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Sea Swift is a north Australian shipping company wholly owned by the Queensland Government Insurance Fund. It operates in Northern Australia, mainly servicing remote and regional communities in Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory. The company provides freight and passenger services, and maritime logistical support, operating container ships in addition to barges, tugs and landing craft.
Sea Swift started in 1987 when founder Sid Faithfull identified an opportunity to service Gulf of Carpentaria fishing fleets by mothershipping from Karumba. Over the next 25 years, Sea Swift grew to become Australia's largest privately owned shipping company, operating regular freight, mothershipping, project logistics, and passenger cruise services from its Cairns headquarters to communities throughout Far North Queensland. Expanding to 19 vessels, six depots, and 300 staff in Queensland, today Sea Swift continues to service remote communities along Cape York Peninsula and in the Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as the Torres Strait Islands, including Horn Island, Thursday Island and the outer islands.
In early 2013, through the acquisition of Tiwi Barge, [1] Sea Swift commenced an operation in the Northern Territory. The initial two-vessel and 15-person operation servicing four destinations has grown to become a nine-vessel, 144-person, three-depot operation servicing 25 destinations across the Territory.
In 2015, Sea Swift now had 26 vessels, nine depots, and more than 430 staff in its operation across Northern Australia.
Sea Swift has several main service streams:
Sea Swift's Project Logistics unit has seen jobs completed domestically to destinations including Brisbane, Townsville, Gladstone, Bundaberg, Torres Strait Islands, Mornington Island, Lizard Island, Palm Island, Darwin, Gove, Tiwi Islands, Arnhem Land, and many others – as far south as Newcastle and as far west as Western Australia coastal mine sites. Internationally, jobs have been completed to Papua New Guinea, South East Asia and the South Pacific. Clients serviced include BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto Alcan, South 32, Gemco, Woolworths, ALPA, Mt Gibson Iron, Sedgman, Bechtel, Santos, Queensland Government, Northern Territory Government, and many others.
The following vessels are currently within Sea Swift's fleet. [3]
Cairns is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population as of the Census 2021 was 169,312, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-populous in Queensland, and 15th in Australia.
The Torres Strait, also known as Zenadh Kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is 150 km (93 mi) wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost extremity of the Australian mainland. To the north is the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. It is named after the Spanish navigator Luís Vaz de Torres, who sailed through the strait in 1606.
Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal peoples of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped with them as Indigenous Australians. Today there are many more Torres Strait Islander people living in mainland Australia than on the Islands.
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary is generally defined as a line from Slade Point, Queensland in the northeast, to Cape Arnhem on the Gove Peninsula, Northern Territory in the west.
Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately 39 kilometres north of Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. Thursday Island is also the name of the town in the south and west of the island and also the name of the locality which contains the island within the Shire of Torres. The town of Rose Hill is located on the north-eastern tip of the island.
Boigu Island is the most northerly inhabited island of Queensland and of Australia. It is part of the Top Western group of the Torres Strait Islands, which lie in the Torres Strait separating Cape York Peninsula from the island of New Guinea. The mainland of Papua New Guinea is only 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) away from Boigu. Boigu has an area of 89.6 square kilometres (34.6 sq mi). Boigu Island is the name of the locality on the island within the Torres Strait Island Region. Boigu is predominantly inhabited by indigenous Torres Strait Islanders. In the 2021 census, the population of the island was 199, of whom 189 people or 95% of the population identified as Indigenous Australians.
Many Australian Aboriginal cultures have or traditionally had a manually coded language, a signed counterpart of their oral language. This appears to be connected with various speech taboos between certain kin or at particular times, such as during a mourning period for women or during initiation ceremonies for men, as was also the case with Caucasian Sign Language but not Plains Indian Sign Language, which did not involve speech taboo, or deaf sign languages, which are not encodings of oral language. There is some similarity between neighboring groups and some contact pidgin similar to Plains Indian Sign Language in the American Great Plains.
Ports North, the trading name of the Far North Queensland Ports Corporation Limited, is a Queensland Government statutory corporation that is responsible for the Cairns Marlin Marina and the Cairns Cityport project and the ports in Cairns, Cape Flattery, Karumba, Mourilyan, Skardon River, Quintell Beach, Thursday Island, Burketown and Cooktown, in Queensland, Australia. Since 2017, the shareholding Ministers are the Honourable Jackie Trad, Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, and the Honourable Mark Bailey, Minister for Transport and Main Roads.
Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf Country. The waters of Torres Strait include the only international border in the area contiguous with the Australian mainland, between Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Bamaga is a small town and locality about 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the northern tip of Cape York in the north of Queensland, Australia. It is within the Northern Peninsula Area Region. It is one of the northernmost settlements in continental Australia and is the administrative centre for the Northern Peninsula Area Regional Council.
The Queensland Maritime Museum is located on the southern bank of the Brisbane River just south of the South Bank Parklands and Queensland Cultural Centre precinct of Brisbane, and close to the Goodwill Bridge.
The article Ferry transport in Queensland provides both historical and current information relating to scheduled public passenger ferry services in Queensland. The first ferry started on 1 January 1843 at Russell Street with a service across the Brisbane River.
MV Trinity Bay is a 1,594 gross tonnage (GT), 81 metre long, Coastal Freighter owned by the Sea Swift shipping company based in Cairns, Australia. It runs a weekly service supplying communities on the Cape York Peninsula and in Torres Strait. Formerly a Sand Dredge, the Trinity Bay was converted into the current layout during the year 2000 in Cairns Shipyards. Even though the ship is a fully commercial cargo ship, she regularly carries 40 passengers to and from Thursday Island.
Land councils, also known as Aboriginal land councils, or land and sea councils, are Australian community organisations, generally organised by region, that are commonly formed to represent the Indigenous Australians who occupied their particular region before the arrival of European settlers. They have historically advocated for recognition of traditional land rights, and also for the rights of Indigenous people in other areas such as equal wages and adequate housing. Land councils are self-supporting, and not funded by state or federal taxes.
The Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria was an Anglican diocese in northern Australia from 1900 to 1996. It included most of northern Queensland, the islands of the Torres Strait and, until 1968, all of the Northern Territory. The see was based at Quetta Cathedral on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.
The geography of Queensland in the north-east of Australia, is varied. It includes tropical islands, sandy beaches, flat river plains that flood after monsoon rains, tracts of rough, elevated terrain, dry deserts, rich agricultural belts and densely populated urban areas.
The Adolphus Channel is a channel located in the Torres Strait, situated northeast of Cape York, in Queensland, Australia.
Toll Domestic Forwarding (TDF) is a division of the Toll Group specialising in freight forwarding by road, rail and sea within and between Australia and New Zealand.
The Quetta Memorial Precinct is a heritage-listed Anglican church precinct in Douglas Street, Thursday Island, Shire of Torres, Queensland, Australia. The precinct comprises the All Souls and St Bartholomew's Cathedral Church, the Bishop's House, and the Church Hall. The precinct was built as a memorial to the 134 lives lost in the shipwreck of the RMS Quetta on 28 February 1890. The church was designed in 1892–1893 by architect John H. Buckeridge. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 July 2001.
All Saints Anglican Church is a heritage-listed church at Darnley Island, Torres Strait Island Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1919 to 1938. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.