Schooner Bonnie Dundee and Hally Bailey Dismasted off Jervis Bay – 1890

Monday 3rd February 1890 – During a violent gale off Jervis Bay the Schooner Bonnie Dundee was severly damaged loosing her masts, she was towed into Jervis Bay.

During the same storm the Schooner Hally Bailey was also dismasted off Jervis Bay and towed to Sydney, by one of Messrs, Huddart, Parkers and Co.’s steamers.
The Hally Bailey was on a voyage between Rockhampton and Hobart.

Reports in Sydney newspapers about the severity of this storm, describe the seas as mountainous, and have not been seen since the sinking of the the Dunbar in 1857 south of Sydney heads, with the loss of 58 crew and 63 passengers, one man survived..

And the tempests wild they cease

A ship far out on a smiling sea,
With it’s snowy sails outspread;
Cleaving the waters merrily,
And a bright sun overhead.

It kisses the cheek of the sailor lad,
And he climbs to the mast-head high;
He sings at his work, for his heart is glad,
As he thinks of his home so nigh.

A cottage home where the roses twine
And a mother in silent prayer;
And the self-same sun which on him doth shine,
Is guilding her silvery hair.

The lightnings flash and the thunders roar,
These waves they are mountainous high.
No help on the ocean, no help from shore
No light in the midnight sky.

A brave ship struggling with might and main,
And it’s white sails rent and torn;
It lurches and groans like a thing in pain,
And it’s mast in well-nigh gone.

A sailor clings to a broken spar,
And his face is wild and sad.
A mother prays in her home afar,
To-night for her sailor lad.

A child is saved for that prayer of thine,
And the tempests wild they cease,
Over a cottage where roses twine
Hovers the angel of Peace!

Schooner Bonnie Dundee and Hally Bailey Dismasted off Jervis Bay – 1890

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