Another illustration completed for Xploredive - SS Yongala

 

The S.S Yongala lies in 28m of water off Ayr in Northern Queensland. This iconic wreck sunk approximately 8 miles off Cape Bowling Green in 1911. Today the wreck is an absolute sanctuary for marine life, with the wreck sporting lots of growth all over.

Eggbox Studios began discussions on the Yongala project back in January 2009. There was very little visual information on the ship itself aside from a sketch done of the wreck by Leon Zann in 1981 and a selection of poor quality photographs taken in the few years before it sank.

 

Luckily, Chris at Xploredive found a video of an acoustic survey which we managed to trace to James Cook University, Queensland. They very kindly allowed us to use the survey data as reference in creating the 3d model of the wreck, without which we would still be scratching our collective heads.



The next revelation was discovering that the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich had copies of the original ship plans from when the ship was built in Newcastle in 1902. The plans enabled the base model to be constructed accurately with the main access points in the correct positions.



The ship is almost intact up to the promenade deck with only the top decks completely destroyed. The plans were used to build the ship 'as new' up to the promenade deck before using the survey data to accurately age the wreckage into it's current state. The top decks have completely crumbled onto the seabed along with the steering gear house at the stern and the masts and derrick's have collapsed through the decks.



Finally, the wreckage was covered in corals just like the real thing.



The final images will be used as diving aids and are available through Xploredive.