‘Palmerston’, 1929

At about 5.45am on 29th May 1929 two fishing trawlers collided at sea, about 16 miles from the Point Perpendicular Lighthouse. There was no mist or fog. Dawn was just breaking.

‘The curiosity of the light keepers was first aroused by the unusual number of men on the deck of the trawler (the ‘Millimumul’).’

One trawler was the ‘Palmerston’, an iron vessel of 463 tons, built in England in 1878, that had operated as a collier along the NSW coast for about 40 years before it was converted into a trawler the year before the accident. The other was the ‘Millimumul’, a 287 tons vessel that had been built in England in 1915, had served as a minesweeper (under the name ‘Gunner’) in World War I, and had been acquired by a Sydney-based fishing company about two years before the accident.

The ‘Millimumul’ had left Sydney and was headed to the South Coast fishing grounds. The ‘Palmerston’ had ‘made a good catch of fish near Montague Island, and was coming back to Sydney’.

Basically, the trawler ‘Millimumul’ rammed and sunk the ‘Palmerston’. There were 11 crew on the ‘Palmerston’ at the time, most of whom were below decks, with one crew members explaining ‘trawlermen don't sleep in pyjamas. They go to bed in full working kit, and that's why most of us have got our clothes on…I was asleep at the time of the bump, but the moment I felt it, I knew what was coming. Then came the rush of water. I tried to collect what gear I could, but the water was coming in so quickly that I didn't get much. We had a great hole in our starboard side, big enough to let a man in, and the ship soon began to feel the effect.’

‘No difficulty was experienced in getting a boat away from the Palmerston. It was launched within a few seconds after the order was given. The crew of the Palmerston saved nothing. They left the sinking ship with only the clothes they were wearing.’ The ‘Millimumul’, which had only been minimally damaged, took all the crew on board and transported them back to Sydney.

‘”The sinking of the Palmerston was a remarkable sight,” said a member of the Millimumul's crew. “It seemed at first that she would sink almost immediately, and then for an hour and a half there did not seem to be any difference in her condition. When she started to 'go' it was all over in ten minutes. She went down by the bow after taking a great list to starboard, and the last plunge was almost vertical. As the stern disappeared there was a dull concussion due to water entering the engine-room through the funnel and extinguishing the fires.”’