HMS BUFFALO, 1813 - 1840 The display in the Mercury Bay Museum in MERCURY BAY Whitianga also includes relics GALE CLAIMS salvaged from the wreck. The timber HISTORIC SHIP was salvaged by Maori and settlers for buildings, gates and fences. See page 48 for more about the historical museum. Image created and painted by Gainor Jackson. HITIANGA’S BUFFALO BEACH. in 1813 the ship was commissioned for multiple was fully loaded with kauri spars, felled and Buffalo beach? Why? Were bison uses: a Navy store ship (during the Napoleonic shaped by the crew (see next page). Wroaming, as the great herds in the War of 1815), a quarantine ship (1832 cholera A non-sailing replica of the Buffalo (the bottom plains of the United States? No, the HMS outbreak in England), then convict/troop/ is cement) is moored in the Patawalonga River Buffalo – a hapless sailing ship, which was emigrant transport ship. On her return sails to at Glenelg, a suburb of Adelaide, Australia. wrecked on this beach after parting from her England, she would be loaded with Kiwi kauri At press time, the fate of the rundown ship, Cooks Beach mooring in an 1840 gale. spars, logged and shaped by the ship’s crew. currently a restaurant, is uncertain as the She was run ashore by her commander, Mr In 1836, on a sailing of around 158 days, she Holdfast Bay Council struggles to find a way to James Wood, and all crew were saved with the transported South Australia’s first colonists save it from being demolished. exception of one unfortunate seaman by the from England, numbering 176. The ship’s There is a cairn north of the Mercury Bay name of Moore and a boy named Cornes. The captain, John Hindmarsh, was appointed first Hospital which will help you locate the wreck’s ship itself was a total loss. Governor of the new colony. location. To learn more about the HMS Buffalo, For over 100 years portions of the wreck could Ashore, shipmates changed duties, building visit the nearby museum to view the displays or still be seen when tides were exceptionally houses for the colonists. Ten marines were purchase a booklet containing a comprehensive low. In the 1960 tsunami, when the tide pulled assigned by Hindmarsh as the colony’s history. back enough to expose the ship, most of the police force. However, this riotous, grog- remaining relics were removed. Some can be happy lot were themselves such a band of seen on display at the museum. Although the troublemakers that Hindmarsh wreckage has appeared in aerial photographs, tied their ringleaders to a tree. it is no longer visible at low tides and today Another peacekeeping force there’s likely little left of the HMS Buffalo. was enrolled to keep these The Buffalo was crafted from teak in Calcutta rascals under control, and the (thus explaining the water buffalo masthead). riotous Buffalo marines were The English preferred ships of teak to preserve shipped out, to the relief of all the oak forests of England, and oak corroded except the bar keepers. iron fittings, whereas teak did not. It was also After unloading passengers and cheaper to build in India, much to the ire of supplies in Australia, return trips to England English shipbuilders. involved stops in New Zealand, where the ship 12 COROMANDEL LIFE SUMMER 2014.