The wooden schooner Grace Darling was built at Manning River, NSW in 1876. It was beached on Moreton Island, Queensland, where it eventually became a total wreck, on14th March 1894.
(The wooden schooner should not be confused with the 1907-built steel steamship of the same name or the wooden
topsail schooner Grace Darling that was built in Hobart, Tasmania in
1869 and was wrecked at Edwards Island, Lancelin, WA in 1914.)
According to the pdf file at https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/67964/dive-qld-shipwreck-grace-darling.pdf
, the Grace Darling’s dimensions were “Length: 75ft Depth: 7.7ft Width:
21.1ft.” Its tonnage is given as 69 (gross tons (imperial tons).
Further, “The Grace Darling left Fisherman’s Island,
Brisbane on 11 March 1894 with a cargo of 90 tons of coal, 440 cases of
dynamite and 15 cases of detonators. Due to bad weather the captain decided to
anchor the vessel off the Moreton Bay pilot station. On the afternoon of 14
March 1894, the wind increased to hurricane force and dragged the vessel
towards the shore. The Grace Darling was so close to the beach that the
ship’s master decided there was no chance of saving the vessel, so he beached
the schooner on Moreton Island. The cargo was washed ashore, and the vessel
eventually became a total wreck. No lives were lost.
“The wreck lies on a sandy bottom and can be partially
covered by sand. The site largely consists of a considerable mound of coal
(cargo) with fragments of wooden hull, copper fixing bolts and an oven. The
coal mound is 1.5m above the sand and is orientated north-south with bow to
south.
“The Grace Darling’s underwater superstructure is a
habitat which provides food and shelter for a variety of marine life including
sponges, corals, pelagic and reef fish, octopus and wobbegong sharks.”
The
pdf includes maps and photos of the wreck site at Moreton Island: -
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