SS Cawarra
{{Short description|Ship}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2016}}
{{Use Australian English|date=December 2016}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=Cawarra thumbnail.jpg |Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=New South Wales |Ship flag={{flagicon|New South Wales|size=60px}} |Ship name= |Ship namesake= |Ship owner=Australasian Steam Navigation Company |Ship operator=Australasian Steam Navigation Company |Ship registry= |Ship route= |Ship ordered= |Ship awarded= |Ship builder=A. & J. Inglis Pointhouse Glasgow, Scotland [https://web.archive.org/web/20120614091257/http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=1664 Shipping Times: Launched 1864 – PS Cawarra] |Ship original cost= |Ship yard number=14 |Ship way number= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=2 June 1864 |Ship sponsor= |Ship christened= |Ship completed= |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned= |Ship recommissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship maiden voyage= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service=12 July 1866 |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= |Ship refit= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport=Sydney |Ship identification= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honours= |Ship honors= |Ship captured= |Ship fate=Foundered in Newcastle harbour on 12 July 1866 with the loss of 60 lives{{cite web|url=http://www.hvrf.com.au/pages/hrf/hunter_history_highlights.php|title=Hunter History Highlights|publisher=Hunter Valley Research Foundation|access-date=13 August 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070831081156/http://www.hvrf.com.au/pages/hrf/hunter_history_highlights.php |archive-date = 31 August 2007}}{{cite web|url=http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/spalding1/HF1n02.htm|title=Descendants of Henry FULHAM|publisher=Brian Spalding|access-date=13 August 2007}} |Ship notes= |Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship class= |Ship type= |Ship tonnage= |Ship length={{Convert|64.28|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} |Ship beam={{Convert|7.665|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship draft={{Convert|3.688|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} |Ship depth= |Ship hold depth= |Ship decks= |Ship deck clearance= |Ship ramps= |Ship ice class= |Ship power= |Ship propulsion=Steam |Ship sail plan= |Ship speed= |Ship range= |Ship endurance= |Ship test depth= |Ship boats= |Ship capacity= |Ship troops= |Ship complement=36 crew, 25 passengers |Ship crew= |Ship time to activate= |Ship sensors= |Ship EW= |Ship armament= |Ship armour= |Ship armor= |Ship aircraft= |Ship aircraft facilities= |Ship notes= }} |
File:Cawarra plaque.jpg breakwall commemorating the Cawarra]]
File:Cawarra location.jpg breakwall in relation to other wrecks]]
The SS Cawarra was a paddle-steamer that sank on 12 July 1866 in Newcastle harbour, New South Wales, Australia sending sixty people to their deaths.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13133782 |title=WRECK OF THE STEAMER CAWARRA. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=13 July 1866 |access-date=14 December 2013 |page=5 |publisher=National Library of Australia}} The sinking was one of the worst maritime disasters in Australian history.
Owned by the Australasian Steam Navigation Company, the Brisbane-bound passenger vessel had become caught in rough seas off the east coast of Australia during storms that sank 14 other ships and resulted in 77 deaths between Port Stephens in the north and Sydney in the south. As the ship entered Newcastle harbour to take shelter it was overwhelmed by huge waves and sank, bow first, before thousands of onlookers who had gathered along the harbour shoreline to watch the stricken passenger ship. Its wreckage was recovered and, after removal of items of value, it was dumped on the Oyster Bank.
While only one passenger survived the sinking, 60 people were already dead.
"Several hours later, the lighthouse-keeper sighted a survivor and with his assistant James Johnson, who had been the sole survivor of the Dunbar wreck, launched a boat and brought the man ashore... Ordinary seaman [Frederick V] Hedges had grabbed a plank as the ship sank and was eventually washed more dead than alive against a harbour buoy."Loney J K [https://books.google.com/books?id=magaqta1cLcC&q=Cawarra+ Wrecks on the New South Wales Coast] (At Google Books){{Rp|p46}}
The wreck today sits beneath the wreckage of three more vessels that have since foundered in the harbour. Along with other wrecks they were used in the construction of the Stockton breakwall where plaques commemorate the loss of each of the ships including the Cawarra.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://lakescan.customer.netspace.net.au/Cawarra.pdf The Great Gale and Wreck of the Steamer 'Cawarra': Newcastle's Greatest Shipping Disaster] (includes list of the deceased)
{{Inglis ships}}
{{Navbox shipwrecks of New South Wales|Wreckshunter}}
{{Hunter Region places and items of interest}}
{{1866 shipwrecks}}
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Category:Shipwrecks of the Hunter Region
Category:Maritime incidents in July 1866
Category:History of Newcastle, New South Wales
Category:Paddle steamers of Australia
Category:Ships built in Glasgow
Category:1851–1870 ships of Australia
Category:Coastal passenger vessels of Australia