SS Alert

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SS Alert
History
Australia
Name: SS Alert
Owner: Huddart Parker
Port of registry: Melbourne, Australia
Builder: Robert Duncan & Co., Port Glasgow
Launched: 1877
Identification: Official number: 76169
Fate: Sunk, 28 December 1893
General characteristics [1]
Type: Steamship
Tonnage: 243 tons[2]
Length: 169 ft (52 m)
Beam: 19 ft 6 in (5.94 m)
Depth: 9 ft 10 in (3.00 m)
Propulsion: Rankin & Blackmore compound steam engine, 90 nhp, 1 screw

SS Alert was a steamship that sank off Cape Schanck, Victoria, Australia on 28 December 1893.[1][3][4] The ship was built for the gentle waters of Scottish lochs and was almost 51 m (167 ft) long and weighed 247 tonnes.

After the Alert sank the ship laid for 113 years on the ocean floor until being rediscovered in June 2007 by a team from Southern Ocean Exploration.

History

The Alert was built at Port Glasgow in 1877 and later sailed to Australia as a three-masted schooner with her funnel and propeller stowed in the hold.[2] After a few years on the Melbourne-Geelong route she temporarily replaced the SS Despatch on the Gippsland-Melbourne run in 1893 whilst the Despatch was being refitted.

During a gale, the ship set out from Lakes Entrance bound for Melbourne via Port Albert.[1] It encountered hurricane-force southerly winds and mountainous seas and sank about four miles[3] off Cape Schanck.[3][5] Of the 16 people on board, the only survivor was Robert Ponting, the ship's cook, who was washed ashore at Sorrento"back" (ocean) beach after clinging to a portion of cabin door. He was found and revived by locals using brandy and the body heat of a St. Bernard dog.[6] Two bodies were also washed ashore at Sorrento back beach.[7]

An inquiry was held and attached no blame to the lighthouse keeper or the captain[8] but, after years of litigation, compensation was awarded to Ponting and the wife of one of the deceased.[9]

References

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External links

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