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July 1935.

Off the northeastern Australian coast, a storm has whipped the ocean into violent turmoil.

Southeasterly gales blow towards New Calonia.

Big passenger ships find refuge at anchorages to ride it out.

Small fishing boats hide between islands to escape the raging waves.

Lighthouse keepers at Sandy Cape on the northern tip of Fraser Island are given an unusual task to keep an eye out for two ships.

One of them a derelict with only a skeleton crew of eight men aboard drifting along by itself in the merc.

They keep a vigilant watch, but nothing turns up.

Only the pounding waves and driving winds.

It’s feared the ship has been swallowed by the storm.

But some days later, some surprising news comes through.

They’ve survived, but their ship, well, it’s well and truly beached.

The towering hulk of the Mahino, the handsome old passenger liner, rears up from the sand at one of Australia’s most remote coasts.

The crew have camped out on the beach, exhausted, but happy to simply be alive.

Now, the question arises, can their ship be saved? Ominously, day by day, a sandbank begins to rise up on the ship’s starboard hull, which very well might stop it from being refloated.

It’s a race against time to save the mahino, but time is very much not on the salvage crews side.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m your friend Mike Brady from Ocean Liner Designs, and this is the story of the ship stuck on the beach, the SS Mahino.

Our story begins back in 1905 in June when the elegant SS Mahino was launched at the renowned William Denny and Brothers Yard near Glasgow.

The company was a major shareholder in New Zealand’s Union Steamship Company.

So even though that line’s operations were way down over in the Southern Hemisphere, it was the Dumbartanbased shipyard that built almost all of their ships on the other side of the world.

Scotland’s shipyards were world leaders after all, and Mahino was one in a long line of fine passenger ships built for operations in New Zealand and Australia.

She wasn’t very big, only 5,282 tons, but she served an important purpose, linking the big Australian mainland with New Zealand, a profitable route at the time, which saw families, businessmen, and workers frequently traveling the 2800 km, 1700 m voyage between the two nations.

She was a pretty ship, slim with a long hull and two smartly proportioned funnels, sitting at top a low superructure with two long prominards for the passengers.

The Tasmin Sea in the Bash Strait can get very rough.

So ships like Mahino had to be built with seaorthiness in mind.

She was really a miniature version of the kind of transatlantic ocean liner that had won speed records in the years prior.

In fact, from the side, she looks a bit like a baby version of the White Star Lines Oceanic.

She was comfortable, too, with more first class passengers, 240, than the other two classes combined.

I’ve only really been able to find two good shots from inside Mahino, both hosted on the brilliant website ssmaritime.

com by the maritime historian Ruben Gusen’s.

The main firstass salon looked plush, airy, and light, complete with ceiling fans to handle the stifling summer heat.

Meanwhile, down below, the dining saloon was classically Edwwardian with long tables, swivel chairs, and even more ceiling fans.

This was typical stuff for ships of this vintage, but it was comfortable, and the trip across the Tasmin Sea wasn’t very long, only just shy of 3 days or so, thanks to the Mahino’s fairly nippy top speed of about 19 1/2 knots.

Her speed was partly thanks to her thin knifelike hull, ideal for cleaving through the water, but also her secret weapon was down below.

Three propellers, each driven by Parson’s turbine.

It meant Mahino held the Sydney to Wellington speed record for over two decades.

For 9 years, the Mahino steamed happily along visiting Deneden, Wellington, Oakland, Melbourne, Sydney, and Hobart.

Not only that, but her excellent seaeping characteristics meant she could operate big Trans Ocean voyages, which sent her steaming all the way up to the US, Canada, and back.

She was one of the Union steamship company’s darlings.

But her engines gave some trouble and she had to be re-equipped with just a pair of geared turbines instead, which no doubt impeded that impressive speed.

Still, life was good for the Mahino.

But then that calamitous year came along, 1914.

The world’s big passenger ships were mothballled or earmarked for service, and so too was Mahino.

Her moment came in 1915, with Australian and New Zealand troops being wounded by their hundreds alongside their British comrades over in Turkey at Gallipoli.

The empire had a sudden need for dozens of hospital ships to evacuate them for medical care.

New Zealand recognized it had to do its part.

The government petitioned the governor general for funds to strip Mahino back and turn her into a floating hospital ward.

In July 1915, the newly christened HMNZ Mahino steamed off for the Mediterranean to help.

Outside, she boasted a flash new paint scheme with a green sheer line, big red crosses, and her crimson funnels coated in brilliant white.

Inside, she’d been thoroughly changed.

Her salons and smoking rooms were turned instead into wards for hundreds of wounded men.

Her crew was supplemented with a matron and 13 nurses, five medical officers, and 61 New Zealand Medical Corps orderlys, as well as a group of chaplain.

Alongside the wards, two operating theaters were installed to help those lads who needed immediate urgent care.

