RUMOURS AND REPORTS.

Cairns Post, Thursday 13 April, 1911.

Fate of the Yongala.

Rumours and Reports.

Surmises and Conjectures.

(From the "Post" Correspondents.) 

BRISBANE, Friday.- Various and

startling are the rumours and the

conjectures one hears in Brisbane

concerning the Yongala disaster. 

(It has been authoritatively declared,

by the way, that the proper 

pronunciation of Yongala is 

Yong-er-la, not Yong-ga-la-). 

Some people blame the captain, 

some the ship and some, only the

cyclone.

Some say Captain Knight was too

anxious to lick every other steamer 

on the same run, and his desire to 

do a very smart passage to Townsville 

outran his discretion and better 

judgment. A good many persons are 

inclined to think that the captain had 

timely enough warning of the awful 

cyclone had he cared to take it.

Everyone, however, speaks of Captain 

Knight as a fine fellow socially and 

most people do not have the view 

that the ship was lost through

foolhardiness on his part.

As to the story re the lack of

stability of the Yongala there 

may not be anything in that 

contention but whether there 

is or not the owners are not 

likely to admit it.

As a matter of fact it may be

taken for granted that if the

Yongala was known to the 

Adelaide Company to be in 

any degree unseaworthy they 

would not have permitted her to 

remain a day at sea in that 

condition.

What seems to be a reasonable

way of looking at the matter is to

assume that the captain acted with

all necessary caution, and that the

steamer was stable and seaworthy in

every way and that her most mysterious 

disappearance was entirely an act of 

Providence. The fearful storm broke

on the ship from all sides at once, 

and all the efforts of her master and 

Crew were puny and futile. She was 

bulleted about like a cork until engulfed 

by some great wave or until she struck a 

rock or a reef with tremendous force, 

and went almost immediately to her

doom.

But how strange it is that even

if the passengers were under hatches,

not one body has been found, and

very little wreckage. Will the real

fate of the vessel and the 120 souls

on board remain a secret until at

Gabriel's trumpet call the sea shall

give up its dead?

The unspeakably sad disaster has

served to bring once again into relief

the better side of our common

human nature. A generous response

is being made to the appeal for relief 

funds, and no doubt a sum will

be raised that will make it possible

to remove the dependents of the men

who went down with the ill-fated

steamer from the possibility of want

or starvation, even if it be found

that as seems to be thought, the

Adelaide Company are not liable 

for compensation to the widows 

and children of the crew. The fund

has been opened at a time when the

public are being asked to assist the

sufferers by the recent disastrous 

cyclone at Port Douglas but there is

enough charity in the hearts ot the

people of Queensland and Australia

to provide for the necessities of the

losses by both catastrophes.

As in the case of the missing Waratah, 5 years prior, speculative opinion dominated the press reports. A desperate hunger to unravel the truth behind the two significant disasters. Without evidence of where Yongala foundered, and why, it is understandable that issues would be raised regarding seaworthiness; crew competence and the force of the storm.

As we have seen there has already been suggestion that Captain Knight was a bit gung ho, quite possibly ignoring warnings from a falling barometer and subsequently steaming into the heart of the cyclone. But there could be more to this than meets the eye.

The Yongala was rumoured to be top heavy, much like the Waratah. These steamers required adequate ballasting to offset GM instability and we know that Yongala was carrying only 36% of cargo capacity = deadweight - the 150 tons of pig iron. I take the point that Yongala had successfully negotiated storms before, which to some extent proved her seaworthiness. However, it took storms of 'exceptional violence' (Waratah Inquiry) to put these ships to the ultimate test - circumstantial evidence pointing to failure under these conditions.

It makes sense that crew and passengers would have been 'under hatches' given the storm. This strongly suggests that the disaster unfolded rapidly without allowing time for escape onto the boat deck. The rapidity of the disaster points strongly at the cyclone being the primary cause. Striking a rock or running aground would have allowed more time for emergency procedures and evidence of wreckage and bodies in the proximity of the scene.

Anecdotal evidence from the time describes steamers foundering within minutes under certain circumstances. 

It will be interesting to see what the Inquiry made of all of this....

In my opinion it was reprehensible that the owners took no responsibility for the welfare of crew's families!