YONGALA WAS FAST!

The Courier-Mail, Friday 27 April 1934.

STEAMER CANBERRA

35 Hours from Sydney to Brisbane.

With the passenger accommodation

fully occupied, and with a large cargo

for Brisbane and North Queensland

ports, the steamer Canberra arrived

from Melbourne and Sydney yesterday

morning. The trip from the wharf at

Sydney to the Brisbane Wharf occupied 

35 hours, equalling a performance

put up by the Yongala in March, 1906.

The Canberra was built in 1913 by Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd, Linthouse, Clyde, Glasgow. Like Yongala she was a combination passenger / cargo (refrigeration) steamer of 7707 gross tons; 4307 net tons; length 410 ft.; beam 57.2 ft.; depth 38.4 ft.. Canberra was powered by twin quadruple expansion engines producing 1202 nhp. Supplied to the Howard Smith & Co based in Melbourne, she serviced the same coastal routes as Yongala. She could cruise at 15 knots (pushed to 17 knots) and had a formidable appetite for coal giving rise to the nick name 'Hungry Mary'.  

Yongala in terms of visual appeal, luxurious appointments and outright speed was a gem of the coastal trade. But she will always be remembered for succumbing to a cyclone and dragging 121 souls to their deaths off Cape Bowling Green, Queensland, 23 March, 1911.

Canberra - courtesy State Library of Queensland - John Oxley Library.