War veteran tug to be dive wreck
A 98-year-old museum ship will be sunk off the Gold Coast to create a new dive wreck under a plan being pushed by Mayor Tom Tate.
The Queensland Maritime Museum is planning to scrap the 1925-built tug Forceful because it cannot afford the upkeep on the ship, which served in World War II and has been moored in Brisbane for many decades.
Mr Tate has written to museum chair Captain Kaspar Kupitar to formally lodge the council’s interest in taking the ship off the museum’s hands and sinking it off the Coast’s Wonder Reef attraction.
“I understand that Forceful is currently dry docked at The Yard in Brisbane and in need of repair and, further to our discussions, I would like to formally express the city’s interest in transporting and scuttling the vessel for potential inclusion at our Wonder Reef dive site here on the Gold Coast,” he wrote.
“Wonder Reef, opened in 2022, is the world’s first buoyant reef, purpose-built and located 2.5km from shore and is an innovative fusion of art, science and engineering design which has attracted hundreds of different marine life species in under a year.
“Council would be amenable to investigating and potentially funding the relocation of Forceful, subject to the provision of further information regarding costs of transporting and scuttling the vessel.”
He said council was “aware and appreciative of the historical significance of Queensland’s last coal-fired steam tugboat in operation on the Brisbane River’’, and was “hopeful that repurposing and relocating Forceful would be an opportunity to share its history with new audiences in an exciting way.”
Forceful was built in Scotland in 1925 and began operating in Brisbane the following year.
She served in World War II for more than a year as HMAS Forceful before returning to Brisbane and continued to operate until her retirement in September 1970.