The 1869 wooden topsail schooner Grace Darling

The wooden topsail schooner Grace Darling was built in Hobart, Tasmania in 1869. It was wrecked at Edwards Island, Lancelin, WA in 1914.

The wooden schooner should not be confused with the 1907-built  steel steamship of the same name or another vessel of the same name that was wrecked in Queensland 20 years earlier in 1894.

According to the pdf file at https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/67964/dive-qld-shipwreck-grace-darling.pdf , “Grace Darling (1894). Vessel type -  Wooden sailing, schooner. Built - Manning River, New South Wales 1876. Dimensions - Length: 75ft Depth: 7.7ft Width: 21.1ft. Tonnage: 69. General information - 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.”

But enough about the Queensland wreck. Garry Keywood sent me these photos and newspaper cutting that provide some of the history about the wooden topsail schooner Grace Darling that was built in Hobart in 1869 and was wrecked at Edwards Island, Lancelin, WA in 1914: -

A model of the wooden schooner Grace Darling

(Built by Bob Douglas)