Morning Bulletin, Friday 10 February, 1933.
THE YONGALA
Lost In Cyclone
TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO
(By ."Junius")
On March 21st, 1911, friends and
relatives of a number of passengers
assembled at a Brisbane wharf to bid
them God-speed. The travellers were
embarking on the 1825 ton steamer
Yongala for North Queensland ports,
and had anyone suggested the
possibility of their never reaching their
destination, or that the farewells were,
literally, being taken on the brink of
the grave, it is more than likely that
consternation would have been blotted
out by incredulity. The Yongala was
well-found, properly loaded and in
excellent trim, and was commanded by
Captain Knight, whose knowledge
of Northern Queensland conditions and
skill in the handling of large vessels
was beyond question. He also had under
him experienced officers, and a staunch,
well-trained crew.
On the same day, a small rotary
storm of great intensity was operating
about 130 miles north from Willis Island.
There was then no meteorological
station on Willis Island, so that nobody
knew of the storm's existence, and
even had its presence been suspected,
few people would have connected this
small, virulent body upwards of 1000
miles away with the proud steamer which
passed rapidly out of the Brisbane River
to the open sea and sped northwards
with her living freight.
On the 22nd at noon the Yongala
was not far from North Reef lighthouse.
A ship at sea really was more of a
colony in those days before wireless,
than now the ether carries its messages
of shore doings with incredible speed
and unswerving fidelity. The company
on board soon settled down to the
enforced isolation from the kind, and
looked forward to the next port when
contact with world doings would be
re-established. By this time, the cyclone
had moved on a south-south-west
course, and was about 50 miles west
south-west from Willis Island. These
two strangely unlike bodies had moved
much closer together in the last 24 hours.
Their paths were converging, and for a
large ship and 120 souls the sands of
life were running low.
120 SOULS ON BOARD.
On the morning of the 23rd the Yongala
steamed into Flat Top, the anchorage at
Mackay, where she landed 60 tons of cargo
and some passengers. Whatever was the
changing of personnel at Mackay, when the
Yongala steamed away on her last journey at
1.40 p.m., she had on board 120 souls
made up of crew 72, 1st class passengers
29, and 2nd class passengers 19. About
two hours after she sailed the Meteorological
Department at Melbourne advised coastal towns
that cyclonic conditions prevailed between
Mackay and Townsville. That warning was issued
on data which were collected at 9 that
morning and telegraphed to Melbourne.
This is a valuable insight into workings behind the reporting of storm systems. Data at 9 am, 23 March, confirmed the approach of a cyclone. But this data was relayed to Melbourne some 1100 miles distant! This is utterly bizarre centralization! Instead of making this information immediately available to the coastal region in the path of the cyclone, delays were incurred by sending this data to a city on the other side of Australia! At least if this data had been timeously correlated and warnings issued, one could argue in favour of such a system, but this was NOT the case. If this ridiculous system had not been in operation, Captain Knight would have received adequate warning of the cyclone whilst anchored at Flat-Top! There are reports that Bowen submitted a warning directly to Brisbane and then Flat Top, independent of the centralised bureau, but this report still did not get there before 1.40 p.m. when Yongala departed into the unknown.
The reason for this seems to have been
that Melbourne was the seat of the
Federal Government - that is to say, no
other reason worth considering has been
propounded. Whatever the reasons, the
facts were that the 9 a.m. readings
that day showed the existence of a
dangerous storm moving down on to the
coast, and a valuable ship and 120 lives
steamed to their doom, nearly five
hours after those observations were
taken without any warning reaching
them. Bureaucratic pundits in Melbourne
knew, but the master of a ship on the
Queensland coast with 120 lives in his
charge knew nothing of the menace ahead.
No wonder the Inquiry was a whitewash. The bureaucratic system was in large part responsible for Captain Knight NOT receiving a timeous warning!
