SS Yongala
SS Yongala
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: | SS Yongala |
| Owner: | Adelaide Steamship Company |
| Port of registry: | Adelaide, Australia |
| Builder: | Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd |
| Cost: | £102,000 |
| Launched: | 29 April 1903 |
| In service: | 1903 |
| Fate: | Sunk during a cyclone, 23 March 1911. All 122 passengers and crew died. There were no survivors. |
| Status: | Wreck |
| Notes: | One of the largest, most well-preserved shipwrecks of Queensland's seas. |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 3,664 tons (mass) |
| Length: | 350 ft (107 m) |
| Propulsion: | Triple expansion steam engine, single screw |
| Speed: | 15.8 knots (29.3 km/h; 18.2 mph) official top speed |
| Crew: | 72 |
The passenger ship SS Yongala sank off Cape Bowling Green, Queensland, Australia on 23 March 1911. En route from Melbourne to Cairns she steamed into a cyclone and sank south of Townsville. All 122 aboard were killed, and traces of the ship were not found until days later, when cargo and wreckage began to wash ashore at Cape Bowling Green and at Cleveland Bay. It was believed that the hull of the ship had been ripped open by a submerged rock. The wreck, which has become a tourist attraction and dive site, was not found until 1958.
SS Yongala was a steel passenger and freight steamer built by Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd in Newcastle upon Tyne, England to special survey for the Adelaide Steamship Company, at a cost of £102,000. She was launched on 29 April 1903, and was registered in Adelaide. The vessel was named after the small town of Yongala in South Australia, a word from the Nadjuri language which meant "good water".
The vessel was propelled by a large triple expansion steam engine built by Wallsend Shipway and Engineering Co., which drove a single propeller. Official top speed was recorded as 15.8 knots (29.3 km/h; 18.2 mph), although Yongala was recorded to have reached 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) on multiple occasions. Five single ended steel boilers working under natural draught supplied steam of 180 pounds per square inch (1,200 kPa) pressure. At 15 knots, Yongala's engines burned approximately 67 tonnes of coal per day. A direct acting steam windlass and capstan was fitted on the forecastle head. Cargo handling was done with two steam cranes, along with seven winches with derricks and derrick-posts. Electric lighting was fitted throughout the ship with a duplicate generating plant. She was also provided with refrigeration facilities for the carriage of frozen cargo. A specially arranged steam and hand steering gear was fitted in a house at the after end of the fantail and controlled from the bridge.
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