[13] In November 1874, several shipowners were contracted for two years by the Government of South Australia to provide ten round trips between the colonial capital of Adelaide and its furthest outpost, Port Darwin.

[10] Port Darwin was feeling the effects of a gold rush at Pine Creek and growing quickly as a trading post with the Dutch East Indies.

When Gothenburg left Port Darwin on Tuesday, 16 February 1875, Captain Robert George Augustus Pearce[15] was under orders to make best possible speed.

[7] Amongst the approximately 98 passengers and 37 crew (surviving records vary) were government officials, circuit court judges, Darwin residents taking their first furlough, and miners.

[14] Also aboard was the French Vice Consul Edouard Durand and James Millner, the medical officer in George W. Goyder's 1869 expedition to found the first colony at Port Darwin.

Locked in the Captain's cabin was about 93 kilograms (3,000 ozt) of gold valued at £40,000 consigned to the ES&A Bank in Adelaide,[16] worth about US$2.6 million in 2008.

[7] In three days of fine weather, Gothenburg travelled 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) from Palmerston (Darwin) to Somerset on Cape York.

[17] After the loss of the anchors, Gothenburg was forced to prematurely steam out 13 kilometres (7.0 nmi) because of strong currents; at that point, she brought up for the night.

Despite this, she continued the journey south into worsening weather, in a deep water passage between the North Queensland coastline and the Great Barrier Reef, known as the inner route.

Although taking this route provided some protection from the open sea, captains had to navigate and thread their way through a number of then-uncharted reefs.

On the evening of 24 February 1875, the ship was still heading south in almost cyclonic conditions with fore, top, and mainsails set and the steam engines running at full speed.

[7] At about 7:00 pm, and for reasons undetermined, he changed course and shortly afterwards, at full speed (11 to 12 knots), hit a section of the Great Barrier Reef at low tide 31 miles (50 km) northwest of Holbourne Island.

With strong winds changing direction and seas increasing, the boiler fires were extinguished by water rising through the damaged stern.

With heavy seas now rushing down hatchways and into the cabins, Gothenburg was doomed and Captain Pearce was forced to admit that the situation had become desperate.

[4] Those still on board Gothenburg tried to cling to the rigging, but throughout the early morning of 25 February, several more people were drowned after they were swept overboard by large broadside waves.

[17] By the morning of 25 February, only the masts were visibly protruding from the water, with 14 people clinging to the rigging, where they remained for the next twenty-four hours in cyclonic weather.

At first light on 26 February the weather eased and the survivors managed to right the boat and bail it out; they prepared a makeshift sail and paddled for the mainland.

Leichhardt's Chief Officer and four hands went alongside, but nothing other than her masts could be seen above the water except for the body of a naked man floating nearby.

[19] Because rescue was uncertain, they engraved ship details and their names on the concave side of a large turtle shell, in the hope that it would be found in the future.

On Sunday, 28 February 15 of them set off in the starboard lifeboat for an island about 20 miles away to the south, which appeared to be closer to the main shipping lane.

[26] Edward W. Price, Magistrate and Commissioner Circuit Court of the Northern Territory, who remained behind in Darwin, lost his wife and six children.

The retired fifth Premier of South Australia, Thomas Reynolds and his wife, Anne, both drowned as did Eduard Durand, the French Vice Consul.

Wearing QC,[28] Circuit Court Judge; Joseph Whitby, acting South Australian Crown Solicitor; Richard Wells, NT Times & Gazette editor; Lionel Pelham, a senior public servant; Commander Andrew Ross of the Royal Navy; C. J. Lyons, Justice Wearing's senior assistant; William Shoobridge, Secretary to several mining companies; A. L. McKay, Government Surveyor; and several Overland Telegraph employees.

[10][31] Two weeks later a hard-hat diver, sent down to recover the gold and other valuables, found the bodies of two women at the foot of the saloon staircase, one with her arm around the other.

The diver tried to reach them to take a lock of hair or some other personal item that could be identified by their loved ones, but the restriction of the air line made it impossible.

The report of the Marine Board of Queensland determined that: the loss of the Gothenburg may in a great measure be attributed to an unexpected offset seawards, caused by heavy floods in the Burdekin and other rivers discharging themselves into the sea at that portion of the coast; at the same time they do not consider that due caution was observed in the navigation of the vessel, as they are of the opinion that some attempt should have been made to sight Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse, or Cape Upstart, and, failing that, that the lead should have been used, which, on this part of the coast, is a sufficient guide for keeping clear of the Barrier; a vessel carrying a depth not exceeding 15 fathoms (27 m) or 16 fathoms (29 m) being well clear of that danger, while a less depth would show an approach to the shore of the mainland.

Survivor James Fitzgerald pointed out in his recollection that, had the lifeboats been filled to capacity, no one would have survived the severe weather conditions experienced.

[33] It was not until some 37 years later, after RMS Titanic had sunk in 1912, that it was made compulsory for all British registered ships to carry enough lifeboats for everyone aboard.

[40] The large turtle shell, which was engraved by the 18 survivors at Holbourne Island, is displayed at the South Australian Museum, on North Terrace, Adelaide.