Yandra was a 990-ton coastal steamer built by Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen in 1928 for Coast Steamships for service in the Australian state of South Australia. She was requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy in June 1940 during World War II for conversion to a minesweeper and anti-submarine vessel and was commissioned on 22 September 1940 as HMAS Yandra. She returned to civilian service in 1946. She ran aground during dense fog onto South Neptune Island on 25 January 1959 and was subsequently written off.
The Yandra was built for Coast Steamships, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Adelaide Steamship Company, by Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen. She arrived in Port Adelaide from London on 23 October 1928 and commenced service in early November 1928.[2][3] She was specifically designed for serving regional ports on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula – a locality commonly known as the 'west coast' in South Australia. Her relatively shallow draft allowed access to ports at destinations such as Elliston and Venus Bay.[4]
Military service
The Yandra was requisitioned from Coast Steamships on 27 June 1940. She was converted for anti-submarine warfare in Sydney and then commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on 22 September 1940.[5]
HMAS Yandra challenged a ship off Rottnest Island, Western Australia on 5 October 1941 during the night and was given a false name Salland, from Calcutta. The ship never appeared in port as expected and caused naval intelligence some concern that this vessel could have been the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, it was dismissed as a misreading of the morse code. HMAS Yandra picked up 72 German survivors of the Kormoran on 27 November 1941, while searching for HMASSydney.
Transferred to Sydney, HMAS Yandra was patrolling off the harbour boom gate on 31 May 1942, when a Japanese midget submarine (later identified as M-27) got entangled in the boom net. She later sighted a midget submarine (later identified as M-21) in the Harbour. HMAS Yandra and HMASSea Mist dropped depth charges over the site, with HMAS Yandra ramming the midget submarine on the bows. Unfortunately, both HMAS Yandra and HMAS Sea Mist were disabled by their own depth charges. After being repaired, HMAS Yandra patrolled on both the Australian east and west coasts, and New Guinea.
She was returned to her owner in 1946 and resumed service to west coast ports on 20 July 1946.[6][7]
Fate
Yandra ran aground during dense fog on the northern island in the South Neptune Island group at the mouth of Spencer Gulf at about 10pm on Saturday, 25 January 1959 about 400 metres (1300ft) from the lighthouse located on the nearby southern island. The decision to abandon ship was advised by radio at 11.10pm. The crew abandoned the ship using a breeches buoy and all 23 crew had safely evacuated to the northern island by 11.45pm where they spent the night in the open. At dawn, the fog started to clear and the grounded ship was sighted by the lighthouse keepers who had been unaware of the grounding due to difficulties with radio transmission. The yacht Iline, a competitor in the annual Neptune Island yacht race conducted by the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron, answered a radio call at 3.30am and proceeded to the wreck site where it assisted in ferrying to the crew to the lighthouse complex on the southern island. The tug Tusker was dispatched from Port Adelaide on 26 January 1959 to assess the damage. It was decided that Yandra could not be recovered and Tusker returned to Port Adelaide with the rescued crew.[8][9][10] The wreck is officially located at 35°33′00″S136°12′00″E / 35.55000°S 136.20000°E / -35.55000; 136.20000 (M=HMAS Yandra).[11]
Her Ships Bell is on display at Paramount Browns, Gepps Cross.
SS Yongala was a passenger steamship that was built in England in 1903 for the Adelaide Steamship Company. She sank in a cyclone off the coast of Queensland in 1911, with the loss of all 122 passengers and crew aboard.
HMAS Sydney, named for the Australian city of Sydney, was one of three modified Leander-class light cruisers operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Ordered for the Royal Navy as HMS Phaeton, the cruiser was purchased by the Australian government and renamed prior to her 1934 launch.
The Neptune Islands consist of two groups of islands located close to the entrance to Spencer Gulf in South Australia. They are well known as a venue for great white shark tourism.
There was considerable Axis naval activity in Australian waters during the Second World War, despite Australia being remote from the main battlefronts. German and Japanese warships and submarines entered Australian waters between 1940 and 1945 and attacked ships, ports and other targets. Among the best-known attacks are the sinking of HMAS Sydney by a German raider in November 1941, the bombing of Darwin by Japanese naval aircraft in February 1942, and the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in May 1942. About 40 Allied merchant ships were damaged or sunk off the Australian coast by surface raiders, submarines and mines. Japanese submarines also shelled three Australian ports and submarine-based aircraft flew over several Australian capital cities.
