ss WARATAH DEEPLY LADEN AT CAPETOWN.
CAPTAIN IILBERY FAR LEFT WITH WHITE BEARD.
ss JOHANNESBURG Spoke to Waratah on the evening of the 26th of July.
ss CLAN MACINTYRE SPOKE TO WARATAH 0600 hrs JULY 27TH 1909.
I have included some photographs as a reminder to to the followers of the Waratah, most I have dealt with in past blogs apart from the ss Strathspey. Many events never reached the court of inquiry and were kept under wraps but were forthcoming coming after the inquiry closed including the latest stability figures which were too late to be included at the hearing. Once the great storm in which the Waratah was lost between Durban and Cape town started to filter through there were a great many nervous insurance brokers in London looking at late ships they had insured and had no word of them to date. The Strathspey was one such ship, owned by by Burrel and Sons of Glasgow she was built in 1906 being of 4432tons 111.8m x15.9 m, with a speed of 9 knots. Under the command of Captain Osbourne she was bound for Hamburg with a load of phosphates and had left Durban some 5 hours before the Waratah on the 26th of July 1909. Late in the afternoon of the 27th of July Waratah overhauled the Strathspey which had taken the offshore shore course in the hope of picking up some more speed with the prevailing current. There is no record of signals exchanged but if in daylight it would have been by signal flags and therefore merely a short one with regards to identity of each other.
According to Mr. Pomeroy 3rd engineer the passengers could be clearly seen on deck in the late afternoon and the ship appeared in good trim. Toward the late evening a fearful gale blew up. The sea became mountainous and the vessel had to be turned stern to the wind and his opinion of the fate of the Waratah is that she caught the gale beam on, and the sea immediately smashed right over her and caused her to founder.
A second witness
that saw the Waratah was the second officer of the Strathspey Mr .G.M Miller who said,"Later that night a fierce westerly gale bore down on his ship.A mountainous sea was quickly worked up, and the Strathspey was completely helpless. She rolled heavily and shipped sea after sea,and as night wore on the elements were fiercer than ever.Stout deck fittings were torn from their setting and the officers and crew passed a very trying time until daylight broke.In a few hours she had been driven back on her course line 23 miles and a continuance of heavy weather for some days delayed her arrival at Las Palmas to such an extent that 14% Re-insurance was paid on the vessel.Mr.Miller said "he does not hold with the theory Waratah put her nose into it and took a header,(nose dive). He thought that in the heavy weather her steering gear was damaged, or else her engines broke down. In such a gale, no vessel momentarily out of control could hope to live, and before repairs could be affected the Waratah was overwhelmed and foundered.
Prior to the Court of Marine Inquiry the Board of Trade would have been aware of the ferocity of the storm and damage to the ships.This gave them the opening of saying she she foundered in a storm of exceptional force and thereby over looking the Latent defects in the ship which could well have contributed in her loss leaving no one to blame in her design and construction.
After 111 years we shall not forget them and will continue to remember those 211 souls including Stoways
