Waratah was a commercial steamship of the British Blue Anchor Line engaged in the transportation of passengers, cargo and mail between London and Sydney at the turn of the 20th century. On the night of 27–28 July 1909 and while on only her second voyage, Waratah, along with 92 passengers and a crew of 119, disappeared somewhere between Durban and Cape Town off the South African coast. No wreckage or remains have ever been found and Waratahs fate remains a mystery to this day.
Design and construction On 15 September 1907, William Lund and Sons shipping company, doing business as the Blue Anchor Line, contracted with Barclay, Curle and Company shipbuilders of Glasgow to build what was to be their newest flagship. Credited with the design of the ship was Blue Anchor's managing director and son of the owner, Frederick William "Willie" Lund. However, Lund was not a naval architect and his design consisted of little more than taking the blueprints of the fleet's current flagship, Geelong, and making alterations. These intended modifications would make the new ship slightly larger than Geelong but substantially heavier and thus more costly, with a contracted pricetag of £139,900. Designated Yard No. 472, the ship was laid down at Barclay Curle's Clydeholm Yard in Whiteinch.
The vessel was specifically designed to capitalize on the booming immigration trade of working-class British people relocating to Australia. To meet the rising demand for low-cost passage to the Commonwealth, Lund proposed installing temporary dorms into the cargo holds, which when fully booked could accommodate roughly 700 third-class passengers. Then, upon reaching Sydney, the dorms would be dismantled and the holds converted back to cargo space for the thousands of tons of Australian wool and timber bound for overseas markets. Though innovative, this hybrid configuration necessitated a redistribution of weight throughout the ship (including the placement of her coal bunkers) and presented varying challenges to the ship's initial stability. With little grasp of the complexities inherent in his amalgamated design, Willie Lund also insisted that the new liner be "more stable than Geelong" while being able to shift in dock while carrying only water ballast and permanent coal. Though he tried to explain that these conditions were diametrically opposed, Noel Peck, managing director of Barclay Curle, offered a half-hearted placation to the junior partner by inserting the phrase "if possible" into the language of the contract. In the end, the architects at Barclay Curle assured the Lunds that a single stabililty curve plan would be sufficient for the loading, balancing and operation of the ship in either configuration. Lund's vacillations and the semantic arguments over the "if possible" condition dragged out construction and pushed delivery back by 38 days until late October. Per the terms of the contract, this delay entitled Blue Anchor to a demurrage of £50 per day for a total late fee of £1,900.
The liner was finally launched on 12 September 1908, with Elizabeth Ann Taverner, wife of Agent-General of Victoria John Taverner, serving as sponsor. William Lund had chosen to name his new flagship after the emblem flower of New South Wales, Australia; a chrysanthemum-like bloom known as Telopea speciosissim, otherwise known by its Eora Aboriginal name: Waratah. Waratah was long between perpendiculars, across her beam, with a mean draft of . Her tonnages were , , and about . The vessel had a steel hull and was equipped with a pair of quadruple expansion engines, the cylinders of which measured 23 inches (58.4 cm), 32.5 inches (83 cm), 46.5 inches (118 cm) and 67 inched (170 cm) with a stroke. Combined, the engines produced 1,003 nhp to drive her twin propellers which gave the ship a top rated speed of . Waratah had a cellular double bottom built along her entire length, with the hull divided into seven watertight compartments. These protective measures led some newspaper pundits to proclaim Waratah "practically immune from any danger of sinking".
But what set Waratah apart from other steamships of her time was her vaunted superstructure which extended four decks above the waterline. These included a spar deck, bridge deck including poop and forecastle, promenade deck and boat deck. First-class accommodations were housed on the promenade and bridge decks with capacity for 128 passengers, while third-class berths were located on the poop deck and in the upper tween decks and could house 160 third-class travelers. When including the crew compliment of 144, Waratahs passenger certificate permitted her to carry a total of 432 people. A nursery provided daycare facilities for the first-class passengers, a novelty on passenger ships of the day, with dining saloons and lounges strictly segregated based on class. She was also fitted with Kirkcaldy's distilling apparatus, capable of producing of fresh water a day for drinking water and for use in the boilers. However, Waratah was not equipped with a wireless telegraph (known as a Marconi in honor of its inventor), which was still in the developmental stages at that time. After her final fitting out, Waratahs sea trials were held on 23 October 1908 – the same day as she was set to be handed over to Blue Anchor. The tests were conducted on the Firth of Clyde, during which Waratah was able to successfully maintain a mean speed of over several runs on the measured mile. After successful completion of sea trials, the steamship was handed over to her owners and immediately departed for London.