Even as Mahino steamed off and made her way up to the theater of operations, those men were being shot and bombed to bits.

She couldn’t get there fast enough.

Mahino wasted no time.

By late August, she had arrived at Mudros in Greece, a major staging point for naval operations in the Med.

The very next day, she was put to work embarking those poor wounded who’d suffered badly in the Battle of Hill 60, which saw 1100 killed or wounded.

The ship’s operating theaters proved a godsend.

As the ship swung at anchor, the surgeons worked for 3 days non-stop until August 29th.

Through 1916, she operated a cross channel service for men wounded in the SO and the Western Front.

By 1918, the venerable hospital ship had certainly played her part, transporting some 25,000 sick and wounded men home, dodging yubot and mines the whole time.

By 1918, the ship was looking a little tired, and the armistice meant she could finally return home for good.

back on the passenger service she had been designed for.

Mahino went right back to it, even steaming so far as England on six separate voyages.

Time, however, had taken its toll.

The Union Steamship Company was laying the groundwork for new and improved ships, and were just about to order the spectacular SS AA, a glamorous art deco palace.

Poor old Mino just couldn’t hope to keep up with ships like this.

In 1935, the 30-year-old steamer was finally retired from service and put on the market.

If she had been sold just after the war, she might have found a buyer in another line.

But now, in the 30s, passenger ships had advanced so much that the Mahino looked little more than a museum piece.

She was snapped up by Japanese scrappers.

Tamosuk Miachi from Osaka.

For Mahino, it looked like it was the end of the road.

First though, she’d have to make one last voyage.

As it turned out, Mahino was not the only ship sold to Miachi.

The old Una, a small steamer built back in 1888 for services between Tasmania and Melbourne, was to be broken up as well.

The new buyers came up with a seemingly brilliant plan.

Had the out of commission Mahino taken undertoe by the smaller Una.

It would be more economical, meaning the company wouldn’t need to stock Mahino’s holds with hundreds of tons of coal for the long voyage.

only the Owners.

To prepare Mahino for the long trip, her twin propellers were taken off to prevent drag.

For the voyage, an 8,300 km, 5,100 mile oceangoing trek, the Uno would be the mother ship with 30 or so aboard, while a small crew would stay aboard Mahino to make sure all was well.

Eight Japanese crew were birthed on Mahino.

On Una’s Bridge, Captain Hashimoto would oversee the operation.

They set out from Sydney on July 3rd.

With the tow lines straining as little Una’s engines chugged along, towing the big old liner that was about three times bigger than her.

They not be breaking any speed records.

The crew settled in for what promised to be a lengthy journey, about a month.

4 days later, they’d only managed about 700 m.

That’s 1100 km at an average speed of somewhere around 6 knots when they ran into trouble.

Off Queensland, the two ships were caught out by that massive storm which developed into a tropical cyclone.

On shore, there came a worried message from the Una, garbled by the atmospheric conditions and the Japanese operators English, that the ship’s steering gear had broken down.

This was a possible death sentence for any ship in a big sea that would mean it couldn’t keep its bow pointed into the worst of the weather.

With her rudder out of action, the little Oona was buffeted by massive waves, and the mahino behind her acted like a giant 5200 ton sea anchor.

It proved too much.

The towing cable 6 1/2 in or 12 cm thick snapped like a piece of straw.

The two ships were driven almost immediately apart until from the bridge of Una, the old mahino had simply disappeared into the squall.

It is generally believed, read the Western Mail, that any vessel not under steam would not be able to remain afloat in the heavy seas outside Hervy Bay.

Una radioed in sporadically throughout the storm to report her steering gear was under repair, but she was holding her own.

No distress call had been sent, but the radio station at Pinka asked if Oona needed assistance.

Send assistance for the Mahino.

Una’s wireless fired back.

Mahino was gone with no way of radioing her position because without fires up and steaming hero boilers, there was no way to generate power for her wireless.

She was out there somewhere being buffered around like a toy.

Perhaps she was already sunk.

At Brisbane, a tug, the car lock, was called and made ready to rush out and find the old liner if she was still afloat.

For the salvage crew, it could prove to be a profitable job if they could pull it off.

First though, they’d have to deal with the storm.

For 24 hours, it raged, its worst centered somewhere over the Mahino’s last known position, until finally it moved on out to sea, and things at last calmed down a bit.

Oona had been hove, riding out the worst of the weather.

But finally, her engines chugged again into life in search of her missing companion.

In the distance was the eastern shore of Fraser Island, today called Garry.

130 km or 78 mi of nearly uninterrupted sandy beach on an island that juts out from Queensland’s coast.

It’s an idyllic remote spot.

Through their binoculars, Una’s crew saw something they couldn’t believe.

It was Mahino.

not sunk or smashed to pieces, but sitting perfectly upright on the beach.

From the shore waved eight small figures who screamed out, “Ona, Una!” at the tops of their lungs.

