The SS Grace Darling

The SS Grace Darling was abandoned in the Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard in the North Arm of the Port River in 1931. 

The Grace Darling at anchorage

(Photo from the South Australian Maritime Museum Collection)

The 1907-built steel steamship was dismantled and then beached at Garden Island next to the Flinders on 19^th June 1931.  The Moe  was placed alongside the Grace Darling  a few months later on 25^th September 1931. The Grace Darling is now located between the Moe and the Flinders. The Stanley  and the Thomas and Annie are both close by amongst the mangroves.

The 622 (or 627)-gross ton Grace Darling was schooner-rigged. It was built at Hardinxveld, Netherlands for Port Adelaide’s John Darling and Company in 1907. John Darling and Company were flour millers in Port Adelaide. According to the “Garden Island Ships’ Graveyard Maritime Heritage Trail” booklet published by the Department for Environment and Heritage, “The steel-hulled vessel measured 175.0 feet (53.3m) in length, 27.0 feet (8.2m) breadth, 12.8 feet (3.9m) depth and was 622 gross tons.”

Chronometer from the Grace Darling

(Photo from the South Australian Maritime Museum Collection)

Garry Keywood sent me these photos and newspaper cuttings that provide some of the history of the Grace Darling: -

I took this photo of the Grace Darling in 2019: -

The 1907-built  steel steamship should not be confused with the wooden schooner of the same name: -

A model of the wooden schooner Grace Darling

(Built by Bob Douglas)

The wooden topsailschooner Grace Darling was built in Hobart, Tasmania in 1869. It was wrecked at Edwards island, Lancelin, WA in 1914.

I am told that there was another vessel of the same name that was wrecked in Queensland 20 years earlier in 1894.