Signals, issue 118

SIGNALS quarterly NUMBER 118 MARCH • APRIL • MAY 2017

POMPEII AND THE ROMAN NAVY A journey into disaster

SHIPWRECK HUNTER The man who found HMAS Sydney

PEARLING IN AUSTRALIA Toil and treasure

ANMM.GOV.AU $9.95

ANMM.GOV.AU

Contents AUTUMN 2017

Acknowledgment of country The Australian National Maritime Museum acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the bamal (earth) and badu (waters) on which we work.

We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the land and waters throughout Australia and pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders past and present.

The words bamal and badu are spoken in the Sydney region’s Eora language.

Supplied courtesy of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Cultural warning Warning: People of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent should be aware that Signals may contain names, images, video, voices, objects and works of people who are deceased. Signals may also contain links to sites that may use content of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people now deceased.

3 BEARINGS From the director 5 POMPEII AND THE ROMAN NAVY A heroic ancient rescue attempt 15 RV INVESTIGATOR Broadening the boundaries of oceanic science 25 AN ANCIENT AND PERILOUS TRADE A new exhibition profiles pearling in Australia 31 SS KOOMBANA The natural disaster that swallowed a luxury passenger steamer 39 REVIVING AN ANCIENT TRADITION The ningher canoes of Aboriginal Tasmania 45 MADE IN AUSTRALIA Chinese watercraft in Northern Australia 51 MARITIME MUSEUMS OF AUSTRALIA PROJECT SUPPORT SCHEME Supporting maritime heritage 54 MESSAGE TO MEMBERS AND MEMBERS AUTUMN EVENTS Your calendar of activities, talks, tours and excursions afloat 65 MEMBER PROFILE Judie Stephens : a passion for boats 68 AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS Escape from Pompeii; Lessons From the Arctic; Lustre: Pearling in Australia and more 75 MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA Shipwreck hunter David Mearns 83 FOUNDATION A generous benefactor supports Indigenous acquisitions 87 RESEARCH The mystery of the Dutch navigator – who is the man in our painting?

94 COLLECTIONS Percy Hockings’ lively watercolours of Thursday Island 101 TALES FROM THE WELCOME WALL The case that challenged the White Australia policy 106 READINGS HMAS Canberra; A history of sailing in 100 objects; 50 ships that changed history 113 CURRENTS Vale Paul Elvstrøm; First Lady exhibit gets a makeover; SY Ena joins our fleet 116 TRANSMISSIONS What’s new in Google Cultural Institute 119 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS oam

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Cover: Marble relief of a Roman trireme, one of the artefacts on display in Escape from Pompeii: the untold Roman rescue. Parco Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei. © Claudio Garofalo

We acknowledge the museum’s principal supporters’

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Bearings FROM THE DIRECTOR

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IN AN INCREASINGLY globalised world, museums have an important role to play in bringing people of different countries together to explore one another’s traditions and cultures.

In this way museums are important players in the world of ‘cultural diplomacy’. Cultural diplomacy has existed for centuries but only recently has the practice been formally recognised as one carried out by museums. Artists, explorers, sailors, traders and even tourists have for centuries acted as informal cultural diplomats, with many using the collections amassed on their travels to establish some of the first museums in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A unique example of museum-based cultural diplomacy is the USA Gallery and Collection at the Australian National Maritime Museum, which was dedicated by President George Bush in 1992 and established with an endowment from the US government to mark Australia’s Bicentenary. The driving force behind the USA Gallery and Collection was the then US Ambassador L W ‘Bill’ Lane Jr AO (1919–2010). Ambassador Lane was a passionate advocate for the development of a centre at the Australian National Maritime Museum to explore the close cultural, scientific and environmental maritime ties that connect Australia and the USA.

Formal group portrait of the crew of HMAS Perth on the ship’s deck, c 1941. Australian War Memorial P01915.020

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As well as the USA, the museum has cultural diplomacy projects with Britain, Turkey and Indonesia. Our cultural diplomacy work with these nations has given rise to a suite of influential exhibitions, public art commissions and maritime archeology projects. Off the coast of Turkey in the Sea of Marmara we work with Turkish authorities to ensure the long-term preservation of Australia’s second submarine, AE2. And in Bantam Bay on the north-west tip of Java, Indonesia, our Head of Maritime Archaeology, Kieran Hosty, is working with Indonesian authorities to protect the wreck of the World War II RAN cruiser HMAS Perth.