One waved a Japanese flag.

They were mighty glad to see them.

It was actually a New England Airways plane that had first spotted the ship back on July 10th.

From the air, they too could see the men waving frantically in the Mahino beach firmly and anchor out, but with heavy waves breaking on her exposed hull.

She sat parallel to the coast with her starboard side totally exposed to the ocean.

Already a sandbank was building up on that side.

It threatened to lock the mahino in.

Even then, the Morning Bulletin from Queensland reported that there was only remote chance of saving the ship.

As it happened, probably to save on costs, the Japanese owners had neglected to ensure their ship for the long tow.

None of this mattered to Mino’s small crew, though.

They’d beaten the odds, and they’d survived a terrifying ordeal.

For 24 hours, their ship had been completely at the mercy of the big seas, batteratted about like a toy and at risk of sinking any minute.

They went through many sleepless hours, reported the Courier Mail.

A nerve-shattering experience.

Mahino’s young skipper, Tanaka, reported the ship had gently glided to a stop on the beach without the kind of heavy impact you might expect from a 5300 ton ship ramming the land.

The crew were glad to be stationary at last, and as the storm abated, they ventured down on ladders and found they could actually simply walk to land at low tide.

They set up a small camp on shore.

Maybe for fear Mahino might be suddenly refloated and dragged back out to sea to sink.

And they waited.

Then came the airplane and 21 hours later, the una rescuers eventually reached the men and found their tents with clothed lines strung between the trees.

Captain Tanaka excitedly explained how he’d abandoned his ship in the customary manner, the last one off after having sounded the ship’s whistle and bell twice for good measure.

The courier male even sent a correspondent and a photographer.

But since there was only one car on the island, they had to hitch a ride on a small motor launch and then trek 14 mi on soft ground just to get there.

Mahino’s grounding raised some unusual questions.

Were the crew now illegal immigrants? Were any of the ship’s provisions dutyable for customs? Well, fortunately, the government er on the side of empathy and the crew were treated as guests and not migrants.

Meanwhile, Captain Hashimoto on the Una decided to visit the wreck himself and confer with Tanaka.

An extensive examination showed that the Mahino was stuck fast with a list of 12 1/2° over to one side starboard.

Shore anchors were installed to prevent her from accidentally refloating and drifting out to sea again.

To the Japanese captains, it seemed clear even then the Mahino wasn’t going anywhere.

At high tide, about 27 ft of water filled her engine rooms, and waves poured through her port holes.

Oona’s crew began to strip the ship of virtually everything of value to prepare it to transport across the island to their ship waiting on the other side.

All the furniture, the lights, the chandeliers, all that finery, it would all have to be taken out by hand and carefully winched over the side onto the beach.

Mahino couldn’t be refloated.

The Japanese ship breakers lost something to the tune of £17,000 for the mishap, which back then was a small fortune, and the old Union liner was left where she sat.

Una turned for Japan and steamed on by herself, leaving Mahino’s eight men, including Captain Tanaka, behind.

Australian customs officers had to stay behind, too, to oversee things as a formality.

One of them, Dudley Wely, had delayed his wedding three times on Mahino’s behalf.

Clearly, his fianceé was not amused.

The Stranded Liner became the venue for one of history’s strangest wedding ceremonies as Weatherly sought Captain Tanaka’s permission to host the event on board.

At low tide, guests flocked, scaled a 9 m, 30-ft tall ladder up the hull, and gathered in the salon as strains of music from the ship’s organ welcomed the bride.

By late January 1936, most of the luxurious fittings had been auctioned off.

The duties paid to customs and the Japanese owners were finally finished with Mino.

They desperately sought to buy her, but with the ship’s plate seams now leaking water, it was clear she was completely doomed.

She became a popular haunt for tourists and fishermen who used her bulk as a shelter on remote trips.

But in the Second World War, she was used as a practice bombing range for the Royal Australian Air Force, who skimmed her mast heads with both at bombers.

By the 50s, the old ship had broken in two with her stern sunk well into the sand.

In 1985, locals gathered for a commemoration of 50 years since the ship’s stranding.

Clearly, she had become a local legend, something of a rusting celebrity.

Today, she’s still there, exactly where Captain Tanaka and his seven crewmen left her.

Her hull plates have virtually all been eaten through, leaving behind only the frames and beams like a kind of big metal skeleton.

The superructure with its long prominards and its bridge, the twin funnels and the masts, they’ve all collapsed and been eaten by the sea.

Now only the hull remains.

Still recognizable as a passenger steamer thanks to that iconic shape of her bow and the horse pipes which once carried her anchors.

She’s still a popular attraction for four-wheel drivers, fishermen, and tourists just exploring the beautiful island itself.

Her hulking remains are a reminder of one of Australian maritime history’s bizarre chapters.

The day a luxury liner and a war hero of a ship ran ground on the beach.

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