Maheno Shipwreck

Maheno Shipwreck: Origin of Fraser Island’s Existence

Fraser Island is already known by almost everyone, from anywhere across the globe. This is certainly true to the island’s captivating views, which bestow every tourist a one-of-a-kind experience he or she can cherish for a lifetime. However, there is still more about it that makes this island such a notable place, as it is in the present days. Heard about the Maheno shipwreck incident?

Yes, this made Fraser Island come into your sight, and be included in the account of the most interesting places that worth a special visit.

A Back-Glance to the Maheno Shipwreck Incident

Maheno is the name given to the “world’s first ever triple-screw steamer”, built in Scotland way back in year 1904. The term Maheno originates in Maori, which literally means an ‘island’. It officially weighed an immense weight of 5,323 tons. Certainly, it was a huge ship. Years after the ship was launched, it managed to hold the blue ribbon in trans-Atlantic crossing route. During the World War 1, Maheno was being utilized as a hospital ship.

Eventually, in the later years, Maheno ship was procured by a certain shipping company in Sydney. This is inline with the company’s goal to establish a shipping route between Sydney and New Zealand. And so, the company succeeded in realizing its Trans Tasman journey objective with the Maheno, but it only lasted for a few years in that operation.

Maheno then, was sold to another shipping company, this time owned by the Japanese. The Japanese shipping company consecutively obtained very low funds during these times. And so the company decided to vend the enormous brass propeller out of the still operational Maheno ship. This was made so, in order for the company to fund the hauling of the Maheno by another ship named Ottawa, heading towards Osaka, Japan. Supposedly, the company has planned to melt down the Maheno ship when it would reach Japan, then sold the entire ship as piece of metal.

On its way to Japan, an unexpected incident happened. It was but during this voyage when the Maheno was smacked by a sudden cyclone off the coastline of Fraser island. This is the start of the interesting tell-tales about the Fraser Island’s existence.

From then on, different versions of stories started to emerge from such shipwreck incident. The most famous was the tell-tale of the only survivor of the Maheno shipwreck, in which the Fraser Island is named after. One version told that there was one Japanese crew who managed to survive the shipwreck, but was totally frightened to get off the ship due to the false anticipation of the local Aborigines’ cannibalistic nature.

The ship was then left abandoned in the island, regardless of a number of refloating attempts made after the incident. Several years had passed, and the place where the vessel sank, now becomes a prominent extensive beach, dominating seventy-mile from the total area of the Fraser Island.

Early 1990s, Fraser Island was deemed as a World Heritage Site, along with the Uluru and Kakadu National Park, likewise with the Great Barrier Reef. All are spotted in the vast continent of Australia. These places are also ecologically preserved. Thus, it is projected that every visiting tourist should act as an environment-friendly guest.