Following reports of illegal salvaging of HMAS Perth, we began in 2014 to work closely with the National Research Centre of Archaeology Indonesia (ARKENAS). Both organisations signed a memorandum of understanding to research and, where possible, protect the remains of sovereign warships lost in Indonesian waters. In December 2016 we conducted a side-scan sonar and multi-beam survey of HMAS Perth in preparation for a dive in March 2017 together with ARKENAS, which will provide critical information on the extent of any removal of material from HMAS Perth.

Our March dive is preceded by a series of commemorative exhibitions both in Indonesia and the United States marking the 75th anniversary of the battle of Sunda Strait. On 1 March 1942, more than 1,000 crew members from HMAS Perth and USS Houston lost their lives fighting side by side in the Sunda Strait when attacked by ships from the Japanese Western Invasion Convoy. The museum’s exhibition Guardians of Sunda Strait opens at the Houston Public Library, Texas, on 1 March before touring Australia. A banner version of the exhibition will tour the USA via the US Historic Naval Ships Association, while in Indonesia, a graphic panel exhibition opens at the Bahari Museum in Jakarta on 27 February.

It is my belief that in the 21st century the cultural diplomacy work of the Australian National Maritime Museum will be vital.

As we explore the traditions and customs of close neighbours and allies, we will find new shared stories through which evergreater understanding will emerge. This is why our forward program for the USA Gallery, as well as joint exhibitions and research projects – particularly with Indonesia – remain some of the museum’s most critical work.

Kevin Sumption

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Pompeii and the Roman navy A VOYAGE INTO CATASTROPHE

A spectacular new exhibition at the museum casts light on one of the ancient world’s most famous natural disasters – the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Curator Will Mather outlines the dramatic events and profiles Pliny the Elder, the Roman naval commander who recorded them.

01 01 Fresco from Pompeii, 1st century AD.

© Ministero dei Beni Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico di Napoli

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COLLECTING MATERIAL FOR A HISTORY of the Roman Empire, the historian Tacitus sent a letter to Pliny the Younger asking for an account of the death of his famous uncle, the polymath Pliny the Elder, who had died some 25 years earlier in 79 AD. Pliny’s gripping reply is the only eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which devastated Campania, burying the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae. It is also the only account of Pliny the Elder’s attempted rescue of civilians from the disaster using the ships of the Roman navy – an effort that cost him his life.

Pliny was responsible for the whole of the western Mediterranean and, most importantly, Rome

An unlikely hero, Pliny was 55, overweight, asthmatic and a bookworm with a long list of published works to his name.

His most famous work, his Natural History, still survives today.

Published just before the eruption, it covers a huge range of natural history topics – astronomy, geography, zoology, botany, agriculture, medicinal drugs obtained from nature, mining and minerals – in 37 books. As he writes in his preface, the Natural History contains more than 20,000 facts mined from 100 authors, which he hoped would be a useful reference work for the masses, farmers and artisans. It is one of the few works to survive from antiquity, as it did indeed prove useful.

Pliny was born in Como in northern Italy at the foot of the Alps, a region that had only fairly recently been given Roman citizenship. In his discussion on wool Pliny recounts that his father remembered wearing rough woollen topcoats, while he recalled coats shaggy inside and out, as well as shaggy woollen waist bands – clearly they were not toga wearers.

02 The rostrum (a warship’s ram) became

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a symbol of victory for the Romans.

Captured rostra decorated the speakers’ platform at Rome ‘like a wreath crowning the Roman nation’ as Pliny has it, giving the platform its name. Here one decorates a household furnishing, maybe a stud to hold back curtains. © Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Soprintendenza Speciale Pompei

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Herculaneum, favoured for its sea breezes, was more of a resort, while Pompeii with its river port was more commercial

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His family belonged to the equestrian class, just beneath the senatorial class in wealth and status. Pliny did his military service in the cavalry on the German frontier. There he served with Titus, who would follow his father Vespasian to become emperor after the overthrow of the emperor Nero. Pliny did not seek any office under the flamboyant but murderous Nero.

Only with the accession of Vespasian in 69 AD did Pliny take up public office, serving the new emperor as procurator in Roman provinces in France, Spain and North Africa.