Service history
Following delivery, Waratah left London for her maiden voyage on 5 November 1908, with 689 third-class and 67 first-class passengers. She was under the command of Captain Josiah Edward Ilbery, a veteran of the Blue Anchor Line, with forty years of nautical experience and a previous master of Geelong, and had a crew of 154. She left Cape Town on 27 November and reached Adelaide on 15 December 1908. Among her passengers were Hamilton Wickes, a newly appointed British Trade Commissioner for the Commonwealth; Dr. Ernest Anderson, Bishop of Riverina; and Octavius Beale, president of the Federal Council of Chambers of Manufactures.While on her maiden voyage, early in the morning of 6 December 1908, a fire was discovered in the starboard aft tween decks bunker. While assessing the extent of the blaze, First Officer Charles Owen and Chief Engineer George Hodder were overcome by smoke inhalation and were incapacitated for two days. Though the fire never extended beyond the affected bunker, it continued reigniting until it was finally brought under control on 9 December. The fire was apparently caused by the heat emitted by several reducing and steam valves located on the starboard side of the engine room. While the roof of the engine room was insulated, the starboard side evidently was not. The repairs were performed at Sydney to the chief engineer's satisfaction.
From Adelaide, Waratah proceeded to Melbourne and Sydney, and sailed for London on 9 January 1909 via Durban and Cape Town. She arrived back in London on 7 March 1909. Upon returning to London, word spread that Captain Ilbery was not completely satisfied with his new ship and reported to the owners that despite the builders' assurances Waratah did not have the same stability as his former vessel, Geelong. After inbound passengers departed the ship in Tilbury, Waratah was taken upriver to the Royal Albert dock, where her cargo was unloaded and the ship was prepared for drydock. Conflicting accounts suggested that much of this down time was to effect some "structural modifications" to the ship, though what these were wasn't made public. However, due to limited space, the crew was forced to wait two weeks until an available drydock slip became available. This delay cut the overhaul window in half, leaving only enough time for recalking of the decks and repainting of the hull, which was done by the repair firm of R. & H. Green and Silley Weir. After her overhaul, the ship was inspected by customs officer H. J. Fleel who again passed the ship for passenger service.
On 27 April 1909, Waratah set out on her second trip to Australia with a crew of 119 and 215 passengers; 22 in first class and 193 third – a precipitous drop from her maiden voyage. The outward trip was largely uneventful, and the ship arrived at Adelaide on 6 June after touching off at Cape Town on 18 May. Upon arriving in Adelaide, 1,000 tons of lead concentrates bound for Europe were loaded in the lower cargo holds to improve stability for the out-and-back to Melbourne and Sydney. When tugs attempted to draw the ship into harbor at her next stop in Williamstown, Waratahs elevated superstructure caught the wind like a sail, snapped towing hawsers and turned what should have been a routine operation into a four-hour ordeal. She then continued on to Sydney where she took on cargo for the return voyage including 7,800 bars of lead bullion weighing in at 395 tons. Waratah departed Sydney on 26 June 1909 for her return trip to London via the Cape of Good Hope. She again made intermediate stops in Melbourne and Adelaide to take on additional coal and cargo, including a second shipment of lead concentrates which when added to the previous lot brought the total weight of the powdered metal to more than 1,500 tons. The liner then set out for her two-week crossing of the Indian Ocean to Durban on 7 July. One of the third-class passengers during the leg to South Africa was a minor celebrity. John "Mad Jack" McLaughlin, a one-armed career criminal, was being extradited to Johannesburg via Durban to stand trial on two counts of murder. While on board Waratah, McLaughlin was guarded round the clock by two Transvaal policemen.
Waratah reached Durban at 11:00 AM on 25 July where 30 passengers disembarked. One of these was Claude Gustav Sawyer, a businessman and an experienced sea traveller who was booked through to Cape Town, yet left the ship when she arrived in Port Natal. Popular myth has it that Sawyer raced off the ship, went straight to the telegraph office to cable his wife, then booked the next ship to Cape Town that wasn't Waratah. However, this legend does not align with the facts. In truth, after departing Waratah Sawyer remained in Durban for over a week before continuing on to Cape Town aboard the Union Castle Line ship Kildonan Castle, which departed Durban on 2 August and arrived in Table Bay on 4 August. It was only upon Sawyer's arrival in Cape Town that he sent his now famous telegram to his wife Emily which read, "Booked Cape Town, Thought Waratah Top-Heavy, Landed Durban, Claude." He then remained in Cape Town for almost two weeks before finally boarding the Union Castle steamer Galician on 16 August for his return trip to London. While awaiting his return to London, Sawyer gave an interview to a Cape Times reporter in which he stated that he disembarked from Waratah early in Durban because he had become nervous about the liner's behaviour and feared she was not seaworthy. Four months later Claude Sawyer's story would take a dramatic and eerie turn. In an article dated 22 January 1910 which appeared in the London weekly tabloid John Bull, Sawyer now claimed he left Waratah pre-emptively due to a series of dreams or visions in which a spectral figure appeared in his cabin holding a long sword in his left hand and a blood-soaked rag in the other. According to Sawyer's new narrative, this vision appeared to him three times at around three in the morning three days before the ship reached Durban which he took as an omen and it was for this reason he left the ship when Waratah reached port.
Disappearance