SMASHED HER DECKS LIKE AN EGGSHELL.

The Argus, Melbourne, Friday 31 March, 1911.

A CYCLONE THEORY.

Captain Thompson, A.U.S.N.'s Wyreema:

"How do you account for the cargo from the lower

hold drifting ashore, if the vessel's bottom was not

ripped open?"

Captain Thompson replied that only those who had

encountered cyclones knew their terrific force. 'If the

seas broke on the Yongala, as they probably did, they

would smash her decks like an eggshell. That would

account for the cargo from the lower hold being afloat.

No vessel, however well found, could pass through the

centre of a cyclone. Being in a cyclone is like being inside

a drum. There is a terrific surging noise round you, as if

all the fields in Hades were yelling. It is like hell let loose.

The sea breaks in every direction at once, a heavy sea 

and wind are coming over on one side, and the next 

minute the sea and wind are coming from the other. 

If there is searoom you might get out of it, but if there

is no room you can only anchor and trust to Providence.

Where the Yongala was there was no searoom, only 

about 15 or 30 miles between the coast and the reefs.

As for the force of the wind, when I was with Professor

Agassie surveying the reefs, we came across the bones

of a whale 30 ft. long 18 ft. above the high water mark.

The rush of water from a cyclone must have pushed it

up there.' 

Yongala's wreck site is 11.5 n miles from Cape Bowling Green and 23 n miles from the Barrier Reef. Captain Thompson certainly knew what he was talking about! Such force could certainly have stoved in Yongala's after hatch, allowing an inundation of tons of water and liberation of cargo from the holds.