A procurator was a kind of chief financial officer of the province, there to assist the governor in financial matters but also to keep an eye on him for the emperor. When in Rome, Pliny served on Vespasian’s private advisory council, confirming he was in the inner circle of the new regime.

Around 76 AD he was appointed commander of the Roman naval base at Misenum on the Bay of Naples. This was the highest-paid and highest-ranking position outside Rome.

The fleet had about 50 warships and 10,000 men, and was the largest military force in Italy, the legions being far away on the empire’s borders. Pliny was responsible for the whole of the western Mediterranean and, most importantly, Rome.

03 Drink warmer from Pompeii, used like

a samovar. © Ministero dei Beni Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico di Napoli

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In the absence of any enemies the fleet’s role was to suppress piracy and provide speedy communications throughout the empire.

Misenum was some 250 kilometres from Rome – not particularly close, but the Bay of Naples provided the best harbours along the entire west coast of Italy. Rome’s port at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, was too exposed to storms and flooding to be used as a naval base, nor was it a good commercial port; 200 grain ships were destroyed in one storm there in 62 AD. With its two flooded volcanic craters Misenum proved ideal, providing an inner and outer harbour protected from winds and with beaches for careening ships. It could protect Rome’s main commercial port further along the Bay at Puteoli (Pozzuoli). The famous grain fleet from Egypt that fed Rome docked there, as the ships were too large for Ostia.

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Puteoli was also the hub for luxury goods coming from the east, highly convenient for the Roman elite who chose the Bay of Naples as their favoured holiday destination, attracted by its beauty and climate. The volcanic action that made the great harbours also made the volcanic springs.

The spa resort of Baiae, next door to Misenum, was particularly popular. Nowhere had more plentiful or more healing water, according to Pliny. Food was another attraction – the fish and shellfish were unequalled, and the volcanic soils made the area the most fertile in Italy.

Next comes the well-known fertile region of Campania. In its hollows begin the vine bearing hills and the celebrated effects of the juice of the vine, famous the world over, and, as writers have said, the venue of the greatest competition between Bacchus and Ceres … These shores are watered by hot springs and in no seas can the repute of their famous fish and shellfish be equalled.

Nowhere is the olive-oil superior, another object of mankind’s pleasure. Pliny the Elder, Natural History III 60 Across the bay, beneath Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii and Herculaneum tapped into this network. Herculaneum, favoured for its sea breezes, was more of a resort, while Pompeii with its river port – which also served three towns further inland – was more commercial. Both were wealthy and connected to the capital and to the wider Mediterranean world due to their position on the bay and, thanks to Vesuvius, the fertility of their lands.

Pliny had no wife or children of his own, and at Misenum his widowed sister and her teenage son, Pliny the Younger, lived with him. Around 1 pm on 24 August 79 AD, his sister drew his attention to a cloud of unusual shape and size, resembling an umbrella pine, rising from a mountain in the

04 Rostrum from a Roman warship sunk at the

Battle of the Aegates Islands, off Sicily, against the Carthaginians in 241 BC. This Roman victory ended the first Punic War. Rome would never be seriously challenged at sea again. © Emma Soprintendenza del Mare

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distance (later ascertained to be Vesuvius). Pliny’s interest piqued by what he thought was a relatively benign natural phenomenon, he ordered a Liburnian galley – one of the small, fast ships originally used by the pirates of Dalmatia – to be made ready to go and have a closer look.

The decision to run or stay during this period was fateful

He then received a message from his friend Rectina begging to be rescued. Her villa was at the foot of the mountain and the only escape was by sea (how she got the message to Pliny is not explained). Realising that people’s lives were in danger, he ordered out the warships to save as many people as possible.

He changed his plans, and what he had begun in a spirit of inquiry he completed as a hero. He gave orders for the warships to be launched and went on board himself with the intention of bringing help to many more people besides Rectina, for this lovely stretch of coast was thickly populated. Pliny the Younger, Letters VI 16 The warships Pliny sent out were quadriremes, the largest ships in his fleet at 39 metres long and four metres wide. Each was powered by 232 oarsmen arranged in four banks called remes (hence the name of the ship). Attached to the bow of each vessel was a large metal beak called a rostrum, designed for ramming enemy ships to sink or disable them, the oarsmen providing the power. Oar power also made the ships highly manoeuvrable, ideal for the tricky situation into which they were going. Sails were used to get the ships to and from battle sites, and were most likely used to get the ships across the bay.

