Imagine being awakened by the sudden jerk of the boat when it hits a sandbar traveling at ten knots per hour. The wooden ship shudders beneath you, then stops with a screech. Imagine the fear, confusion and feeling of panic when you get out of bed and run up on deck. A thick fog surrounds the ship, but you can clearly see the waves crushing the shallow sandbar, each lifting the ship higher on the shore.
This describes the experience of those who travel aboard the paddle steamer. PS Clonmel, when it ran aground on its journey from Sydney to Port Phillip (now Melbourne) in the early morning hours of January 2, 1841. The ship and its thirty-eight passengers and forty-two crew members were firmly stuck and nothing , even throwing the cargo overboard would not lighten the ship. He had nothing left, the ship had to be abandoned.
Captain Tollervey coordinated the effort and in the afternoon moved everyone on board and some provisions ashore to a makeshift camp. While they were all out of immediate danger, this was not the end of their troubles; they were stranded and surrounded by wild, rugged and unexplored territory in one of the most remote areas of the young colony.
Tea PS Clonmel It was a two-masted steamboat, equipped with a schooner, and was the first steamboat to sail in Australian waters. The ship was one of the last wooden steamboats built in England before iron became the predominant material used and as such represents the peak of wooden shipbuilding technology. The ship was a total wreck and relatively little was salvaged from the ship over the years, making this shipwreck an important site and worthy of the highest level of protection. The shipwreck is also historically significant, as it acted as a catalyst for the opening of the Gippsland region to commerce and pastoral settlement, as the shipwreck occurred just off the entrance to a deep harbor that became Port Albert. As such, a 50m Protected Area has been declared around the wreck and access to it requires a permit from Heritage Victoria.
I was lucky enough to join Heritage Victoria’s Maritime Heritage Unit when they were doing field work on the site. Heritage Victoria staff regularly visit the site to monitor the wreck and study the remains of the hull and machinery. A variety of artifacts, including portholes, deck lights, and brass skylight guards, as well as cut glass tableware and a number of pennies, have been recovered from the site and now reside in the local museum. There is a large amount of archaeological material left at the site to this day, however much of it is buried and protected by sand. The most impressive part of the wreck is its caldera and the base of its funnel that protrudes from the water at low tide. It is worth noting that the engine room of the Clonmel It was 58 feet long and took up more than a third of the ship’s length! The 220 horsepower motor was driving the paddle wheels, but it was very consuming and required 610 kg of coal per hour to run. Today this wreck is not only an amazing dive site (it is not often that a diver gets the opportunity to dive a wreck where relics can still be found on the site) but it also gives us a unique insight into the style of Australian life in the 1840s..
So what happened to the castaways, did they survive? No one knew that they had been shipwrecked and, with little hope of salvation, they had to take matters into their own hands. One of the passengers, Mr. Simpson, was an experienced sailor and volunteered to take one of the whaling boats to the nearest settlement to raise the alarm and get help. The seven volunteers crammed into the flimsy open boat and set out for Port Phillip the next day. It took the team more than sixty hours to glimpse civilization and they battled fierce wind and waves every step of the way. The small boat was inundated by ocean waves many times throughout the trip and required continuous bailing to stay afloat. By the time the cutter Sisters He picked them up, they were soaked to the skin, cold and exhausted. It was the heroic efforts of these men that saved the rest of the shipwrecked crew.