The corvette HMAS WHYALLA was the first ship to be built in the Whyalla shipyards. It was launched in May 1941 and decommissioned in 1946 after extensive war service.
Until 1984 it was operated by the Victorian Ports and Harbours in Melbourne as The RIP. The opportunity then arose for Whyalla to purchase its namesake and so began a lengthy saga to return the ship to Whyalla where it was finally, and after much huffing and puffing, brought up onto land and positioned at the newly completed Whyalla Maritime Museum at Tanderra on the main highway to Port Augusta.
The saga of the ship’s return was the subject of many STAN cartoons.
The first issue was where the ship would be located. Some groups wanted it at the foreshore, others in Wilson park near the existing Rudder, so The RIP sailed into a veritable war-zone.While the last resting place of the ship was being decided, the poor thing was in danger of sinking as it lay alongside the BHP wharf.The effort needed to get her out of the water and onto dry land was a saga in itself, after the decision to locate it at the Tanderra site.The ship was called THE RELUCTANT LADY at this point as she didn’t seem all that keen to leave the water.As the cartoon said, it was lucky the ship was the smallest built at the shipyard, and only weighed about 650 tons, and not one of the largest ships, the 1971 built AMANDA MILLER, a 66,000 ton oil tanker (Which provided a lot of entertainment for the people of Whyalla when it caught fire during construction on 18 April 1970.).Things got a little heated at one point when nobody could decide where the little ship would go. A compromise perhaps?There were those at the time who thought that the money spent on moving the ship could have been better spent.Even after the struggle of getting the ship out of the water and onto dry land, there was still a lot of work to do making it safe for tourists and restoring it to its wartime condition.At the time there was development going on at HUMMOCK HILL at the beach, which apparently used to be a volcano many aeons ago.The CLUTHA CAPRICORN was the largest ship built at the shipyard in 1972.
This is the home page of Whyalla artist Stephen Stanley. If you’ve lived in Whyalla in the past or are a current resident, the editorial cartoons on this website will be of great interest to you, as they record almost all of the significant (or just amusing) events that have happened in Whyalla since the early 1970s.
This site is a humorous snapshot of the history of Whyalla, seen through the eyes of the local editorial cartoonist. Browse and enjoy!
Stan Cartoons Archive 