The wind blowing from the north-west was in their favour.

05 Map showing the Bay of Naples. The Romans

called this volcanic area Crater Sinus, meaning crater bay. Image Austen Kaupe

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Vesuvius was 28 kilometres away, and with an estimated speed of eight knots it would have taken the ships around three-anda-half hours to get there. On the way Pliny was dictating, taking notes on each new movement and phase of the eruption.

Hot ash started falling thickly on the ships, followed by pumice, around 5 pm as they neared the coast. Suddenly the water became shallow, caused by the seabed rising as Vesuvius’ magma chamber filled, and they were prevented from getting any closer to the shore by rafts of pumice.

Ashes were already falling, hotter and thicker as the ships drew near, followed by bits of pumice and blackened stones, charred and cracked by the flames: then suddenly they were in shallow water, and the shore was blocked by the debris from the mountain. Pliny the Younger, Letters VI 16 This indicates that they attempted to land somewhere south of Herculaneum, as that town had virtually no pumice fall during the entire eruption. This was due to the prevailing north-west wind blowing the ash and pumice south-east over Pompeii, where it had been falling since midday at a rate of about 15 centimetres an hour. As Pliny approached the coast, balconies and roofs in Pompeii were beginning to collapse from the weight. It would have been increasingly dangerous to stay indoors. Though there was little ash fall at Herculaneum, the ominous 30-kilometre-high volcanic cloud would have cast

06 A fresco from Pompeii illustrating a story from

mythology – Narcissus admiring his reflection, while in the background Echo pines away with unrequited love. © Ministero dei Beni Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico di Napoli

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the town into darkness and the constant tremors would have encouraged people to flee or seek shelter in stronger buildings, like the arched superstructure of the Suburban Baths where most of Herculaneum’s victims were found.

Pliny refused to retreat. He ordered his ship south past Pompeii to Stabiae, to the villa of his friend Pomponianus. On arrival he found Pomponianus wisely trying to leave, having loaded his belongings onto a ship, although he was unable to depart due to the contrary wind. Pliny had made a miscalculation; having landed, he too was unable to leave for the same reason.

He stayed in his friend’s villa. During the night more pumice fell, the level rising so high there was danger of Pliny being stuck inside his bedroom. He joined the others and they debated whether to stay indoors or take their chance in the open, as the buildings were now shaking violently. It was a debate that would have been happening throughout Pompeii as well. Choosing to stay outdoors, they tied pillows to their heads to protect themselves from falling debris.

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The decision to run or stay during this period was fateful.

The deadly phase of the eruption was about to begin as the volcanic cloud began collapsing. Around 1 am the first pyroclastic surge of superheated gas and ash travelling at 30 metres per second smashed into Herculaneum, instantly killing everyone still there. At 400–450 degrees Celsius it carbonised wood, leather and foodstuffs and burned the flesh off living people. Further flows buried the town and extended the coastline 400 metres to the west.

The first surge and the next two did not reach Pompeii.

When the fourth surge swept over Pompeii just after dawn, at 6.30 am, it killed everyone still present. Many were found trying to make their escape over the pumice fall. This surge was not as hot – it did not burn the bodies but rather formed a hard shell around them, creating a void once the bodies decomposed. It is from these voids that the famous Pompeiian body casts were made. Before the pyroclastic flow, deaths in Pompeii would have been from building collapse, and these bodies did not form casts as they were buried in loose pumice and ash.

The fourth surge, or the ones that came quickly after it, caused panic in Stabiae, 14 kilometres from the crater.

Flames and the smell of sulphur gave warning of the approaching surge. Pliny tried to flee with the others, but the fumes and ash caused too much stress on his lungs and heart and he collapsed and died. His body was found two days later. Due to Stabiae’s distance from Vesuvius, and possibly the intervening Sarno river, the surge that reached Stabiae had cooled, so wasn’t fatal to all those present.

