SS Ellengowan
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: |
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| Namesake: | the water spirit Neck |
| Owner: |
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| Port of registry: |
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| Builder: | Akers Mekaniske Verksted, Christiana |
| Launched: | 1866 |
| Fate: | Sank 1881, refloated 1885, later sank 1888 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 58 GRT |
| Length: | 79 ft (24.08 m) |
| Beam: | 15 ft (4.57 m) |
| Depth: | 8 ft 2 in (2.49 m) |
| Installed power: | Direct acting steam engine |
| Propulsion: | Sail, single screw |
SS Ellengowan was a schooner rigged, single screw steamer built by Akers Mekaniske Verksted in Christiania (Oslo) Norway, under her original name, Nøkken. The vessel was powered by sail and a vertical direct acting steam engine. Ellengowan sank at its moorings, unmanned, during the night of 27 April 1888 in Port Darwin and was abandoned. 103 years later, in 1991, she was discovered by divers making it the oldest known shipwreck in Darwin Harbour.
Built in 1866 by Akers Mekaniske Verksted in Christiania in Norway, Ellengowan was originally named Nøkken. She was built for Mr D. Hegermann. The vessel was 79 feet (24.08 metres) long, 15 feet (4.57m) wide, had a depth of 8 feet (2.49m) and had a gross register tonnage of 58. She was powered by sail and a vertical direct acting steam engine. Steam was supplied by a round "scotch" type boiler.
Hegermann used the Nøkken as a private yacht until it was sold to the London Missionary Society (LMS) in 1874. The Reverend Samuel Macfarlane persuaded Miss Baxter, of Dundee, to donate £3,000 for the steamer, renaming it after her own home "Ellengowan". Macfarlane wanted the Ellengowan for missionary work in New Guinea. Departing from Somerset, Cape York Peninsula, the work began with a trip to Anuapata (Port Moresby) in November 1874, to establish the first mission in New Guinea. W. G. Lawes, a missionary with LMS, his wife and the Reverend A.W. Murray travelled on this first trip. Lawes later became the first European missionary to take-up residence in Port Morseby.
Macfarlane then organised an expedition to find the mainstream of the Fly River, a major waterway in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, to determine if suitable land was available up-river to establish further missions. Ellengowan steamed for about 103 kilometres up a river, but it was not the Fly. Macfarlane named this river the Baxter River (also called Mai-Kassa River), after Miss Baxter. Upon the vessel's return to Somerset, Macfarlane granted leave to James Runcie, captain of the Ellengowan, to take Lawrence Hargrave, an Australian inventor and explorer, Octavius Stone and Kendal Broadbent, both naturalists, in another (unsuccessful) attempt to find the mainstream of the Fly River and to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains. A third expedition to find the Fly River was again mounted by Macfarlane on 3 December 1875. He was accompanied by Luigi M D'Albertis, an Italian naturalist and the police magistrate in Somerset, Lieutenant Cherster. On this occasion, the expedition was successful. The Ellengowan steamed upstream for 150 miles, establishing that the Fly was a large and navigable river. As a result, the Ellengowan was the first European vessel to sail up the Fly and Baxter rivers.
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