I took this post’s photos in March 2024.
The pictured vessel was launched in 1856.
It was the largest, the oldest, and – in 1945 – it was the last of many vessels abandoned in Port Adelaide’s ships’ graveyards.
On the 12th day of January 2023 its iron hull collapsed, more than 166 years after its construction, and after nearly 78 years spent embedded in silt, on the mangrove-rimmed North Arm of the Port River.
(the hull’s front section is now upside down, as you can see in this post’s images)
Until 12 January 2023, that hull was probably “our” planet’s last intact example of its rare kind.
Tomorrow’s post will offer closer views of what remains, plus more information about a ship which at least one South Australian Government publication hailed as of keen interest to many local and overseas maritime enthusiasts.
Both State and Federal governments – in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively – formally recognised/registered the vessel’s significance.
Neither, however, did anything meaningful to preserve or to restore it.
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