The following text was copied from Richard Freeman's website who copied the text from John Shea.
I would like to acknowledge both of them.


The SS Dicky was a steel, screw driven, gaff rigged fore and mainsail schooner. She was 96 feet long, had a beam of 21 feet and was 226 gross tons (144 tons net). She was a small but bold vessel with a well balanced deck housing which gave her a pleasing silhouette. She was powered by a beautiful 30 horse power two cylinder compound steam engine and her builder was G. Howaldt of Keil. The propellor was six foot six inches in diameter and the draft was eight feet. She carried only a bower anchor and had no kedge anchor. There were two winches, one forward which was used for the cargo and anchor retrieval and one aft which was for cargo only. There were two life boats. Her cruising speed was a brisk three knots. Certainly not fast. But under her assisted gaff rigged sails she could muster five knots.

The SS Dicky was manned by a crew of eleven comprising the Master, Mate, Engineer, two Firemen, 2 AB’s, Lamp Trimmer, Coxswain, Boatswain and a Steward who also doubled as the Cook. John Beattie was her proud master. James Watson was his Mate and M. Paul the Engineer. Beattie happily departed Brisbane on the 20th January 1893 for Rockhampton. The ship’s agent was Brydon Jones & Co.
On the trip north he encountered Force 4 winds but was able to carry full sail without any trouble. The SS Dicky arrived at the Fitzroy River on the 26th January and tied up at the Lakes Creek Meat Works wharf at Rockhampton where they loaded their cargo.
Beattie’s intended course back was between Fraser Island and the mainland, which would allow him to cut across Hervey Bay to Noosa Heads, round Point Wickham at Caloundra and then on to the Port of Brisbane. The SS Dicky departed on the 28th January 1893 but had to lay-to at the light ship at the mouth of the Fitzroy River until the 1st February for a more favourable wind and tide to come in. Unknown to Beattie a severe weather change was sweeping up along the Queensland coast. By 3.30am on the 2nd February they were making a SE course for Hervey Bay. The wind was a strong E - Force 6 on the Beaufort Scale. The SS Dicky was making a brisk five knots under sail as the waves increased to white capped rollers with spray blowing off their peaks. By 4am the wind was now N.NE and a strong gale - Force 9 - with a wind speed of 60 miles per hour. Beattie was unaware he was on the NW edge of a cyclone. The SS Dicky was rolling greatly and the skipper was having difficulty managing his ship, struggling into this violent storm. The stokehold was flooded and he was forced to shelter in Laguna Bay to strip and clean the pumps and then pump out the stokehold.

He was under way again by 4am on the 4th and passed Noosa at 4.15am and tacked to starboard bearing on Point Cartwright. The wind increased to Force 11, now 80 miles an hour, with towering foaming terrifying 30 foot walls of water cascading from end to end over the full length of the hull and hardly any visibility at all. This prevented the skipper tacking to the SE on a safer heading. Indeed the gusts were laying the SS Dicky on her beam ends and she was sliding well down to leeward. The engine was useless in these conditions. In the spray driven gloom Beattie mistook Moffat Headland for Wickham Point which was a mere one mile to the south and would have provided a protected refuse in the wind shadow of the bluff. He eased the sheet and boom and bore off on what he thought was a safe SW heading. But disaster struck as he reached into the shallows, the hull creaking and grinding as it ran aground on the rocky shore. His efforts to clear the beach were in vane and the SS Dicky was driven ashore to its final resting place. The time was 10.35am, the date was 4th February 1893 and the elements have had their way with her ever since.

Now she is forever tilted in time to starboard, the unrelenting power of wind and sea has slowly but surely ground metal against metal, rivet against rivet, in a ceaseless war that has generated the rust that is eating this once proud ship into smaller and yet smaller pieces. Pieces that now paint the picture of a hideous yet somehow beautiful skeletal remain. Where gunnels that had once safely parted the ocean swells and sent sea spray shooting sideways were now bent and broken, and the hull frames that had been secure and strong now stand there like feeble bare bones. The proud deck is now full of gaping holes, open to the sea - no longer secure. The once sturdy stem post is forlornly alone, poking up to the sky, and then ungainly twisting downwards towards the sand in a totally ungraceful manner.

The SS Dicky is no match for the sea now. Waves now sweep in with the tide, bubbling and rolling in that Pacific Ocean greenishness, changing in shape as soon as they form, curling and breaking in a cascade of bright whiteness over the ghostly remains of the SS Dicky.

John Shea.

Below is my bit.

On 30th July 2015, the SS Dicky was trimmed at about 4 feet below the surface of the sand. At about 3pm 31st July 2015, there was no bits of the SS Dicky appearing out of the sand. It was a sad moment.

We have been staying here since 2008 and everytime we walked along the beach, there was a few bits of SS Dicky sticking out of the sand. Now there is nothing. You wouldn't know where it is, unless you took photos previously. I did.

SS Dicky history from the Australian National Shipwreck Database.

ABC - Looking back history SS Dicky shipwreck removed sunshine coast.