Cawarra (ship)
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The Cawarra was an Australian passenger ship put into service in 1864 , which capsized and sank in a severe storm on July 12, 1866 in the port of Newcastle in New South Wales (Australia) . Of the 62 people on board, only one survived.
The ship
The 552 GRT large steamer Cawarra ran on June 2, 1864 Dock Point House Shipyard shipyard A. and J. Inglis on the River Clyde in Glasgow from the stack . It was driven by a steam engine on two paddle wheels , one on each side. The hull was made of iron . The Cawarra was 64.28 meters long, 7.66 meters wide and had a draft of 3.7 meters. The three masts were equipped with the rigging of a schooner . The ship's rescue equipment included four boats (two lifeboats , a cutter and a dinghy ).
The owner was the Australian shipping company Australasian Steam Navigation Company, founded in 1840 and based in Sydney . This shipping company operated a passenger service from Sydney via Newcastle to Moreton Bay and Melbourne and at times to New Zealand . The Cawarra was on the Sydney – Brisbane route . On December 7, 1864, the ship came from Scotland for the first time in Sydney. On July 7, 1866, the Cawarra left Brisbane under the command of Captain Frederick W. Trouton with 70 people on board for her last completed voyage.
The downfall
When the Cawarra left Sydney on Wednesday 11 July 1866 under the command of Captain Henry Chatfield for her next voyage to Brisbane and Rockhampton , the first signs of an impending storm appeared. The barometers were falling and large dark clouds obscured the horizon. There were 36 crew members and 26 passengers on board the ship (five in first and 21 in third class). Captain Chatfield was a seaman with an excellent reputation. He had previously commanded the Boomerang , but was standing on the bridge of the Cawarra for the first time . During the voyage, the Cawarra got into a severe storm that sank a total of 15 ships on the coast of New South Wales and claimed a total of at least 77 lives from Port Stephens in the north to Sydney in the south. On Thursday morning the wind suddenly changed from southwest to northeast and a few hours later again to southeast. The wind speed was 61 miles per hour . It rained almost continuously and with the strong winds came a stormy, churned sea.
At 11:00 pm on July 12, was aboard the Cawarra country identified and an hour later came Lighthouse Nobbys Head Lighthouse at the entrance to Newcastle Harbor in sight. Captain Chatfield wanted to take shelter in the harbor and not continue the voyage until the weather improved. He ordered the sails to be hauled in, but most of them were torn and blown away in the strong wind . He also had the cargo stowed on deck thrown overboard and asked the passengers to help. At the same time he made the lifeboats clear. When a ship was sighted at the harbor entrance around 1 p.m., most took it for the ferry that came daily from Sydney. But when instead the Cawarra entered Newcastle harbor and headed for a stretch of bay called Oyster Bank, a large number of onlookers gathered at the piers to see how the ship struggled with the heavy seas. The ship initially made constant speed in the rough seas and everyone assumed that it would land safely.
Instead, the Cawarra suddenly stopped. Then she turned and seemed to want to get out to sea again. Suddenly she was hit by high waves several times in a row and lurched heavily. Ingress of seawater got into the hull and put out the fires in the boilers , so that suddenly no more smoke came out of the chimney. This was confirmed when steam escaped immediately afterwards.
There was great excitement among the observers in the harbor. It was expected that any moment the harbor lifeboat would intervene, but nothing happened. Instead, the Cawarra was seen sinking bow first, the chimney tipped over and the people on deck gradually being washed overboard by the waves. A single lifeboat was launched, but it capsized and was flooded. One by one, the masts, to which numerous passengers were clinging, broke and fell into the water. The Cawarra was almost smashed by the massive breakers and finally disappeared under the water surface around 4 p.m.
The harbor lifeboat finally made its way to the Cawarra and was accompanied by a lifeboat from Bark Maggie V. Hugg . But the boats could not do anything for the castaways . In the evening a man was discovered who had been clung to a board and washed up against a buoy . It was the 31-year-old British Frederick Valentine Hedges, a crew member of the Cawarra . He was the only survivor of the accident. Three men pulled him out of the water. One of the three rescuers was James Johnson, the only survivor of the Dunbar's sinking nine years earlier.
Aftermath
It wasn't until three days after the sinking, on Sunday, July 15, that the first bodies washed ashore. Many of them were injured or mutilated and barely dressed in clothes. A total of 41 bodies were recovered and taken to the local hospital for identification. A public funeral was held in Newcastle on July 17, 1866, in the presence of the mayor of the city, Charles Kemp, and of the New South Wales Chamber of Deputies, James Hannell. The funeral procession led from the hospital to Christchurch Cemetery, where about 3,000 people attended the funeral. Flags were flying at half mast across town and shops were closed. However, some victims were shipped off to be buried in their hometowns.
The government of New South Wales put together a five-member committee to investigate the sinking of the Cawarra under the direction of Edward Orpen Moriarty, chief engineer for ports and rivers . The committee of inquiry published its final report on November 6, 1866. It came to the conclusion that the fate of the Cawarra could befall "the best ship and the most experienced captain" and that no one could stop such events.
It was harshly criticized that the Newcastle lifeboat had only set out for the Cawarra when most of the people had already been washed overboard. The boat's captain, James Taylor, was absent at the time of the tragedy, so casting was delayed. The port attendant on duty, Alexander Collins, was forced to take Taylor's place, but before he could leave, a drunken crew member had to be pulled from the boat. Most of the other crew members had little experience with the boat. When the boat finally approached the Cawarra , most of the oars broke or were lost due to the stormy seas.
After the sinking, 230 sacks of flour, three barrels of rum, 22 boxes of wine, several boxes of tea as well as parts of the railing , a winch and an anchor were recovered from the wreck of the Cawarra . To mark the sinking point, a buoy, the Cawarra Buoy, was installed above the wreck. The wreck, which was broken in two, lies beneath the remains of several other ships that later sank in the same place. On the seafront at Stockton, a suburb of Newcastle, there is a plaque commemorating several ships that have sunk in the harbor, including the Cawarra .
literature
- Jack K. Loney: Wrecks on the NSW Coast. JK Loney, Portarlington 1975, ISBN 0-909244-08-1 .
Web links
- Detailed report on the storm and sinking of the Cawarra
- Part of the sinking from the book Wrecks on the New South Wales Coast by JK Loney
- The Cawarra in the Clydebuilt Ships Database
- Entry in the ship directory Miramar Ship Index
- Passenger and crew list of the last trip
Coordinates: 32 ° 54 ′ 51.8 ″ S , 151 ° 47 ′ 47.9 ″ E