MV WyunaThe last Australian pilot cutter

MV Wyuna is an historic Australian pilot cutter that played a vital role in protecting and growing the port of Melbourne. Built in 1953, this heavy-duty vessel spent decades serving as a guardian at the entrance of Port Phillip Bay, braving one of the world's most treacherous stretches of water.

Design and capabilities

Commissioned by the Port Phillip Sea Pilots organisation, the Wyuna was built by Ferguson Shipbuilders in Port Glasgow, Scotland. Named after an Indigenous word meaning "clear water", the ship was 63 metres long and weighed 1,340 tonnes.

Designed from the keel up for heavy-duty open-ocean work, her riveted steel hull was specifically reinforced to withstand the volatile swells of Bass Strait. She featured English Electric diesel-electric machinery, which allowed precise manoeuvrability and a top cruising speed of 14 knots. Because pilots lived onboard for extended periods, the ship was fitted with comfortable cabins, dedicated mess halls, and a dining saloon.

A floating base at "The Rip"

For 26 years, the Wyuna served as a permanent floating station just outside Port Phillip Heads, an area notoriously known as "The Rip". Her primary mission was to house maritime pilots and safely transfer them to incoming international cargo ships.

When a merchant ship approached, the Wyuna would launch a small workboat into the waves. The larger vessel would position itself to block the ocean swells, creating a calmer area of water known as a "lee". The pilot would then navigate the workboat alongside the moving ship and climb a Jacob's rope ladder to take command and guide the vessel safely into port.

Training and changing hands

By the late 1970s, the pilot service shifted toward high-speed launches that could board ships while underway, making the slower Wyuna obsolete. In 1979 she was sold to the Australian Maritime College in Launceston, Tasmania. For the next 25 years she served as a foundational training vessel, giving generations of young Australian mariners their very first taste of real seafaring life.

After being retired from training duties in 2004, the vessel entered a period of uncertainty. She was sold to various private owners, with ideas ranging from mining accommodation in the Pilbara to conversion into a luxury yacht. None of these projects progressed, and the ship sat on the Tamar River in Tasmania for over a decade.

Preservation and the future

The Wyuna was eventually donated to the Western Port Oberon Association (now working through the Victorian Maritime Centre). In 2017, a passionate community fundraising campaign saved the ship from being scrapped, allowing volunteers to plan her return across Bass Strait. Today she stands as Australia's last remaining pilot cutter. Volunteers are working through the ship's systems, ensuring everything is in good working order, and restoring and painting the hull and superstructure. The ultimate goal is to establish her permanently as a living museum ship, preserving a crucial piece of mid-century engineering and naval history for future generations.

Wyuna is being worked on right now. She is at Bell Bay in Tasmania, where volunteers from the Western Port Oberon Association make regular working trips to restore her.

Read the progress reports