She had a single screw, driven by a three-cylinder triple expansion engine built by the Wallsend Slipway Company.

[citation needed] A specially arranged steam and hand steering gear was fitted in a house at the after end of the fantail and controlled from the bridge.

[10] She sustained some damage in heavy weather crossing the Bay of Biscay,[7] called at Las Palmas and Cape Town,[8] and on 24 November reached Fremantle.

[2] Five hours after Yongala left Mackay, the keeper of Dent Island Light saw her enter Whitsunday Passage.

The discrepancy arises from young children, servants, and members of ethnic minorities being omitted from official lists.

[citation needed] Between 8 and 20 June 1911 the Marine Board of Queensland held an inquiry into Yongala's loss.

The Board considered the ship's stability, equipment and seaworthiness, and Captain Knight's abilities as a shipmaster.

It found no fault with the condition of the ship, based on design specifications supplied by the Adelaide Steamship Co, along with data from sea trials and seven years of uneventful operation.

[2] The Board declared that it had "no desire to indulge in idle speculation", and concluded that "the fate of the Yongala passes beyond human ken into the realms of conjecture, to add one more to the long roll of mysteries of the sea".

The commander marked on his chart an obstruction at a depth of about 13 fathoms (24 m), on the route of vessels bound for Townsville.

[18] In June 1947, the survey vessel HMAS Lachlan investigated the location using echo sounding and anti-submarine equipment.

[18] In 1958 a local fisherman, Bill Kirkpatrick, found the wreck, and recovered artefacts including a safe from one of the cabins.

In 1961, Chubb in England identified this as the number of the safe that it supplied to Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. in 1903 for the cabin of Yongala's purser.

Its superstructure remains intact and much as in his sketch, but a significant buildup of sand around the starboard side of the vessel has been scoured away, and the ventilators and railings have collapsed.

[citation needed] The wreck is protected by the Commonwealth Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018 and is managed via the Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville.

Access to the site is via permit only, obtainable from the Maritime Archaeology Section of the Museum of Tropical Queensland.

[19] Yongala is now a major tourist attraction for recreational diving in Townsville and North Queensland, with more than 10,000 divers visiting the wreck each year.

[22] An episode of the BBC television documentary series Great Barrier Reef featured the wreck's biodiversity.

The Maritime Museum of Townsville has an extensive display of Yongala artefacts and memorabilia, including her ship's bell.

[citation needed] The heritage-listed Yongala Lodge in North Ward, Townsville, is named after the ship.