Date visited 29 December 2023
This one has been on my todo list for a number of years - unfortunately the town of Whyalla in South Australia is just a bit too far out of the way, and even though I get to Adelaide fairly regularly for work, I have never been able to get over to this side of Spencer Gulf before.Anyway, HMAS Whyalla is a Bathurst class Australian Minesweepers built during WW2 - one of two that has been preserved (the other being HMAS Castlemaine in Williamstown - near Melbourne). Sixty of these were originally built - 36 for the RAN, and 24 for the RN (but 4 of the RN ones were transferred to the RIN, and the other 20 were commissioned into the RAN). She was also the first vessel ever built in Whyalla, so has a strong local connection.The ship was used by the Victorian Government for nearly 40 years post-war for offshore maintenance tasks, and had been significantly modified - some, but not all, of those modifications have been reversed since she became a museum ship - so her current configuration is a bit of a mish-mash. But the ship is well-maintained and has a fairly high profile in the local tourism industry (which isn't hard as Whyalla doesn't have all that much else going for it!). She has been hauled up out of the water and is supported on blocks adjacent to the main highway heading out of town.The ship, along with the Whyalla Maritime Museum is attached to the local Tourism Information Office. You can only go onboard if you join one of the escorted tours, which are run twice daily. The tour-guides are just the workers from the Tourism Information Office, who appear to be working from a memorised script. It is well-presented but cringeworthy in places (e.g. references to the kitchen rather than the galley - and the way they described minesweeping bore no resemblance to anything I knew about the subject). The Maritime Museum itself is well done for a small town - about a third of the museum relates to Bathurst class Corvettes - focusing on those named after nearby locations (i.e. Whyalla and Gawler). Anyway - in the unlikely event you are ever in Whyalla, this is another one worth visiting. We are lucky to have her still with us.
Links and References:
George, A, 2014, Preserved Bathurst Class Ships: Maids of all Work, Warship World, 13 (10), pp25-26.
anon, 1992, Whyalla - An Historical Journey, Navy, 54 (4), pp11-13.