An Exhibition Launch
Life at the museum isn’t always about old artefacts and library research; sometimes we put our glad rags on and throw a good party.
Recently we launched a new exhibition: Submerged – Stories of Australia’s Shipwrecks. Volunteers, members of the Historical Society and community members gathered to open the exhibition with a talk by a local mariner and marine rescue volunteer Geoffrey Clarke. Geoff shared hair-raising stories of what it is like to provide rescue and emergency assistance to vessels in strife today. As Geoff pointed out, it isn’t just ships that are covered by marine safety regulations, but also airplanes flying over bodies of water.
Submerged is a touring exhibition created by the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Australian Maritime Museums Council. It features accounts of maritime disasters all around Australian waters.
Alongside the touring exhibition we have taken the opportunity shine a special light on some shipwrecks and marine disasters in the waters of the South Coast. This has also allowed us to showcase some of our collection items.
The attack on the Trawler Dureenbee
One of the most exciting artefacts in the Batemans Bay Heritage Museum’s collection, and the source this post’s mystery, was in fact salvaged from a sinking ship: the steam whistle from the Dureenbee.
Dureenbee was a small fishing trawler of 223 tons, constructed in 1919. In 1942 she belonged to Cam and Sons, and operated in the seas off the South Coast.
Our exhibition tells the story of how, at about 1.30 am on August 3, 1942, while the crew were stowing their catch and dropping the net, Dureenbee was approached by the Japanese submarine I-175, which was on the surface to recharge batteries. The submarine engaged Dureenbee with its deck gun, followed by barrages with its machine guns.
The attack continued for 45 minutes, and the radio operator on board signalled distress via the radio. By the time the submarine left, one crewman was dead, and two badly injured. The remaining three sailors had managed to take cover behind machinery and survived with only minor injuries. They sent up distress flares to summon assistance.
The local trawler Mirabooka was enlisted for the rescue mission, and all members of the Dureenbee crew were taken ashore. One further sailor died of his injuries in transit, while a third man passed in hospital several days later.
The Dureenbee itself had lost its funnel and other superstructure and drifted aground on the rocks of North Head outside Batemans Bay. Attempts were made to recover the wreck, but the vessel could not be refloated, and the mission had to be abandoned. Local fishermen removed equipment from the wreck before it sank.
Shipwreck Salvage – The Dureenbee Steam Whistle
Like most steam powered ships of the time, the Dureenbee had a whistle that sounded when it left and arrived at port, and this was among the salvaged items taken off the wreck.
Once retrieved, the whistle was brought to local institution Perry’s Mill. It was mounted to the mill’s steam engine and used to signal working hours for mill employees, as well as to provide precise time for Batemans Bay inhabitants. It continued to serve this purpose until the factory closed in the 1980s, and the whistle became an integral part of the soundscape of the town of Batemans Bay. When Perry’s Mill closed down operations the whistle was donated to our Museum, where it still resides today.
The Workings of a Steam Whistle
So how does a steam whistle generate its signal? The whistle consists of the whistle bell (marked 1 on the diagram below), the steam orifice or aperture (2), and the valve (9).
When the lever (10) is activated (usually via a pull cord), the valve opens and lets the steam escape through the aperture. The steam will alternately compress and rarefy in the bell, creating the sound.
The specific tenor of sound of a steam whistle is dependent on a myriad of things: the composition of the whistle itself, the pressure of steam engine, and the steam quality. The manner in which the operator engages the whistle also impacts the sound, but once the whistle is mounted on a specific engine it will give off a recognisable tone that everyone familiar with it would know.
The sound of the Dureenbee whistle was the heartbeat of the town for almost four decades, but it does not appear to ever have been recorded. As a result it’s particular tenor is a mystery to those of us who arrived in town later.
While we are not so fortunate as to have a recording of the Dureenbee whistle, there are archives with recorded sounds of other famous steam ships and locomotives, for example this site of American steamboat whistles:
So what would it take to recreate the sound that reverberated through Batemans Bay daily in the decades before Perry’s Mill closed? Well, we would have to mount the whistle on the old Perry’s Mill steam engine to get the same frequency. The engine reportedly ended up on display at the Mogo gold rush colony, which has been closed since after the 2020 bushfire. It is unclear whether the engine survived the fire, and if it did, where it went. If anyone has a recording of the old whistle sound, or knows the whereabouts of the Perry’s mill steam engine get in touch, and perhaps we can solve the mystery of the sound that Batemans bay lived by for four decades.
But while the sound of the Dureenbee whistle is, at least for now, lost to us, the whistle itself is on display at the Museum during our Shipwrecks’ exhibition. Make sure you take the opportunity to visit and admire it!
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