THE GAYUNDAH.
TRANSFORMATION PROCESS.
H.M.A.S. Gayundah is being transformed, says the Sydney Morning Herald. Some days ago she went into Cockatoo docks with the same little low ?? ?? ?? which Australians have known for nearly thirty years. She was a ??? of the famous? flat iron type of gunboat. Where her bow ought to have been there was a triangle of deck ?? ?? ?? a single enormous 8 in. gun ?? ?? from the middle of her fore-head as it were. The blacks on the Queensland coast called her the “broken nose man o’ war.” When the Gayundah comes out of Cockatoo her broken nose will have been mended for ever. The authorities have decided to build her up a respectable forecastle. It will hold another twenty men or so. And the Gayundah, which has already put in thirty years, will probably serve another highly useful thirty. The Gayundah has in her the same engine which brought her out from England in 1884. She steamed a bare ten knots on her trials then, and she steams well over ten knots today. She is used for training the naval reserves along the coast, and she is at work year in year out. She steams 14,000 miles a year and her particular virtue is that she steams it very cheaply. Australians only imperfectly realise what an important ship the Gayundah is.
It is all wrong about the [H.M.A.S] Australia. The Australia was not the first flagship. That honour is claimed by the Gayundah. Shortly after the Commonwealth was inaugurated the Commonwealth of the day ?? ?? in line ahead from the Brisbane River. The Gayundah was leading, the Paluma kept station on her, the picket boat Midge brought up the rear. On the occasion of that historic cruise the Gayundah bore the senior officer’s flag. She has not forgotten it…
Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 – 1954) Thu 26 Mar 1914 Page 5