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SS ''Xantho'' was a steam ship used in the colony of Western Australia as a pearling transport and mothership, as a tramp steamer, carrying passengers, including Aboriginal convicts and trade goods before she sank at Port Gregory, Western Australia in 1872. She was powered by a horizontal trunk engine. The wreck was forgotten until 1979 when it was found. Subsequent investigations by the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Museum,〔http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/broadhurst/ss-xantho-shipwreck〕 in concert with the Museum's Department of Conservation and Restoration saw the trunk engine recovered in 1985. In the ensuing years it was gradually restored for display at the museum. ==Operational history== ''Xantho'' was built in 1848 as a paddle steamer by the Denny Shipbuilding Company.〔Lyon, D.J., 1975, The Denny list. National Maritime Museum, London〕 The vessel was used by the Anstruther and Leith Steamship Company for crossings of the Firth of Forth between Leith and Aberdour. In 1860, she was sold and relocated to Scarborough, North Yorkshire. In July 1864, ''Xantho'' was sold again, and her register transferred to Wick, from where she was permitted to take excursions to sea.〔Xantho, Certificates of Registry, Leith and Anstruther, PRO. London〕 In early 1871, ''Xantho'' was sold to the 'metal merchant' Robert Stewart of Glasgow, who replaced the paddle engines with a second-hand Crimean War-era two-cylinder, non-condensing trunk engine built (or assembled) in 1861 by John Penn. Stewart also lengthened the vessel's stern and fitted a propeller and a new boiler. The Crimean War-type gunboat engine and those built to the same design in the ensuing years were the first high-pressure, high-revolution, mass-produced engines made for use at sea.〔Osbon, G. A., 1965, The Crimean War gunboats. Part. 1. The Mariner's Mirror, The Journal of the Society of Nautical Research. 51, 103–116〕 The type also used Whitworth's Standard Thread throughout, allowing for interchangeability of parts. The refurbished, schooner-rigged ''Xantho'' was offered for sale in October 1871 and was purchased by Charles Edward Broadhurst, a Manchester-born entrepreneur involved in colonial ventures in northwest Australia.〔Xantho, Certificates of Registry, Glasgow, 61/1871 PRO. London〕 ''Xantho'' was brought to Western Australia via the Suez Canal and the Straits Settlements for use by Broadhurst as a transport and mother vessel for pearling operations. Using the engine to enable her to sail into difficult harbours and against wind and tide ''Xantho'' was also effectively operated as a tramp steamer, taking whatever cargoes and passengers she could. In that role she became Western Australia's first coastal steamship. ''Xantho'' subsequently made two round trips between Fremantle, Batavia (now Jakarta), Geraldton and Broadhurst's pearling camps at Port Hedland and Banningarra (on Pardoo Station). ''Xantho'' also transported a number of northwest Aboriginal men from the Aboriginal prison at Rottnest Island back to their home near Cossack and Roebourne. In November 1879, whilst travelling down from the pearling grounds to Fremantle ''Xantho'' shipped a cargo of lead ore from Port Gregory, an outlet for the Geraldine Mine on the nearby Murchison River. Overloaded, her hull badly corroded and her deck planking opened by the tropical sun, ''Xantho'' began to take on water on the way down the coast. After returning to Port Gregory she struck a sandbar and sank.〔McCarthy, M., 1986, The excavation and raising of the SS Xantho engine and Australia's first practical and theoretical seminar on iron and steamship archaeology. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology,15(2), News, 73–6.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「SS Xantho」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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