WARATAH SNIPPETS

The following refers to Able Seaman T Newman of the Waratah:
from The Times 18 December 1909:
NEWMAN Lost in the SS Waratah, Thomas, eldest son of the late Richard and Mary Newman, formerly of Devon, England, late of the Civil Service, Tasmania, grandson of the late John Feneran of Kinsale, Ireland, and nephew of the late Revd. TH Newman, M.A. Cantab.

The Times 6 July 1910
carried a report on the claim made against the Blue Anchor Line by the widow of the Waratah's purser, SKAILES. Mrs Harriett M Skailes of Sprowston Road, Forest Gate claimed 300 pounds in damages from the shipping line and from it's managing owners, Messrs W Lund and Sons, for the loss of her husband. The Waratah had by this date been posted at Lloyd's as lost, and 'though Skailes may yet turn up, he must be regarded as dead'. Skailes had left a wife and two children. The case for the plaintiff, i.e. the widow, was successful and she was awarded 300 pounds and costs. [One wonders how the family fared during the ensuing years; 300 pounds was only slightly more than Skailes had earned annually.]

Shipping News The Times 3 March 1910
The Waratah: A Reuter telegram from Cape Town says that a quantity of wreckage has lately been washed ashore at intervals in the neighbourhood of Mossel Bay. A most significant object is a cushion marked 'W', while a hatchway, which was found 3 weeks ago, has been sent to the builders of the missing liner Waratah with a view to identification.

THE FREAK WAVES THAT SWALLOW SHIPS WHOLE
"From the early days of navigation, the sea off the Wild Coast earned a fearsome reputation for its merciless storms and monstrous waves. In one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the sea, the luxury liner Waratah, with ships both ahead and behind it, vanished in broad daylight off the Wild Coast in 1909. The explanation generally accepted for the ship's disappearance is that it fell victim to one of the unpredictable freak waves that are the scourge of this stretch of ocean. This belief is supported by the fact that between 1964 and 1973 six ships supported encounters with these abnormal waves. In addition, in 1968 the tanker World Glory broke its back and sank after ploughing headlong into a freak wave off the Natal Coast.
Freak waves vary from about 5 to 20m in height, an awesome force, but are exacerbated by being preceded by a deep trough. If a ship encounters such a wave head-on, it will first dip into the trough, and before it has time to raise its bow, a 20m wall of water comes crashing down on its deck - enough to smash the sturdiest vessel afloat. With large ships such as tankers, the superstructure may be buckled as the vessel bucks through the steep trough and wave; smaller ships may simply disappear ......
Although impossible to predict the exact occurrence of these waves, there are some warning signs. Immediately off the 10 km-wide Transkei continental shelf the Agulhas Current flows strongly south-westwards, creating a 100 km-wide belt up to 2 000m-deep. When a cold front (low-pressure system) moves across Southern Africa, the associated galeforce south-westerly winds generate waves that, on encountering the current flowing in the opposite direction, becomes higher and steeper. If any of these steep waves become superimposed on the long wavelength swells that reach our shores from the Southern Ocean, then a massive abnormal wave can develop."
SOURCE Reynierse Cecile (ed) Illustrated Guide to the Southern African Coast (1988) pg 204