‘Balclutha’, 1881

The ‘Balclutha’ was a small barque-rigged (it had 3 masts) coastal steamer that was lost in heavy seas, probably somewhere off Gabo Island on 21st October 1881. It is believed her cargo of 300 tons of bluestone pavers, being shipped from Melbourne to the Homebush cattleyards in Sydney, shifted in the storm. None of her crew survived.

The ‘Balclutha’ was built in Scotland in 1860 as a replacement for the ss ‘Admella’ which had been wrecked in August 1859 near Mount Gambier in what is still South Australia’s worst maritime disaster. 89 of those on board lost their lives, 25 others survived.

Descriptions of the ‘Balclutha’ vary: 201 tons, 262 tons, 201 feet in length, as do details of her crew on the fateful voyage: 17, 22. The Australasian Steam Navigation Company had brought her to Australia in 1861 and in the early 1870s she made several trips to San Francisco, USA but was mostly deployed on the Australian coastal trade. In 1881 she was bought by C.M Poole of Sydney and Captain Poole was her master the day the vessel disappeared.

She encountered a gale in the vicinity of Gabo Island on 21st October 1881. This was ‘reported as being hurricane force from the SW round to the SE...(and) the seas increased to such a size that the spray reached 200ft into the air (top of Gabo light)’. She was last sighted in the vicinity of Gabo Island, by the ss ‘City of Adelaide’. A report in the ‘Sydney Morning Herald on 29th October 1881 suggested that ‘with the late winds and currents the Balclutha should be looked for 200 miles ESE of Gabo Is’.