Australian_Geographic_-_October_2015_

60 Australian Geographic

O

N A BRIGHT, BLUSTERY February

morning in 1917, a four-masted

American schooner was charging

towards Cape Willoughby in South Australia.

Seventy-three days out from San Francisco,

USA, the Kona was bound for Port Adelaide

with a 45-tonne cargo of California redwood.

Sailing at 18 knots in a stiff south-easterly

gale, the ship was tracking a straight

downwind path into Backstairs Passage.

The lightkeepers realised that, by doing so,

the Kona was aiming to sail over Scraper

Shoal, a long sandbar that pokes into the

passage. They also knew it was a record low

tide with less than 2m of water atop the reef,

so they hoisted a red-and-white signal flag

warning the ship it was running into danger.

But the Kona’s crew ignored the advice

and kept ploughing on. It was the keepers’

worst nightmare as they watched the ship

slam headlong into the shoal at full speed.

The ship came to a shuddering, gut-wrenching

halt and started breaking up almost immedi-

ately. One of the lifeboats was flung 5m into

the air and smashed into matchwood.

Mercifully, the crew managed to patch up the

other boat with scraps of old sail and all 11 on

board rowed around Cape St Albans to the

shelter of Antechamber Bay.

Just minutes after they left the ship it

began sinking. With that, its cargo – as much

as 850,000 linear feet of timber – was cast

adrift in the passage. It would remain

a significant hazard to shipping for many

months to come, and was a pointed reminder

of the perils of ignoring a lightkeeper’s

watchful warning.

The crash

of the Kona

Drift wood. The same raging winds that

helped bring the Kona undone also cast

its remains far and wide. The bow section

was blown 100km north-west to Port

Moorowie on the foot of Yorke Peninsula,

while the deckhouse landed to the west

at Cape Spencer. Meanwhile the 45-tonne

cargo of planks and shelving littered

beaches throughout the region.

Aloe sailors. Through mid-winter, aloe

vera fl owers add vivid spikes of colour to

the surrounds of Cape Willoughby, SA.

Constructed in less than two years by

18 stonemasons using little more than

star chisels and sledge hammers, the

granite walls are up to 1.4m thick.

HISTORICAL: STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA; LIGHTHOUSE: QUENTIN CHESTER (QC)