Great War Transport found

[Dolphin]

The following article appeared in today's Sydney Morning Herald:

It is a Saturday in late April, on a boat in Bass Strait. Four middle-aged men are high-fiving each other like teenagers. They can scarcely believe their luck.

Below them was the TSS Kanowna, a passenger ship that sank in 1929 off Wilsons Promontory. The ship's final resting place was a mystery until Peter Taylor, a Melbourne shipwreck explorer, came across an obscure archival clue recently.

Bass Strait was about to give up a secret - Taylor and his mates Greg Hodge, Mark Ryan and Mick Whitmore from Southern Ocean Exploration had found one of Victoria's biggest shipwrecks.

"Just think of the Spirit of Tasmania sinking with everything on it," says Ross Anderson, a maritime archaeologist at Heritage Victoria. "It is basically an untouched, intact, entire ship with all of its passenger belongings, cargo and fittings … it is a time capsule from 1929."

The former hospital ship for wounded soldiers from Gallipoli was found on Anzac weekend, the 90th anniversary of the battle.

The Kanowna was steaming from Sydney to Melbourne when, on the night of February 17, 1929, it hit Skull Rock. The ship drifted for hours before sinking, stern-first, the next morning.

The "eureka" moment for the shipwreck hunters came when Mr Taylor came across a reference to the Kanowna in wartime records. Taking this new piece of evidence, the Southern Ocean Exploration team "mowed the lawn" with their boat across four square kilometres of Bass Strait with a depth sounder and magnetometer. After three days the treasure loomed up on the instruments. The location, and details of the archival evidence, will remain secret to prevent looting.

The sinking, in foggy weather, was blamed on the ship's master, who was told he should have slowed down. Survivors remember an almighty crash and the ship shuddering from end to end. Then lurching.

By 10pm the 141 passengers had abandoned ship and were picked up by the nearby SS Mackarra. A young girl broke her leg and a man fell off the gangway, but everyone survived. A dog, a cat and a racehorse were lost. The cargo, including three cars, settled with the ship on the bottom of Bass Strait.

When the Southern Ocean Exploration team dived to explore the wreck for the first time last month, the ship was remarkably intact. It has become a reef, with prolific fish life attracting seals. The portholes were solid brass. The men were impressed.

They saw brass beds, all stacked in a pile. There were also lots of porcelain toilets - they later realised they had swum over the men's toilets in the second-class section - and the deck crane was there, still with its arm up. The decking was remarkably unscathed.

[frev]

More info to be found at this website:

http://www.southernoceanexploration.com/news&reports.php

[Peter Beckett]

Frev,

great site. Thanks for the heads up

Peter

[stiletto_33853]

Nice website and what a great find.

Andy