‘Lord of the Isles’, 1867

The ‘Lord of the Isles’ was a 15-metre, 28-ton ketch that had been built in 1855 on Brisbane Waters, near Gosford.

In June 1867 she had sailed to Kiama with a cargo of timber and coal. She was awaiting those who were expecting the cargo to unload it, when a gale hit the area.

Although she was secured to the wharf sufficiently for normal conditions, and then ‘all having been done that skill could devise, or the appliances at hand would permit, the crew left her and kept watch on shore… On Wednesday, the storm increasing with every indication of still greater violence, it was found that the ropes and cables with which the ill-fated vessel was provided were inadequate to hold her.’ Eventually she was swept from the wharf, struck the bottom of the harbour and filled with water. Then ‘evidently, finding an undercurrent, she drifted through the breakers in an easterly direction to sea, and when off the Blowhole Point she was observed drifting northwards, but the Iast that was seen of her (on 19th June 1867) was about half flood tide, when she was drifting south.’