Of Tragedy and Valor
Kevin James Rumbelow

Kevin James Rumbelow was born at Victor Harbor on 17th July 1946 , the only son of Hube and Korry (deceased) and loved brother of Phylis, Janet and Elwynne.

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He married Maxine Shirley Tucker on 4th June 1966. 

Kevin initially worked in a sawmill at Inman Valley, SA, then after marrying, moved to Kangarilla, again working in a sawmill. Kevin Kevin assisted the Tilbrooks in relocating and reconstructing the original Rumbelow cottage Crystal Palace. The cottage a great tourist attraction as a museum of items of local historical interest, including some of the restored original furniture.

But fishing was in his blood so he crewed for Lionel Puckridge and worked on the Gralin owned by Graham Rumbelow. He then became skipper of Graham’s boat Taperoo.

He became an experienced and capable professional fisherman and obtained all the necessary certificates and licences to manage and skipper fishing vessels. In 1981 he realised his dream and bought his own boat, a 10 metre craft called Galini. 

When the cray season started Kevin fished for three weeks near home but results were poor so he decided to try Kangaroo Island for several days.

On Friday, 20th November 1981, he set off at 6am for Kangaroo Island and spent the night in Antechamber Bay. He was caught in a violent storm on his way home on Sunday. A massive search was made and his body was found seven days later, washed up on Shannon’s Gully Beach near Parsons Beach. Kevin was  35 years of age.

Almost five months later, after all the heartache – Maxine found that she was pregnant and Kevin Timothy Rumbelow was born on 4th August 1982.  Kevin and Maxine had three other children.

Body found

• Victor Harbor Times (SA : 1932 - 1986) 

•  Wed 2 Dec 1981 

The body of Victor Harbor fisherman Kevin James Rumbelow was found at Shannon's Gully Beach, about 5km west of Parson's Head, on Saturday.

Mr. Rumbelow, who was the subject of an extensive search after being reported missing in his fishing boat on Monday, was spotted by the Rescue One helicopter. The helicopter had been called to Victor Harbor to investigate boat wreckage 30 miles east of the Murray Mouth. The sighting was identified as a catamaran which had broken its moorings nine months ago.

Sgt. John O'Dea, of the Victor Harbor Police, thanked those who took part in last week's search.

Kangaroo Island Shipwrecks

• By: Gifford D. (Gifford Desmond) Chapman 

THE GALLINI 

The Gallini was a fibreglass planing hull vessel built by Mr. Steve Peake of Skippercraft at St. Kilda, South Australia, in 1975. The vessel measured 30.0 feet long, 10.0 feet beam, and 3.0 feet beam, was built for Mr. Bill Plionis of Streaky Bay, South Australia. The new vessel was powered by a 250 horsepower Volvo 71 diesel engine. 

In September 1981, the Gallini, was purchased by Mr. Kevin Rumbelow of Victor Harbor. This was his first rock lobster fishing vessel, having previously skippered other vessels from Victor Harbor, including Mr. Graham Rumbelow's Taperoo.  

For two months Mr. Rumbelow fished in the Victor Harbor area, mainly to familiarise himself with his newly acquired vessel. 

At 6 a.m. on Friday, 20th November 1981, he left Victor Harbor to fish in and near Backstairs Passage. He told his wife Maxine, he expected to be away a  week. 

On Friday and Saturday he reported in on the ship's radio to Mrs. Smith, the operator of VH5OT.  His last report was at 3pm on Saturday. 

Mr. Rumbelow told Mrs. Smith that he had pulled his pots near the Pages,  a small group of islands at the entrance to Backstairs Passage, and that the  pots were onboard. He said that because of the bad weather he was going to head for Antechamber Bay to shelter. The wind was from the northwest  at 30 to 40 knots. 

At 11 a.m. on Sunday Mr. Rumbelow did not answer a call made to him from Mrs. Smith during the morning scheduled. Mrs. Smith telephoned Mrs. Maxine Rumbelow on Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock, to inform her that her husband was not responding to repeat calls made by her. Other vessels in the area had not seen the Gallini, and some concern was felt for the vessel and the sole occupant. 

On Monday morning, 23rd November, Mr. Rumbelow was reported missing. A search was immediately mounted for the missing boat and the skipper, Mr. Kevin Rumbelow.

Mr. Graham Rumbelow, a cousin of the missing fisherman, hired a Cessna aircraft to search for him and the boat. An Orion aircraft from the Edinburgh Air Force Base, State Rescue helicopter, and boats from the Victor Harbor Sea Rescue Squadron, searched an area from Victor Harbor to Kangaroo Island, in an effort to find the missing vessel and Mr. Rumbelow. 

