The _Loch Vennachar_ lay at the bottom of the Thames for a month and was then raised. After repairs and alterations to the value of about £17,000 were made on her, she was pronounced by experts to be as good as the day she was launched; and she once more resumed her place in the Australian trade.
About September, 1905, when bound from Glasgow to Adelaide, she came on the overdue list. On 6th September she was spoken “all well” by the ss. _Yongala_, 160 miles west of Neptune Island. But as the days passed and she did not arrive, grave anxiety began to be felt. On 29th September, the ketch _Annie Witt_ arrived at Adelaide, and her captain reported picking up a reel of blue printing paper 18 miles N.W. of Kangaroo Island. This paper was identified as part of _Loch Vennachar’s_ cargo. A search was made on Kangaroo Island and wreckage was discovered which made the disaster only too sure. It was concluded that she had run on the Young Rocks in trying to make the Backstairs Passage. Captain Hawkins, late of the _Loch Ness_, was in command, having taken her over from Captain Bennett the year before.
As if the fatal curse of Jonah had been transmitted from father to son, T. R. Pearce, a son of the twice wrecked Tom Pearce, was one of the apprentices lost in her.
_Salamis_, one of the most beautiful little ships ever launched and without doubt the fastest of all Thompson’s iron ships, was really an enlarged _Thermopylae_ in iron, as she was built from Bernard Waymouth’s lines with a few minor alterations and improvements. The following comparison of their measurements shows that _Salamis_ was roughly 100 tons larger and 10 feet longer than _Thermopylae_:—
+------------------------+-----------+--------------+ | Measurements | _Salamis_ | _Thermopylae_| | of | Iron Ship |Composite Ship| +------------------------+-----------+--------------+ |Registered tonnage net | 1079 tons.| 948 tons. | |Registered tonnage gross| 1130 „ | 991 „ | |Registered tonnage | | | | under deck | 1021 „ | 927 „ | |Length |221.6 feet.| 212 feet. | |Breadth | 36 „ | 36 „ | |Depth | 21.7 „ | 20.9 „ | |Depth moulded | 23.7 „ | 23.2 „ | +------------------------+-----------+--------------+
In _Salamis_, Thompson’s were determined to have an out and out racer, and she was not fitted for passengers, her raised quarterdeck being only 48 feet long as against _Thermopylae’s_ 61 feet. She had a tremendous sail plan and of course spread a full suit of stunsails and other flying kites.