Cataraqui (ship)
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- For other uses, see Cataraqui (ship) (disambiguation).
The Cataraqui (also called the Cataraque[1]) was a British barque sailing ship which sunk off the south-west coast of King Island in Bass Strait on 4 August 1845. The sinking was Australia's worst ever maritime civil disaster incident, claiming the lives of 400 people.
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[edit] Construction and technical details
The Cataraqui was a 802 ton[2] barque, of dimensions 138 x 30 x 22 feet (42 x 9 x 7 metres). The ship was built in Quebec, Canada in 1840 by the shipwrights Williams Lampson. The name Cataraqui comes from the French transliteration of "Katerokwi", the original Mississaugas First Nation name for the area now known as Kingston, Ontario.
[edit] Voyage to Australia
The Cataraqui was purchased and registered in Liverpool, England by Smith & Sons, for the purpose of transporting assisted emigrants to Port Phillip (Melbourne) in the colony of Victoria, Australia.
On 20 April 1845, the ship sailed from Liverpool under the command of Captain Christopher Finlay. The ship's manifest on departure included 367 emigrants and 41 crew (409 total, including the captain). The voyage was fairly uneventful apart from the loss of a crewmember overboard. By the time the vessel neared Australia, five babies had been born and six others had died.
[edit] Sinking of the Cataraqui
As the Cataraqui entered Bass Strait in the early morning of 4 August, she encountered a severe storm. At about 0430 hours, the ship was cast suddenly onto jagged rocks just off Fitzmaurice Bay on King Island off the north-western coast of Tasmania. Attempts to evacuate the ship were hindered by the large waves and heavy weather which washed many of the ship's occupants overboard. Eight crewmen managed to reach the shore by clinging to floating wreckage, where they encountered the only emigrant survivor, Samuel Brown. The nine castaways were stranded on King Island for five weeks until they were rescued by the cutter Midge and taken to Melbourne.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ British accounts of the wreck usually refer to the ship as the Cataraque which is more consistent with the pronunciation of the original Canadian name. However, Australian references such as the point on King Island named after the ship spell the name Cataraqui, which is also consistent with Lloyd's Register of Shipping.
- ^ Lloyd's Register of Shipping for 1845 states the Cataraqui was 802 tons New Measurement according to the formula used to calculate ships' tonnages established from 1 January 1836 and 712 tons on the system previously used (Old Measurement). They are based on estimates of the cubic capacity of the hull and not directly related to its weight.
