Our maritime history & present day news. Spring 2002. cost: gold coin donation Maritime Times of Tasmania Painting of British Officer. Hanchett. in this issue The true story of the original Norfolk The Apple Ships Cooking with Lucky Pierre A walk around the port - tours The Lawhill The Bob Jane Award Maritime Museums in NSW and the usual yarns, jests and gossip Maritime Museum of Tasmania CARNEGIE BUILDING Cnr Davey & Argyle Sts. Hobart, Tasmania Postal Address: GPO Box 1118, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, AUSTRALIA Phone: (03) 6234 1427 Fax: (03) 6234 1419 email: [email protected] www.maritimetas.org Open Daily (except for Good Friday & Christmas Day) 9am - 5pm Editor: Bob Petrass Design & production: Ricoh Studio Phone 6223 4311 [email protected] Museum photography: Ricoh Studio Wynard cannon editorial On a recent trip to the mainland I had the good fortune to visit both the Australian artefacts on display here. National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour and the Mid North Coast Maritime Whilst both of these museums were Museum at Port Macquarie. As one would expect the National covers a vast area indoors excellent, although very different in their with many hands-on displays featuring the latest computer technology. I spent some size and the nature of their displays, it time reading Matthew Flinders’ letters to Ann Chapelle, both prior to and after they were left me with a sense of great pride in the married. There were 8 in all and they expressed the loneliness they both felt during exceptional museum we are fortunate such long periods of separation. There was also a very good documentary on Bass and enough to have here in Hobart. Flinders in the theatrette. Bob Petrass The largest item displayed indoors was a navy helicopter hanging from the ceiling, whilst outdoors the destroyer HMAS Vampire and submarine HMAS Onslow were open for inspection. But it was without doubt the square-rigger “James Craig” which was the main attraction at this very fine museum. Speaking of sailing ships the “Alma Whaling Ship model Doepel” is on display at Port Macquarie’s Lady Nelson Wharf having been reclaimed by it’s owner after spending many years as a training ship and tourist attraction on Port Philip bay. I spoke with Noel Doepel who expressed his desire to participate in our own “Wooden Boat Festival” next year. Let’s hope they can make it. At the mid North Coast Museum I was made most welcome and enjoyed a “cuppa” with Con Young who was a volunteer on duty at the time. This museum is located in 3 cottages surrounded by a picket fence, formerly the pilot station, it exudes an Old World charm which perfectly compliments this lovely museum. To any of our members visiting this area, do yourself a favour and spend some time enjoying the many historical an account of the search for the true story of the building of the original Norfolk by Bern Cuthbertson. Geoffrey Ingleton’s book “Matthew book “Convicts Unbound”: ‘I have the time. Flinders entered the river on Flinders Navigator and Chartmaker” found that too many histories have a flood tide but did not record the state states: ‘She (Norfolk) had been the Sirius’s compounded errors of the past and of the tide. It was a very good guess long boat before being decked and rigged presented the same interpretation, often because the modern Norfolk’s draught with little variation in the language.’ is 4 ‘½ feet. at Norfolk Island’. When reading this “fact” in Ingletons otherwise magnificent Ingleton’s statement created much I was truly at a loss as to what to do book after many hours of researching work for me at a time when I had little as there had been many errors written the building of Norfolk on Norfolk Island, I believed I had been reading incorrect information. I contacted Lt. Commander Ingleton by telephone and explained my interest in Norfolk and that my research had shown that the vessel was built on the island. I asked him for his reference for his statement that Norfolk was the long boat from Sirius. He was not able to give me a reference and I asked if he would mind if I wrote to him to explain exactly what I planned to do and the reason that it was very important that I had my facts straight. This I did but I did not receive any response. HMS Sirius was the large naval vessel sent out to Botany Bay in 1787 to lead and protect the First Fleet that arrived at Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. Sirius to spare. David Collins, the first Judge over the years and I began to wonder if