea until they had passed Cape Otway before making the final approach to the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately, Captain Gibbs was sailing blind and was unaware of how much danger he and his ship were in until it was too late.

       Around 4 a.m. on 1 June, the lookout spotted white-capped waves breaking over a reef half a nautical mile (one kilometre) ahead. Gibbs ordered the ship to be put about, but the wind continued to push them towards danger. He then ordered both anchors to be let go, but they did not hold, and the ship continued towards the jagged fangs of the reef and the towering cliffs beyond.

       When they were just 150 metres from the rocks, Captain Gibbs ordered the anchors to be slipped, and he tried to put on more sail, hoping he might veer the ship back out to sea. But it was far too late. The crew had only managed to set the mainsail when the Loch Ard crashed into the rocks on her starboard quarter. The topmast went over the side, taking two seamen with it. Meanwhile, Gibbs ordered the lifeboats to be readied for the evacuation of the women. But by now, successive waves were crashing onto the deck and sweeping it clean.

    “The rescue of Miss Carmichael” Source: Illustrated Adelaide News, 1 Aug 1878, p. 13.

       Midshipman Thomas Pearce and several other seamen had tried getting one of the lifeboats over the side to begin taking on passengers when it was washed into the swirling seas. Meanwhile, the captain and several sailors were struggling to free another boat from a tangle of fallen rigging. Then, a massive wave lifted the Loch Ard off the reef, and she sank in deep water, spilling everyone into the turbulent seas.

       Pearce managed to cling to his upturned boat, but he never saw any of his shipmates again. By now, it was daylight, and he saw he was drifting towards a small bay. Once in the bay, he left the boat and began swimming towards shore. Then he found an upturned table and climbed onto it. He washed up onto a small sandy beach with all manner of crates, driftwood, and other debris from the wreck. After taking some time to recover his strength, Pearce searched the small bay to see if anyone else had survived. Just then, he heard a cry for help coming from the water. He then spotted a woman clinging to a spar bout 50 metres out in the bay.    He swam out, dragged her ashore, and the pair took shelter in a shallow cave. The young lady was 19-year-old Eva, the eldest daughter of the ship’s surgeon, Dr Carmichael. His wife and three children had accompanied him on the voyage, for they had intended to settle in Victoria.

    Miss Carmichael and Thomas Pearce. Source: The Illustrated Adelaide News, 1 Aug 1878, p. 13.

       After rescuing Eva, Pearce collapsed beside her from sheer exhaustion and slept. He felt somewhat recovered when he woke and turned his mind to scaling the high cliffs surrounding the bay so he could go and find help. He eventually found a route up and then a well-trodden path and began following it. After walking several kilometres, he came upon a shepherd tending to a flock of sheep. Pearce asked him to send for help while he returned to the bay to let Eva know assistance was on the way.

       However, when he returned to the cave, he found Eva was gone. Pearce searched the area but was unable to see her. When help arrived, the search continued. And then, just as night was falling, a faint cry was heard coming from behind a bush. There, they found Eva, barely conscious. She was hauled up the cliff face with the aid of a rope, where a carriage was waiting to whisk her away.

    The cave and wreckage strewn on the beach. Source: Australasian Sketcher, 6 July 1878, p. 11.

       Eva Carmichael and Thomas Pearce were the only survivors from the Loch Ard. The young midshipman had the unenviable task of identifying the remains of several bruised and battered bodies that washed up in the next few days.   

    Among the tons of debris washed ashore was one particularly well-constructed crate that contained a large porcelain peacock. It had been manufactured by Minton and had been sent out on the ship to be displayed at the upcoming 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition. It had survived the wreck without so much as a chip of damage. It and other relics from the Loch Ard are now on display at Warrnambool’s Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum. The small bay where Thomas Pearce and Eva Carmichael made it ashore is now named Loch Ard Gorge.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2023.

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.