In a deep rolling sea, five kilometres off Torquay, the interstate collier Milora went to an ocean grave in 1935. The vessel was owned by the Australasian United Steam Navigation Co. shippers of coal for the Metropolitan Gas Co.
Six months earlier, the 14-year-old Milora was en route to Melbourne when she struggled in heavy sea with a fractured rudder and was grounded off Point Lonsdale, creating gaping holes in her plates. Torn from stem to stern by the jagged reef, she was held fast for two days in the Queenscliff Bight.
The James Paterson was one of the two powerful tugboats which stood by and helped tear her free. She was damaged beyond economical repair and scuttled in the ship’s graveyard.
She was built in Williamstown as the Emita and achieved notoriety by plunging off the slips ten minutes ahead of the launching schedule. As she entered the water, she crashed into another vessel, causing considerable damage. She narrowly missed the tug James Paterson, the same vessel that had towed her out on her last voyage.
During the middle of the night the Milora was towed from Williamstown. The sea was calm, and while Williamstown slept, the James Paterson manoeuvred the Milora out of Gellibrand pier, where ship breakers had been stripping everything valuable from her hull for three months.
The Pilot boarded the James Paterson and fixed the course for the graveyard. The Milora followed without protest. They passed through The Heads at dawn and reached the ‘graveyard’ off the Torquay coast two hours later, where many other condemned craft had been sunk.
Three hands manned the Milora until the last minute, and whose work it was to sink her. They removed the forward sea cocks to admit a steady gush of water, and Mr J William, shipbreaker, lit two six-foot fuses which burnt at the rate of three feet to the minute. He had two minutes to get clear. Scrambling on deck, he raced to the ladder dangling over the stern and descended into the dinghy bobbing below with the other two men. They paddled quickly away from the sinking ship.
A few moments later, a reverberating explosion followed, then another. A black cascade of smoke arose, and the Milora shuddered. As the water surged into her, the stern rose in the air while the surrounding water changed colour, and the ship had gone in a moment. She now lies twenty-five fathoms deep in the shadows of other phantom ships in the ships’ graveyard.
The James Paterson returned to port alone, signifying the job was done.