Qualla: SS Yongala

SS Yongala: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Orin Optiglot, CC BY-SA 2.0. The warning was flying from the signal station, and the Yongala never saw it. As she steamed north past Mackay on 23 March 1911, the flags at Flat Top Island carried news of a cyclone gathering between Townsville and Mackay. Other ships read the signal and ran for shelter. But the Yongala had no wireless set yet, hers was still in transit from England, and she pressed on into open water and out of sight of land. Somewhere off Cape Bowling Green, the storm found her. All 122 people aboard were lost. Not one body was ever recovered.

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Image: Orin Optiglot | CC BY-SA 2.0

SS Yongala: A Fine Ship on a Long Run

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Allan C. Green, Public domain. The Yongala was barely eight years old and well loved. Built in 1903 at the Armstrong Whitworth yard on the Tyne for the Adelaide Steamship Company, she was a handsome vessel with electric lighting throughout and accommodation for 240 passengers. She had pioneered Australia's lon...

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Image: Allan C. Green | Public domain

SS Yongala: The Days of Waiting

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0. When the Yongala failed to arrive at Townsville, hope held on for a while. Perhaps she had simply taken shelter, as prudent ships did. By 26 March she was listed as missing, and the Premier of Queensland sent seven vessels to search. Then the sea began to give back its evidence. ...

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Image: Kerry Raymond | CC BY 4.0

SS Yongala: Forty-Seven Years in the Dark

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Yongala kept her secret for nearly half a century. Then, in 1958, the wreck was located on the sea floor off Cape Bowling Green. A fisherman recovered a safe from one of the cabins; inside was only black sludge, but part of a serial number survived, 9825W. Years later, the sa...

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Image: Public domain

SS Yongala: Where the Lost Ship Teems With Life

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Ling, CC BY-SA 2.0. There is a strange grace to what the Yongala has become. Rising alone from a flat sandy seabed, the wreck is the only hard structure for miles, and over a century the ocean has claimed it utterly. Soft and hard corals encrust the hull. Giant groupers and Maori wrasse patrol the d...

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Image: Richard Ling | CC BY-SA 2.0