As the boisterous evening drew to a
close, lighthouse keepers at Dent Island,
which lay 58 miles from Flat Top anchorage
along the route taken by the Yongala, saw
the smoke of a large steamer hurrying north
through Whitsunday Passage. The south-east
wind drove the smoke head of her, sometimes
enveloping her like a funeral pall.
No wonder Captain Knight thought he was outrunning a south-east change rather than steaming into a 'cyclone'. How was he to know that a hybrid cyclone could produce these conditions so far to the south of the centre of the 'cyclone'. Furthermore this interesting excerpt tells us that the keepers could SEE Yongala, which implies reasonable visibility during daylight. Dusk is 6 p.m. this time of year, and the official Inquiry time given for this sighting was 6.35 p.m.. How could this have been possible????
As she drew near it was seen that she
was the Yongala, but although Dent
Island light station was for years
described - presumably by some
humourist - as a signal station, it was
never connected - or had any means of
connecting with the mainland. Hence
the station had no news of the mighty
force which lay ahead, and as the
Yongala surged majestically past at 6.30
she was seen for the last time by
mortals. As she faded into the growing
dusk and increasing welter of storm,
the mists of eternity closed down behind
her and the sea gained yet another tragic
secret.
Another weak link in what amounted to a farce on the part of authorities to warn shipping of imminent storm conditions and danger.
From Dent Island the Yongala had
106 miles to run before reaching the
next light on Cape Bowling Green, and
although the area within the Barrier
widens out considerably after clearing
Whitsunday Passage, it is still far too
narrow for ships to fight out a battle
of life and death with a cyclone.
Additional to this, as the paths of the
cyclone and of the Yongala, were
approximately at right angles to each
other, the south-east wind which drove
her on her way, and in such a feature
of Queensland coast weather over the
greater part of the year, actually was
the direction the wind would blow in
the forward left-hand quadrant of the
cyclone. That is to say, the Yongala
was within the cyclone field soon after
she left Flat Top anchorage, but there
was nothing on board to show that
the strong wind was other than a
seasonal south-easter. Only comparison
of barometer readings at ports along the
coast could tell this, and this, of course,
Captain Knight did not have. It took
several years of agitation to get
that simple and obvious safeguard
established, but that exchange of
readings has been in vogue now for
upwards of 20 years, and was extended to
Western Australia. But bureaucracy
resisted strenuously this invasion by
citizens into its preserves.
The statement that Yongala 'was within the cyclone field soon after she left Flat Top anchorage' is bizarre considering that the cyclone was reported to have been a mere 30 miles in diameter. It must have been a hybrid cyclone. The comparison in barometer readings and the interpretation thereof was lying in an office in Melbourne! There can be no louder vindication of Captain Knight's decision to proceed than 'there was nothing on board to show that the strong wind was other than a seasonal south-easter'.
"SIMPLY OVERWHELMED."
What actually happened on board the
doomed ship will, of course, never be
known. How long after night closed
down it was before Captain Knight
realised that the ship was running into
the path of a cyclone is, of course, a
matter for conjecture, but it is hardly
likely that any of the passengers knew
of the imminence of their danger until
the vessel was actually overwhelmed.
There were many theories, including an
explosion and a faint whistle; uncharted rocks
and even inlands. Searching steamers found
a copper band on Nares Rock, obviously the
driving band of a shell fired by one of the
Queensland gunboats Gayundah on Paluma -
which used this rock as a target when
operating from Bowen on training
cruises. There remained, however, very
little doubt in the minds of experienced
men that the Yongala and the cyclone
centre met sometime in the small hours
of the 23rd when about half-way between
Capes Upstart and Bowling Green, and
that the Yongala was simply overwhelmed.