07 Loaf of carbonised bread from Herculaneum.

© Ministero dei Beni Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico di Napoli

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Whether or not the ships sent out by Pliny the Elder saved anyone is not clear from his nephew’s account, but then its main focus was not the rescue but his uncle, of whom he was genuinely fond. Pliny the Younger does make it clear that people were leaving the area as his uncle went in, and people in both towns had plenty of time to leave – in Pompeii’s case 18 hours – though this would have been increasingly difficult with the constant rain and build-up of pumice, and the complete darkness. To date, 1,500 bodies have been found at Pompeii, and 350 at Herculaneum – only about 10 per cent of their estimated populations. More victims may be found along the roads leading out of the towns or in their stillundiscovered ports, but it is likely most people escaped.

To date, 1,500 bodies have been found at Pompeii, and 350 at Herculaneum – about 10 per cent of their estimated populations

The ash cloud was so great it darkened Rome, and some of the ash reached Africa, Syria and Egypt. The emperor Titus, Pliny’s patron, appointed a board of magistrates to relieve the distress in Campania and he went there himself to supervise the disaster relief first hand.

Pliny the Elder does not seem to have been aware that Vesuvius was a volcano, though he mentions the ones in the nearby Aeolian Islands and Mount Etna in Sicily. Earlier authors did think it had been an active volcano from the scorching found on its summit, but it had been dormant for a very long time.

The link between volcanic eruptions and earthquakes was also not yet understood. Pliny held the common view that they were caused by wind:

08 Body cast of one of the victims from

Pompeii. This is a copy of a cast made in 1875. It shows the victim with her clothes forced up around her waist from the power of the pyroclastic surge. © Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo – Soprintendenza Speciale Pompei

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I think there is no doubt that winds cause earthquakes.

For earth tremors never occur unless the sea is calm and the sky so motionless that birds cannot hover, because all the air which bears them up has been taken away. Pliny the Elder, Natural History II 192 A devastating earthquake in 63 AD that destroyed parts of Herculaneum and Pompeii was most likely caused by magma rising beneath Vesuvius. Another major earthquake in 64 AD destroyed the theatre at Naples. Although many fled the area after the 63 AD earthquake, tremors had become so common just prior to the eruption that they ceased to cause alarm.

In his will Pliny left his entire estate to his nephew, and also adopted him. His nephew then took his name to become Pliny the Younger. He went on to have a successful political and literary career, hence the survival of his letters to Tacitus.

The section of Tacitus’ Histories in which he described the eruption of Mount Vesuvius has not survived. It would have been very interesting to see how closely he followed Pliny the Younger’s account and in what light he put Pliny’s uncle – whether heroic or foolhardy.

Escape from Pompeii – The untold Roman rescue opens on 31 March.

Escape from Pompeii is developed by the Australian National Maritime Museum in association with Expona and Contemporanea Progetti.

09 Mount Vesuvius from one of the Roman

villas at Sorrento. Image courtesy Matthew O’Sullivan

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AU S T R A L I A N N AT I O N A L M A R I T I M E M U S E U M P R E S E N T S

WORLD CLASS EXHIBITION OPENS 31 MARCH A rare chance to see 2000-year-old Roman artefacts and the haunting body casts of victims of Mt Vesuvius.

Media Supporter

FREE ENTRY FOR MARITIME MUSEUM MEMBERS

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anmm.gov.au/pompeii

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RV Investigator

ENABLING MARINE RESEARCH WITHOUT BOUNDARIES A state-of-the-art, specially designed research vessel is keeping Australia at the cutting edge of marine science, and providing vital data for both our country and the international scientific community. By Matt Marrison.

01 01 RV Investigator in Antarctica, January 2017.

Image Marine National Facility

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AUSTRALIA IS SURROUNDED by a vast and largely unexplored marine estate that includes continental waters, offshore islands and Antarctic coastline. Australia’s marine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is the third largest of any nation and our marine jurisdictional area is almost double the size of the Australian continent itself. Significantly, Australia possesses sovereign rights over much of this vast marine estate and its associated fishing, mineral and petroleum resources. These resources and their related industries underpin the vitality and sustained success of the Australian economy.

Marine research is vital for the protection, management and sustainable development of these marine resources, and to better understand the influence of the oceans on our region and around the world. Research is vital to help inform evidence-based decision making by all stakeholders to ensure the best outcomes are achieved for all. Enabling this research in Australia’s ocean territories requires unique people, unique resources and a blue-water research vessel with unique capabilities.

