Booyah

[den]

In 1974 Cyclone Tracy demolished Darwin. The 36m long 3 masted schooner "Booyah" was last seen in Darwin Harbour. She put out one mayday call and was never seen again, vanishing with all hands.

They found her today.

Comments

[makovette.livejournal.com]

Ahh, got it. This is a highly important, more or less local to Darwin (save of course the German ship and crew of course) event that people wish to honor then.

Thanks, that information was very helpful to help me understand what it's all about.

Mako

[steamwhistle.livejournal.com]

Because the city was so isolated (still is isolated, actually) it was a day or so before the rest of Australia realised that it had been flattened. At the time there were no building laws up there so almost all the buildings were a mixture of light timber and roofing iron.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

After the cyclone, over 90% the city consisted of rubble on concrete slabs. The place looked like Hiroshima after the bomb. (some photos: http://www.arafura.net.au/greeksnt/70s.html)

It was a pretty minor event on the world scale, certainly nowhere near as bad an Hurricane Andrew, but for us Aussies it was shocking. You don't expect a state's capital city to vanish.

[bridgette01.livejournal.com]

ahh yes, Cyclone Tracey, I remember being a terrified 7 year old in the middle of it. Truly nature at it's most powerful and destructive, don't recommend it to anyone..storms still terrify me.