HMQS Paluma
The 360 ton, 37 metre-long lat-iron gunboat HMQS Paluma was one of three vessels (two gunboats and a torpedo boat) operated by the Queensland Maritime Defence Force. Her name reputedly means thunder in an unspecified Aboriginal language.
The second of Queensland's Gayundah class gunboats — slightly larger versions of HMVS Albert, built the colony of Victoria — the Paluma was built in Newcastle-on-Tyne and entered service on 28 October 1884. After Federation, Queensland's gunboats were integrated into the Royal Australian Navy. The Paluma was decommissioned in 1916, sold to the Victorian Ports and Harbours Department, who operated her as a tender under the name Rip in Port Phillip Bay until 1948. She was scrapped in 1950–51.
After the Paluma arrived in Brisbane on 7 May 1885 she spent much of the next eight years conducting for the Admiralty — largely on and around the Great Barrier Reef. However, she was anchored in the Brisbane River when the 1893 Brisbane flood ripped the vessel from her moorings and deposited her well above the high water mark in the city's Botanical Gardens. Another major inundation a fortnight later refloated her without any significant damage.
During World War I, HMAS Paluma was employed mainly around Sydney Harbour, before being sold to the Victorian Ports and Harbours Department.
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