The body of Mr. Kevin Rumbelow was found on Saturday 28th November, at Shannon's Gully Beach, about five kilometers west of Parson's Head, having been spotted on the beach by the State Rescue helicopter. The helicopter was called in by Sergeant J. F. O'Dea of the Victor Harbor Police, to investigate boat wreckage east of the Murray mouth. The sighting was identified as a catamaran that had broken its moorings nine months earlier. 

After a church service at the Yilki Uniting Church, Mr. Kevin James Rumbelow, aged 36 years, was buried at the Victor Harbor cemetery on Monday, 30th November 1981. He left a wife Maxine, and three children.

Dulcie Smith

Dulcie Smith operated the radio base station for the Kangaroo Island fishing fleet for seventeen years from its inception until her retirement. Dulcie Smith was widely known and her service willingly acknowledged by the fishermen of South Australia.  She has become a legend in her own lifetime. Her story graphically illustrates the dangers faced by those that go down to the sea in ships and the quite courage of the women who wait for them.

In 1983 Mrs Dulcie May SMITH of Kingscote, Kangaroo Island,  was awarded the Order of Australia for service to the community.

The interview was recorded by Jack Darcey for Murdoch University on the 31st January, 1990 at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island.

SMITH - In the very early days before radio became common I was the only link between the fisherman and his wife at home. The Rumbelows of Victor Harbor had a young family. One day one of the children was hurt at school and became unconscious. 

Mrs Rumbelow rang and wanted to know if I could contact her husband. I called and called and called. Mainly he had always kept his radio on and I seemed to be calling Taparoo all day. Eventually [I] got him on air and told him what had happened but that calling all day, it made me feel as though I was calling Graham for my own self, like Graham's child was my child.

I think that was my first trauma. We had a lot of traumas afterwards but that one always sort of stuck in my memory because from then on the Rumbelows and I always felt as though we had something really close, really in common. 

That's how I felt with all the fishermen. I think all my working life there seemed to get a very close feeling, I suppose, because you were so totally involved in their lives. If they had troubles, they were my troubles.

We had a young lad and his mother was dying in Adelaide and tried to get him home in time to reach his mother. It was very personal. It's difficult to explain. I suppose I was very lucky. I didn't have any tragic accidents. When I say tragic, we didn't lose any lives while I was working for the first, I think fourteen, fifteen years.

I think for fourteen years we didn't have what I'd term a tragedy in the fleet. By that I mean loss of life. We had losses of boats but never loss of life. In a sense I sometimes thought afterwards.... I began to think that I had to stay here; that as long as I stayed by the radio, nothing would happen. You get to feel a bit like God [strong emotion in voice]. If you feel like God you're gonna be punished, that's for sure.

The last two years of my working life we had one tragedy after another. It just seemed as if they'd piled up. We lost a young fishing inspector. We should never have lost him, but we lost him. We lost two young boys. We should never have lost them. It wasn't because our helpers, our search parties didn't get there in time. It was just that they struck a big wave or something, a mountain of sea, and their boat just disintegrated. We were talking to this lad on the radio right up to a few seconds before he died.

The fishing inspector, he was from Victor Harbor and then we had one of the Rumbelow boys and the (Kevin Rumbelow) lad, he was one of those people that you could rely on in an emergency. He'd always be the first to answer the radio if you asked for help; never put his radio off the air. He'd leave it on all day. If you wanted some help, he'd answer. Always the first to go and help everybody else. 

Then he changed his way of fishing and one day he didn't answer the radio and he's said to me, "Well if I don't answer the sched, you know I've gone home". 

Next thing he was lost. So the last two years were very, very traumatic and I was so glad to finish. I was very glad to finish.

Well it was an honour to be involved with the fishing industry like that because it was like being the member of a family, a very large family. Although it's eight years since I left, they're still there. They're still family. Our own family are living up north. Our three daughters married naturally and one lives in the Northern Territory and two live in Queensland They couldn't get further away if they tried. I don't think the radio sent them there but it's just how things have worked out.

There's times when you do need friends and family and I think that I've got an extended family. I think I'll always have that extended family. I don't think that there's a greater section of the community of fishermen that seem to be.... Perhaps it's changing now with the way the whole world is changing but the fishing community as a whole seem to be just like a big family. Everybody helped each other out. If one was in trouble everybody was in trouble and the years that I spent with the fishing industry were marvelous.

I think that being a fisherman's wife must have been one of the, or would be one of the most difficult things that you could ever be because she had to be so self-reliant. She had to bring up her children. Apart from that she usually was at the beck and call of her husband if he wanted something taken out for instance. I think here on the Island we had an exceptional set of circumstances and the fact that the bulk of the fishing is not done here in Kingscote where most of the families live, it's done on the south coast of the Island. The roads haven't always been as good as they are now and so if a fisherman wanted something taken down to Vivienne Bay well the wife had to get in the car and go.