HMQS Gayundah - The Lightning at Dawn

HMQS Gayundah began service in 1884. She was launched at Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK on 13 May 1884.
The name Gayundah is an aboriginal word meaning “lightning” – no doubt because of her incredible 10.5 knot top speed.

In concert with her sister ship Paluma, (Aboriginal word for “thunder”) the ships sailed for Australia in November 1884, travelling via the Suez Canal, under the command of Captain Henry Townley Wright. The ships arrived in Brisbane on 28 March 1885.

Originally Gayundah was a flat-iron gunboat operated by the Queensland Maritime Defense Force and later the Royal Australian Navy. During WW1 Gayundah acted as a minesweeper and sea-going tender. Gayundah was decommissioned and sold to Brisbane Gravel Pty Ltd in 1921, and she then served as a sand and gravel barge in Brisbane until the 1950, when she was scrapped. In 1958, Gayundah was run aground at Woody Point near Redcliffe, Queensland, to serve as a breakwater structure. She remains there to this day.

It is part of a series in a theme of reviewing the fate of abandoned human manufactured objects in the natural environment.

First is the Cherry Venture Shipwreck which was driven ashore in 1973 during a violent storm and stranded high on the sands of the Noosa Northshore Sands, becoming an accidental tourist attraction. The Cherry Venture was removed from the Teewah Beach in February/March 2007 because of environmental danger to the public, caused when the erosion and corrosion eventually left the engine exposed, sending asbestos into the atmosphere.
The second shipwreck is HMQS Gayundah which was originally a flat-iron gunboat operated by the Queensland Maritime Defence Force and later the Royal Australian Navy. She began service in 1881, and was decommissioned and sold to a civilian company in 1921. She was eventually run aground at Woody Point near Redcliffe to serve as a breakwater protecting the shore from erosion.