was assisted by HMS Brig Supply of 170 Advocate under Governor Arthur indeed I had it right. tons. Sirius and Supply were unloading Phillip, had kept a daily journal of the cargo at Norfolk Island in 1790 when I quote Ingleton again: ‘It was kept life and times of the colony during the Sirius was wrecked. covered and protected and eventually first ten years of settlement. In his book the Commandant Captain Townson The late Ken Hudspeth sent me a “An Account of the English Colony in ordered it to be decked repaired and copy of a letter he had received from NSW” David Collins states: ‘On 15 June altered for sea service using the local historian G.W. Evans after a request by 1798 a decked longboat arrived from pine.’ It is my belief that many bits the Maritime Museum of Tasmania. In Norfolk Island’ This perhaps has caused and pieces came from the Sirius, it was this Evans stated that he had previously the confusion. Collins goes on to say: common practice 200 years ago. thought Norfolk was about 26 feet in ‘the longboat was 16 tons, sloop rigged, length but that he now thought she 33 feet length of keel for tonnage, 11 feet Now for a few facts. I had no alternative was more than 30 feet and that she had beam, depth of hold 5 feet.’ but to seek information from the been the long boat from the Sirius prior Greenwich Maritime Museum. I had Ingleton quotes these dimensions in his to being decked and rigged at Norfolk been corresponding for some time book but adds, when laden her draught Island. These were almost the identical with the lady Curator of Plans at the was ‘about’ 4 ‘½ feet for she touched on a words written by Ingleton. Evans Museum. She had earlier secured for shoal in Port Dalrymple. This happened obviously referred to Ingleton’s work me a copy of a 1770 plan of a longboat, when Matthew Finders passed inside for this opinion. 33 feet length of keel, which became the Green Island. I have read this but no modern Norfolk. The Curator informed Marjorie Tipping wrote in her excellent one recorded the depth of the shoal at me that her department contained over from Sirius. Captain Townson ordered been on her way to Sydney with a load a million plans of vessels going back 400 the building of Norfolk to convey of farm produce when she was seized at years so I felt she would have details of dispatches to Sydney as there had been the entrance to the Hawkesbury River Sirius in the collection. no contact for over a year. by fifteen convicts, who put the crew ashore. The fifteen pirates then put to My request for the size of the two long Reliance, which had been laid up for sea from Broken Bay and encountered a boats carried by Sirius was answered repairs after her voyage to Cape Town freshening SE gale. Obviously they were with the information that one was 26 for stores, had in fact passed “Norfolk” poor seamen as a south-easter into the feet and the other 27 feet and the boats on her voyage to Norfolk Island after river is a broad reach well abaft the port would have been 7 to 8 feet beam with her repairs. Neither Captains realised beam. Pirate’s Point is on the starboard a maximum moulded depth of 3 feet. this until reaching their respective beam when approaching. She was the Compare these measurements with ports. first of many wrecks in the following Norfolk’s 33 feet length of keel (35 feet years. Governor Hunter’s ruling on the overall) and beam 11 feet. Over the size of vessels was well justified with years many vessels have been lengthened Governor Hunter seized the loss of Norfolk. It is thought Peter but never has a boat been widened. This Norfolk on arrival as Townson Hibbs was master of Norfolk on her is almost impossible without a colossal voyage from Norfolk Island to Sydney. amount of work and would be much had been instructed not to Peter Hibbs had been a crewmember on easier to build a new one. build any vessel of a size Sirius when she was wrecked in 1790. In Cumpston’s ‘Shipping Arrivals and convicts could use for escape. He married a young girl from Norfolk Departures, Sydney 1788-1825’ he Island. He went onto be Flinders’s sailing notes that she was a 16 ton decked master during the circumnavigation of longboat built on Norfolk Island in Governor Hunter seized Norfolk on Tasmania 1798-99. 1798. The impression from Raymond arrival as Townson had been instructed Flinders named Point Hibbs and Hibbs Nobbs edited ‘Norfolk Island 1788- not to build any vessel of a size convicts Pyramid after him. The only crew 1814’, Merval Hoare’s history of Norfolk could use for escape.