50th Anniversary of the Sinking of Blythe StarPrint Page 
The vessel MV Blythe Star was a coastal freighter which foundered off south-western Tasmania in October 1973, leading to the largest maritime search operation conducted in Australia at that time. The crew of 10 successfully took to a small inflatable liferaft, but it was not until after 11 days, and the deaths of three seamen, that the survivors were found ashore in rugged terrain near Deep Glen Bay on Tasmania's southeast coast. As a result of this tragedy, the AUSREP maritime position reporting system was introduced to the Australian Navigation Act.
No sign of the vessel was found until local fishing boats passing over the wreck site in the mid-to-late 1990s were able to identify the presence of a large wreck, and a bell was eventually recovered by a trawler, which was positively identified as belonging to Blythe Star in the early new millennium. The wreck was then formally identified by the CSIRO and UTAS in April 2023, having been made aware of a large, unidentified wreck prior to their survey.
Location
| Address: | Argyle Street, Constitution Dock near Steam Crane, Hobart, 7000 |
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| State: | TAS |
| Area: | AUS |
| GPS Coordinates: | Lat: -42.883031 Long: 147.333781 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate. |
Details
| Monument Type: | Plaque |
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| Monument Theme: | Disaster |
| Sub-Theme: | Maritime |
| Actual Event Start Date: | 13-October-1973 |
| Actual Event End Date: | 13-October-2023 |
Dedication
| Actual Monument Dedication Date: | Thursday 19th October, 2023 |
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MV Blythe Star
This plaque commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the loss of MV Blythe Star on 13 October 1973, those who perished and those who survived.
The cargo vessel was on a routine voyage from Hobart to King Island when it capsized and sank 10.5 km off the south west coast of Tasmania.
The crew struggled in an inflatable life raft for eight days, during which one crew member died and was buried at sea. After the raft made landfall at Deep Glen Bay on the Forestier Peninsula, two more members of the crew died of hypothermia and exhaustion.
Their lives were not lost in vain ; much was learned from the tragedy which today continues to reduce hazards faced daily by seafarers. Mandatory daily position reporting (AUSREP), the carriage of electronic position beacons for search and rescue in both ships and rafts, and the lodgement ashore of proposed routes before vessel departure all owe their origin to lessons learned from the loss of MV Blythe Star .
This plaque was unveiled on 19 Octo9ber 2023 by Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker, AC, Governor of Tasmania.
