"FOUNDER AT VERY SHORT NOTICE."

The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 10 April, 1911.

YONGALA DISASTER.

CAPTAIN JONE'S VIEWS,

Lost Wednesday a representative of

the "Mail" sought out Captaln Jones, 

the local harbour master, and

obtained from him the facts and opinion 

regarding the ill-fated Yongala.

The Yongala, said Captain Jones,

was a well and substantially built

vessel with a deep keel and a high

floor. She was a good sea boat,

perfectly safe in all weathers, even

as an empty ship in water ballast.

In my opinion, she would never capsize. 

Captain Knight was a good, reliable master 

and had first-class officers under him. The 

vessel had powerful and reliable machinery 

and carried a staff ot flrst class engineers.

She was well found in every respect as a

first class passenger ship. I travelled in her 

recently and experienced heavy weather 

on the voyage and found her a splendid sea 

boat.

I knew Captain Knight for many years; we

served together in the sailing ship Windsor

Castle from London, over thirty years ago.

In my opinion the Yongala, after

clearing Whitsunday Passage, shaped

a mid channel course, to give the 

mainland a good offing and reef

and islands a wide berth, and made

a good course to a position between

Cape Bowling Green and Cape Cleveland.

This eloquent summary of the the most likely course chosen by Captain Knight confirms that Yongala was on course when she foundered. She was 5 mile further offshore which corresponds with 'give the mainland a good offing.'

The following extract dated 1954, goes further:

This obstruction is shown

on our charts 084 degrees 11

miles from Cape Bowling

Green Lighthouse, and is dead

on the track of ships bound

for Townsville — R. G. Ledley,

553 Vulture Street, East 

Brisbane.

courtesy Google Earth

As a small portion of the cargo

from the lower hold, and also the mail

basket (which would be stowed in the

'tween decks) and portion of a music-

room door (which was actually situated

inside the main saloon doors) have been

picked up, it is evident that some serious

accident must have befallen the vessel.

Being in the centre of the cyclone, no doubt

the vessel would labour heavily and would

take some heavy lurches, say from 30 

degrees to 40 degrees, which would mean

that any cargo, especially machinery, that

was not extremely well stowed - would shift

and cause the vessel to have a heavy list

to leeward, and become unmanageable. 

Maintaining this heavy list would cause

the vessel to ship heavy seas and having

a long narrow alleyway enclosed by high

bulwarks, that would be kept full by the

heavy seas would add more weight to 

the lee side and cause a further list. The

constant shipping of heavy seas and the

weight of the water in the alleyway would

stove in the cabin doors, saloon skylights,

flooding the saloon and filling the ship, 

causing her to founder at very short notice.

Should any of the boats unhook as the 

vessel was sinking and floated away clean

of her, in my opinion, they would drift over

the Barrier Reef, probably through the

Flinders Passage, and may have got ashore

on some of the cays in the passage or 

outside the Barrier. I have always found

a strong set out towards the Barrier,

especially when there was heavy rain inland

on the watersheds of the rivers.

It is a privilege to find this extract and explanation which is the closest approximation we shall ever get to what likely took place. 

Note it well.

It is also interesting that a weak link could have been the shifting of cargo, especially heavy machinery such as the wheel components lying in hold 1. 

The author starts off diplomatically defending Yongala's seagoing attributes, but when we read angles of 30 and 40 degrees heel, there can be no denying that the common denominator is a top heavy vessel.

In February 1875, I was on the steamer

Leichardt, Captain McLean. We picked

up a boat and crew from the Gothenburg,

and went out to the wreck of the vessel on

the Inner Barrier. At that time we felt a very

strong current setting out to Flinders' Passage

and carrying all the wreckage over the Barrier

Reef and out to the Pacific.

In the case of the Yongala disaster the set of the current, after the cyclone, carried wreckage both northward and landward. One assumes that lifeboats would have been subjected to the same forces if any had 'floated clean away from her.'

I have experienced a hurricane off

Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean; we

were in a sailing ship, which was

dismasted and the cargo shifted. I

was also in a hurricane between New

Caledonia and the Australian coast

in the steamer Rangatira when the

cargo shifted and we narrowly escaped 

foundering. The same thing I experienced 

when in a sailing ship off Cape Agulhas.

courtesy Trove