On 19 November 1941, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran engaged each other in a battle off the coast of Western Australia. Sydney, with Captain Joseph Burnett commanding, and Kormoran, under Fregattenkapitän Theodor Detmers, encountered each other approximately 106 nautical miles off Dirk Hartog Island. The single-ship action lasted half an hour, and both ships were destroyed.
From 31 May to 8 June 1942, during World War II, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines made a series of attacks on the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle. On the night of 31 May – 1 June, three Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines, each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour, avoided the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempted to sink Allied warships. Two of the midget submarines were detected and attacked before they could engage any Allied vessels. The crew of M-14 scuttled their submarine, whilst M-21 was successfully attacked and sunk. The crew of M-21 killed themselves. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser USS Chicago, but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine's fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney's northern beaches.
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HMAS Bungaree was a cargo steamship. She was built in Scotland in 1937 as Bungaree for the Adelaide Steamship Company of South Australia. The Royal Australian Navy requisitioned her in 1040, and had her converted into a minelayer. She was Australia's only minelayer in the Second World War, and laid more than 10,000 mines. In 1944 she changed rôles, becoming first a survey ship, and then a stores ship. The Navy returned her to her owners in 1947.
Numerous attempts were made to find the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, which were both lost in a sea battle in 1941. Efforts immediately after the battle focused on finding Sydney when she failed to return to port. While searchers located over 300 survivors from Kormoran, none of the 645 aboard the Australian warship were found. In March 2008, shipwreck hunter David Mearns commenced a search for the two wrecks. Kormoran was located on 12 March in close proximity to the sinking position given in German accounts. Using the survivor's information on Sydney's last known heading, Mearns and his search team located Sydney on 17 March.
Loch Vennachar was an iron-hulled, three-masted clipper ship that was built in Scotland in 1875 and lost with all hands off the coast of South Australia in 1905. She spent her entire career with the Glasgow Shipping Company, trading between Britain and Australia. The company was familiarly called the "Loch Line", as all of its ships were named after Scottish lochs. The ship was named after Loch Venachar, in what was then Perthshire.
Falie is a 33.4-metre (110 ft) ketch that traded for many years in Australian waters. Originally built in 1919/1920 as a speculation by her builder, rigged as a schooner and named Hollands Trouw after the shipyard where she was built, she was purchased by the Spencer's Gulf Transport Company, renamed, and used for coastal trading in South Australia. The vessel was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as HMAS Falie during World War II, serving first as an examination vessel primarily patrolling the Port of Sydney, Australia, then as an armed stores ship.
The Santiago was a 455-ton barque launched in 1856. It was built by Henry Balfour of Methil, Fife for the Liverpool shipping company Balfour Williamson. It sailed mainly between Liverpool and Chile, but also to Australia. Its remnant hull, which lies in a ships' graveyard in South Australia, was considered 'the oldest intact iron hull sailing vessel in the world', until part of the central section collapsed in January 2023.
SS Clan Ranald is a steamship wreck off the coast of South Australia that is of unique historic importance. She is the only example in Australian waters of a turret deck ship: a type of steel-hulled cargo ship with an unusual hull shape that was built in the 1890s and 1900s.
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Ellen was a steamship that was launched in 1883 and whose career involved coastal shipping firstly in the Colony of Queensland and then in the Australian state of South Australia. It was wrecked in Gulf St Vincent in South Australia at Morgan's Beach near the town of Cape Jervis on Saturday, 12 December 1908 during its return from fishing in waters around Kangaroo Island to a destination on the mainland.
Frances was a cutter built in 1839 at Encounter Bay, South Australia. It was wrecked on South Neptune Island on 29 August 1840. It was reported that the crew survived the wrecking event, came ashore and survived on a diet of penguin for 50 days before sending 2 people in a dinghy to Port Lincoln to seek help. Those remaining at South Neptune Island were subsequently rescued. While the wreck site is protected by the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 and its location is recorded as being at 35°33′00″S136°12′00″E, as of 2004 it had not been found.
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Wikipedia's articles on recreational dive sites. The level of coverage may vary:
Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this context all diving done for recreational purposes is included. Professional diving tends to be done where the job is, and with the exception of diver training and leading groups of recreational divers, does not generally occur at specific sites chosen for their easy access, pleasant conditions or interesting features.
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