The ship was the French barque Vincennes, which ran aground on Manly Beach on the night of Thursday, May 24, 1906.

She was en route from Yokohama to Sydney carrying nothing but ballast and her skipper confused the beach with the entrance to Port Jackson. Local residents immediately rushed to the shore to offer any assistance but there was no stopping a heavy steel ship being blown ashore.

Tens of thousands of people were left stranded at Circular Quay and the police had to be called to maintain order. Meanwhile the salvage experts were working out how to remove the Vincennes from the beach.

Several times two tugs tried to pull the ship off the beach but without success. Over several days tugs managed to pull the Vincennes further away from the beach and at 3am on Saturday, June 2 - nine days after she ran aground - the Vincennes was finally pulled off the beach by the combined efforts of three tugs and the hawser stretched between the seabed anchor and the ship's winch. By 8am that day she was anchored in Neutral Bay.

Source: Erick Navas