Australia’s own Titanic: 10 things you never knew about the S.S. Yongala

Launched in Newcastle, England, in 1903, the 3700 tonne S.S. Yongala was named after the tiny South Australian pastoral town of the same name. Yongala means "good water" in the local Ngadjuri language. 

2. Had the postie been more prompt, disaster may have been avoided

As the eight-year-old S.S. Yongala steamed leisurely out of Mackay bound for Cairns, aboard were 49 passengers, 73 crew, a racehorse named Moonshine and a prize bull.

What the 14-year veteran master didn’t know was that a cyclone warning had just been received; and with her brand new Marconi radio still on its way from England, the frustrated lighthouse keeper could only watch her sail away. He was the last person to ever see the Yongala.

3. Some contemporary critics claim the ship was top-heavy

In the raging cyclonic seas, waves broke over her side, immediately filling the Yongala with water and sending her quickly to the bottom.

Three days later, concern escalated and Yongala was posted as missing. Every possible vessel was thrown into the search, but apart from some debris washed up on the beaches, no trace was ever found. It remained one of Australia's biggest maritime mysteries for decades.  

4. The only body ever to be recovered from the wreck was Moonshine’s

The doomed racehorse washed up in a creek three miles south of the Ross River, near Townsville.

5. Sightings of a ghost ship seen sailing between Bowen and Townsville kept public interest going for a few years

But the outbreak of WWI all but erased her from memory.

During WWII, a minesweeper fouled on something 11 miles east of Cape Bowling Green. A subsequent postwar search by an Royal Australian Navy survey vessel, HMAS Lachlan, all but confirmed the Yongala’s location in around 28m of waterr; but no further search was conducted. 

6. Divers cracked the code in 1958

It wasn’t until 1958 when local skin-divers, Don Macmillan and Noel Cook, brought back a steel safe from a wreck that the world was forced to remember the Yongala.

The anticlimactic opening revealed only mud, but the safe’s serial number was traced back to Chubb in the UK who confirmed it was installed in the purser’s cabin aboard S.S. Yongala in 1903.

7. The wreck is now a world-famous dive site attracting some 10,000 divers annually

Not just for the history books, the SS Yongala dive site is one of the largest, intact shipwrecks in the world (and one of Queensland's best). And it's teeming with marine life like manta rays, eagle rays, turtles and sharks. 

It's so special, that the wreck is protected by legislation, so divers can only visit on day-trips with a licensed operator like Yongala Dive near Ayr. It’s at a perfect depth for Open Water Advanced divers, but OW divers can still enjoy the experience at their 18m limit as no penetration of the wreck is permitted.

8. Divers made a grim discovery

Divers once were confronted with discovering human remains inside the hull. Which probably explains why divers have been prohibited from entering the superstructure since 1994. 

9. A cyclone took her down, then another revealed the next chapter

100 years after the disaster, 2011’s Cyclone Yasi blasted off much of the century’s marine growth, revealing detail and artefacts never seen before.

10. You can get up close to the Yongala on dry land in Townsville

If you're compelled by the story of Yongala, but not ready to dive in and see it for yourself, make your way to the Townsville Maritime Museum. Here, may discovered artefacts are on display: the ship’s bell, glass decklight, lantern, light fixtures, crockery, bottles and brass items, a letter found in a mail bag on Cassady’s Beach, and four farthings retrieved from the only passenger luggage ever found.