SS TAHITI

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date14 August 1924

Object number00041503

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionSS TAHITI leaving for San Francisco on Thursday 14 August 1924.HistorySS TAHITI was a 7898 ton steel twin-screw passenger and mail vessel. It was built in 1907 by A Stephen & Sons Ltd at Glasgow. In 1924 it was owned by the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Ld and registered in the Port of London under a British flag. On 3 November 1927 SS TAHITI was involved in a tragic collision on Sydney Harbour with the small passenger ferry GREYCLIFFE. The ferry sank and 40 people drowned. Both vessels were found to have contributed to the maritime disaster with SS TAHITI travelling too fast at 12 knots instead of the prescribed 8 knots in enclosed waters. In August 1930, SS TAHITI punctured her hull with her propeller shaft, in New Zealand waters between Wellington and Rarotonga. She wallowed for three days before sinking without loss of life. SignificanceThis photograph is part of the F G Wilkinson Photograph Collection, comprising more than 700 glass plate negatives of ships in Sydney Harbour between 1919 and 1936. The collection provides an extensive and well-documented coverage of the changing styles of shipping in the port of Sydney before the gradual decline of the coastal trade, and in a period which was probably the peak reached by commercial shipping in Australia. The backgrounds also reveal the changing face of the city and harbour foreshores.