Washed up lifebuoys but no Waratah.

The loss of the Waratah on the 28th of July 1909 off the coast of South Africa left no trace of wreckage which would indicate that she went down very quickly  and anything on deck would have been securely lashed down leaving little hope of any tell tale signs. Lifebuoys however have been discovered from time to time which in all probability came from the Waratah. In  December 1911 a lifebuoy,  was found on a beach on the west coast of New Zealand near Manuka, an officer from the Customs department inspected it, the buoy  was heavily encrusted in barnacles and growth. He managed to make out the name Waratah and on the back of the buoy were two flags but he could not make out the writing. many sceptics  at the time pointed out that there were other vessels named Waratah this was in fact true but they  were not as large as the Waratah. I strongly suspect it could have come from the Waratah given the amount of time that had elapsed since the ship disappeared  and the time taken to drift the distance to New Zealand.  A second point is that large passenger ships of the period especially British ships usually either had two crossed flags or a flag on either side  of the buoy, one would be a red flag of the merchant navy with the union jack  in a top corner, the other flag would be the company flag, in the case of the Waratah this would have been a white flag with a blue anchor on it. Smaller vessels just had a name and their home port painted on the buoys.

 

In January 1910 a lifebuoy was washed ashore on a beach near Freemantle in Western Australia and it appeared to have been in the water for some considerable time and was also badly knocked about. An examination was made under a microscope and the letter 'W' was made out and separated at  intervals with the letters 'A' and 'H' it was believed to have come from the Waratah, the wire which was attached to the buoy was badly rusted through. The lifebuoy was probably fitted with a Holmes light canister and attached to the buoy with about a six foot length  of wire, the canister had obviously broken free and floated away after the wire had rusted through. A Holmes light canister admits water in and is filled with calcium carbonate,  calcium phosphide which when wet produces acetylene which gives of an exceedingly bright white light for up to half an hour in the sea, these were usually carried on passenger ships.

Did the Waratah founder between Port St John and the Bashee River on the coast of East Africa? many seem to think this may be so. Lawrence Green the South African journalist in his book , HARBOURS OF MEMORY, makes mention of a white trader on that part of the coast saying that local natives tried to sell him a lifebuoy with the name Waratah on it. Due to the isolation of his trading store he was not aware at the time that the Waratah was missing. It was usually a week or more before papers would reach him. When news of the Waratah finally reached him he contacted the police and made an affidavit about the natives trying to sell him the buoy and also the fact they told him they had seen a ship sink near the Bashee River. A search was made along the coast but no trace of the natives could be found or the lifebuoy.