The cleared track behind Cape Upstart,
in which huge trees were twisted like reeds
and thrown down like nine-pins, indicated
the fury of the gale.
lt is common belief that no trace of
the vessel was even found. This is
wrong, as the beaches of islands to the
north were littered with scraps of
wreckage, much of it easily identifiable
as coming from the lost ship. But
no human bodies were ever found,
although the vessels Alert, Barratta,
Magnet, Ouraka, Tarcoola, and Teal
searched the whole of the reefs and the
coast from Cape Upstart to Lucinda
Point was patrolled by special bodies
of police.
Wireless has robbed sea travel along
the coast of North Queensland of many
of its old terrors. Had Willis Island
meteorological station been in existence,
the storm which was to wreck a proud
ship and carry consternation and
mourning into hundreds of homes,
would have been located on the day
the Yongala left Brisbane. As it was,
the Yongala was in the position of the
train which is sent out blindfolded to
cross a line of rails that another train
is using, with the Angel of Death officiating
as time-keeper to ensure the two meeting
at the intersection.
In conclusion the Federal Government was in large part responsible for the disaster and it would have hurt, to the core, those who had lost loved-ones with the Yongala. If information had leaked that the delays caused by relaying vital storm warnings to Melbourne and from there back to Brisbane and only then, further up the coast, there would have been an outcry of monumental proportions.
The Inquiry could have been nothing else but a whitewash. There was so much more scandal associated with the loss of the Yongala than ever reached the mainstream Press.
The following extract gives further insight into how this disastrous situation came about:
Courtesy: Queensland Past and Present: 100 Years of Statistics,
1896–1996
'Recording the weather
The Queensland Government appointed a meteorologist in 1866. A colonial weather service
was established in 1887, headed by Clement Wragge. Highly influential in the development of
weather services in the colony, Wragge held this position until 1903. He was succeeded by J. B.
Henderson, a hydraulic engineer, who remained in the position until 1908 when the weather
service became a federal responsibility and H. A. Hunt was appointed Commonwealth
meteorologist.
The number of weather collection stations in Queensland grew rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s.
In 1896 there were 504 stations throughout the colony. By 1901 there were 601 stations, and
803 by 1913.8
As Thornhill Weedon explained in 1897:
Queensland is intersected by a comprehensive system of climatic stations supplied with first-class
instruments suited to the classification of each. The greater number of the observers are government
officials—generally belonging to the Post and Telegraph Department—although some are private
citizens. In most cases observations are taken thrice daily, and even more frequently (self-recording
instruments being provided), and the results reported to the head office chiefly by wire. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901 provided for the federal control of
meteorological services. The Meteorological Act 1906 (Cwlth) empowered the Commonwealth
meteorologist to take and record meteorological observations; forecast the weather; issue storm
warnings; display weather, flood, frost, and cold wave signals; and distribute weather
information. The Act also empowered the Governor-General to enter into an arrangement
with the Governor of any State in relation to matters such as the transfer to the Commonwealth
of any observatory as well as instruments, books, registers, records and documents used in
meteorological services, and the taking and recording of meteorological observations by State
officers.'
'In 1996 the Bureau of Meterology had a network of about 6,000 weather recorders across
Australia, including about 2,000 in Queensland. About a third provide data to the bureau
daily. The bureau processes the data and produces weather reports for newspapers, television
and radio.'
This extract does suggest that it was the role of the Commonwealth Meteorologist to collate the data and formulate a storm warning, explaining why the data was sent first by telegraph to Melbourne. However, given that there were 803 weather stations throughout Queensland by 1913, there was no lacking in data information and as an informed reader has commented (see below) delays caused by this laborious, time-wasting system could have been streamlined by decentralizing the weather service. However, the extract implies that this centralized system persisted through to and including 1996. It would be interesting to learn if this system of data collation and transmission to the Commonwealth Meteorologist was 'sped up' as a direct result of the Yongala disaster? After all the purpose of an effective cyclone warning is getting it out as quickly as possible! Not one word of this was mentioned at the formal Inquiry which suggests that the Marine Board of Queensland were fully aware of the implications.
