Format: Publication

Document Tags

Show tags

no tags yet

Linked To

Exhibition

Treasures of the State Library of South Australia

Recollections

By: Wilfred Ellis25th Jul 2019 10:07PMI do not know if this is relevant to the story of the schooner Penola but I remember in 1940 or 1941 as a young gunner staioned at Toward Point Battery on the river Clyde in Scotland on one rather stormy day a vessel identified as the Penola sailing up the Clyde driftef on to our foreshore and, turning broadside on, grounded.
The crew, presumably considering the ship could not be salvaged abandoned ship and departed, complete with the ship's cat. During the next few weeks the Penola slowly broke up and soon it was as though it had never been. What I remember mainly and why this stayed in my mind was that a gunner who was manning a rather ancient machine gun on a stand adjacent to the heavy guns looked at me as I walked past him and said 'It wasn't me!'
Wilfred Ellis, late Royal Artillery.

Tools

Full size thumbnail Fit to screen Fit to width Fit to height Rotate 90 degrees Zoom to 100%

Show Text / Transcription Show keyword hits Highlight keywords Download Add to My Collection Contact us about this Citation for this item

Research yacht Penola under sail

Reference

SLSA catalogueCatalogue record

Publication

CreatorRymill, John, 1905-1968TitleResearch yacht Penola under sailDate of publication1938SourceSouthern lights; the official account of the British Graham Land expedition, 1934-1937, opposite p. 42Description

For his British Graham Land Expedition John Rymill purchased an auxilliary-powered Brittany fishing schooner to take his expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship was manned by an amateur crew under the command of Royal Navy Lieutenant R E D Ryder. The Chief Engineer was Lieutenant-Commander H Millett. The vessel was renamed Penola after Rymill's home town in South Australia.

Penola was a heavily built vessel well adapted for sailing in polar seas. It also had a large carrying capacity for its size. Built in 1905, Penola was 103 feet at the waterline with a 24 foot beam and drew 14 feet. Her tonnage was 130 tons. She was rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner and equipped with two 50-horsepower Junker diesel engines.

In 1985 Colin Bertram wrote that the name Penola caused some problems to the expedition members, as the small South Australian town was unheard of, and particularly in an era when exploration ships were usually named for a concept such as Endurance, Endeavour, or Discovery.

The question of the amateur crew also raised some concerns, but all worked well with the best interests of the expedition at heart.

Relates to

ExhibitionTreasures of the State Library of South AustraliaCollection titleTreasures WallSubjectRymill, John, 1905-1968British Graham Land expedition, 1934-1937Penola (Schooner)Scientific expeditions -- Antarctica

Use

Copying and publication

Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the State Library under these conditions of use.

Buy a high resolution copy.

OCR Text Transcription Edit Edit +-Close

Save Cancel + Row + Column

Menu

Research yacht Penola under sail