Destination Never Reached
Book Review
Barrabool La Trobe picture collection
State Library of Victoria.
Destination Never Reached
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With the publication of DESTINATION NEVER REACHED, the final book in his trilogy about New South Wales shipwrecks, Max has completed a monumental work and one, because of its wide sweep and vision and the nature of its subject (ships and shipwrecks), deserves to have the widest readership possible.
All too often history and the historical record is written in dry-as-dust tomes and deservedly often sits unread on book shelves, ignored by all but the researcher. Max takes a different tack. He puts all the drama inherent in sinkings and stranding, collisions and storms at sea out front in his work and highlights the human interest factors which grip and hold the reader. None of the stories in this book is less than dramatic and exciting and each is livened with meticulous research from contemporary court and inquiry records and newspaper accounts circa the time frame of each wreck.
There’s a touching human interest factor too in the foreword where Max describes his own feelings and inner turmoil when he was swept away in a current from a wreck he had been diving. He describes his thoughts and reflections on all the people, drowned, lost or survivors who were swept away from other wrecks in other times. There was plenty of time for his reflection; two hours before his drift ended in rescue.
For the whole of the nineteenth, and a great part of the twentieth century, much of Australia’s commerce and trade was carried in coastal ships; roads were poor or non-existent and rail often inadequate. These ships, at first sailing vessels and later underpowered steam ships, completed thousands of voyages without mishap, but when misfortune did eventuate it was often intense, tragic and sometimes fatal to ship and crew.
Australia’s wide, flat, hot continent generates vast high pressure systems – anticyclones – the eastern edges of which slope down into corresponding depths – depressions, cyclones, storms in the Tasman Sea creating an area of high instability in the weather. And the storms which are generated, especially in the mid latitudes of New South Wales, can be extremely destructive to ships and shipping. Imagine a vessel such as the DANDENONG, an iron steamship, sail assisted, in 1876 making her way from Melbourne to Newcastle underpowered by steam engines (by present day standards) with boiler fires set low in her hull. Off Jervis Bay a 100 knot, or better, gale hits her. Shortly after her propeller shaft fractures, tearing a hole in her stern. She is taking water badly and soon her stokehold fires are extinguished while the storm lacerates the sea around her. Her 28 crew and 51 passengers are in dire trouble. Hours later as she slowly sinks by the stern a sail is sighted. What then transpires is a tale of epic, tragic proportions and heroism unlimited played out against a terrifying backdrop and told with a master’s touch by Max.
Over a dozen famous wrecks are covered in the book; each tale told with the same loving care and exciting detail; each a monument not only to those who endured the happenings but also a lasting testimony to the man who laboured to give these stories to our generation and to those who succeed us. Congratulations Max Gleeson; this is a magnificent work.
Printed in paperback form the book is profusely illustrated with period photos of the vessels and some brilliant colour and black and white plates of the wrecks as they are today beneath the sea. Your reviewer was most impressed with these pictures. Wreck photography is a bit like exposing film in a bowl of thick soup in a dark room. Max has worked wonders in producing stunning images for the centre plates of the book.
Or you can simply post payment along with your delivery address to:
Max Gleeson
51 Northcote Ave
Caringbah NSW 2229
Price $29.95 plus $5 postage
Buy three or more books and pay $27.50 each with free postage