The Passenger Act ruled that privies were to be provided in equal numbers on each side of the vessel, but did not have to exceed twelve in number, irrespective of the size of the ship. Until a couple of years earlier, privies (or 'heads' in naval parlance) were outside on the upper deck. In rough weather, passengers, especially the women in long petticoats and skirts, struggled to reach them. Very often the whole construction would be washed overboard. By 1850, privies on the upper deck were being replaced with water closets installed below on the passenger decks. At first they were simple closets with two scuttles cut in the side of the ship, one to fill a bucket with sea water, the other the outlet for the flushed-out soil. However, Captain Boyle ordered the installation of the very latest system. A water tank was positioned on the upper deck above each water closet, with a valve system to release a controlled amount of sea water to wash the soil out through a single hole in the side of the ship.

The pilot came on board and with all seven hundred and ninety-five passengers on deck to wave goodbye, she weighed anchor and was eased from the dock by tugs. The emigrants, their emotions no doubt ranging from melancholy through apprehension to excitement, gave three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the other Depot staff. As the ship made her way down the Mersey under partial sail, she was accompanied by goodbyes and godspeeds from interested bystanders along the banks. In reply, the Ticonderoga fired her guns in one final farewell - a farewell forever. The long voyage to Australia and an uncertain future had begun.

While the raging winds swept them on through the icy southern waters, the raging typhus epidemic swept through the married quarters. Medicine began to run short. In spite of the requirements for extra warm clothing, no one back in England really had any idea of how intense the cold would be and how ill-prepared emigrants would find themselves. Freezing families huddled together in their bunks for warmth and to keep from being battered around as the ship pitched and rolled. The extreme cold debilitated them. Many of those who were ill succumbed to the conditions and every day two or three people died. In bad weather, burials had to be postponed and bodies were stored up until the next calm day.

Stories have been told of ten bodies being buried in bedding, without adequate weighting, and floating away on the swell. Sharks began to follow the ship. Grieving families watched in horror as their loved ones' bodies were snatched away by the huge scavengers. By law, the bodies of dead babies and small children did not have to buried in daylight. There are stories of seamen slipping the tiny bodies overboard at night to spare the parents further distress.

Disembarkation to the shore also still continued - slowly, slowly. Captain Ferguson bought twelve ten-man tents from the Ticonderoga's cargo on account of the government, and had them erected on the beach, which was already littered with boxes and bundles, and swarming with people in varying degrees of infirmity. Some were recovering but still weak, others ill and feverish. Some had diarrhoea, others were experiencing the first symptoms of typhus. And then there were the still healthy, wondering if they would ever get off this fever beach.

Still grieving and dazed from all the past events, and apprehensive about their futures, the demoralised immigrants made their own way through the hot and dusty streets to the Immigration Barracks on Batman's Hill. These barracks, near the corner of Spencer and Collins Streets, were still bare and unfurnished, having just been vacated by a military detachment sent from Sydney to help the local police force. Some of the passengers had become ill during the last few days on board the Ticonderoga, and now couldn't walk the distance - they were taken up the hill on wharf drays.

What made the Ticonderoga's circumstances so different from other passenger ships that came to Port Phillip at any time in our short history of European settlement? There are at least two aspects, both to do with the high number of fatalities. The first and most obvious is the total number of 168 deaths that occurred at sea and in quarantine. This was double the previous highest death rate recorded on any of the emigrant ships. Until the Ticonderoga arrived, the highest mortality rate had occurred on the Bourneuf, another double-decker, which had arrived earlier that year, reporting 85 deaths . . .
. . . In all of the ships, including the Ticonderoga, it was the infants and toddlers who had the highest mortality rates. In the Ticonderoga's case 75 percent of the babies, and 80 percent of the one-year old children taken on board at Birkenhead, died before the emigrants were landed at Queens Wharf.