Marine National Facility In 1984, in recognition of the importance of sustainably managing the environmental, economic and social values of our vast marine estate, the Australian government created the Marine National Facility (MNF). Intended as a collaborative hub for enabling marine research for national benefit, the MNF is owned and operated by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to provide worldleading capability to Australian blue-water marine scientists and their international collaborators. The MNF is overseen by an independent steering committee, which includes representatives from academia, industry and government, and provides a keystone element of Australia’s research infrastructure.

The MNF has a range of resources but the literal flagship of the facility is the world-class blue-water research vessel, Investigator.

Future Research Vessel Project Investigator was designed, built and commissioned by the CSIRO through the Future Research Vessel (FRV) Project, an initiative of the Australian Government under the Super Science Initiative and financed from the Education Investment Fund.

Following a procurement process undertaken by the CSIRO, Teekay Holdings Australia Pty Ltd was awarded the contract in January 2011 to design, build and commission the new vessel.

Marine research is vital for the protection, management and sustainable development of our marine resources

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Investigator can accommodate 40 scientists and support staff, and can travel from the ice edge to the equator

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The vessel was designed by RALion (Robert Allan Ltd and Alion Science and Technology) from the USA and Canada and built

by Sembawang Shipyard Pty Ltd in Singapore. As a condition of their approved Australian Industry Participation Plan, Teekay ensured Australian suppliers and expertise were used wherever possible.

Investigator was a bespoke design that was built in pieces, with some sections weighing more than 140 tonnes.

The vessel was delivered to Hobart, Tasmania, in September 2014 and officially commissioned on 12 December 2014.

The arrival of Investigator represented a step change in marine research capability for Australia, providing the nation with an advanced, multidisciplinary blue-water research vessel.

The 94-metre Investigator replaced the previous MNF research vessel, the 66-metre Southern Surveyor, which was originally built as a fishing boat in 1971. Southern Surveyor was a solid stalwart of Australian marine research for 10 years but was limited in range, endurance and capability, only accommodating 15 scientists for voyages of up to 26 days duration, and being able to operate to 50 degrees south. In comparison, Investigator can accommodate 40 scientists and support staff, and can travel from the ice edge to the equator on voyages of up to 60 days in duration. Investigator is also able to spend up to 300 days per year at sea on research voyages.

On cold-water voyages to date, Investigator has reached more than 67 degrees south, a mark that may be challenged early in 2017 during the ship’s first Antarctic-specific voyage, where the interaction between the Totten Glacier and Southern Ocean will be studied.

Overall, the commissioning of Investigator has significantly increased the ability of the MNF to address rapidly increasing demand for marine research in the national interest.

02 Mapping uncharted seafloor in high resolution.

Image Marine National Facility

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Investigator’s capabilities The great capability of Investigator is in part due to the sheer size of the ship but also stems from the custom design process that consulted widely with potential ship users and experts from the marine research community. What resulted was a design for a highly flexible and capable marine research platform that could accommodate a wide range of equipment and technology for extended multidisciplinary research voyages. This capability was not previously available to Australian researchers and has resulted in another significant benefit – increased collaboration between researchers across institutions and scientific disciplines.

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Investigator is configured to enable a wide range of atmospheric, biological, geoscience and physical oceanographic research. As Australia’s only blue-water research vessel, Investigator must be all things to all Australian marine scientists.

The vessel has been specifically designed to accommodate a plethora of scientific equipment, in addition to the fixed and modular equipment offered by the MNF itself. Investigator is the first Australian research vessel with laboratories dedicated to analysing the interaction between the ocean and atmosphere.

The information provided by the 1.75-tonne new-generation C-band Doppler weather radar will allow meteorologists, for the first time, to collect data about the atmosphere above the oceans around Australia.

Investigator is also equipped with a suite of advanced geoscience equipment to take a range of measurements of the sea floor and beneath. Attached 1.2 metres beneath the ship’s hull is a gondola, 13.5 metres long by 9.5 metres wide, which houses two advanced multibeam systems that allow high-resolution seafloor mapping to depths of 11.5 kilometres.

A sub-bottom profiler also contained within the gondola can be used to probe up to 100 metres into the seabed to reveal the geological composition below.

The ship’s underway systems actively collect data when the ship is at sea, resulting in an ongoing accumulation of vital information for better understanding of both the marine environment and the atmosphere above it.

Key to ensuring that Investigator is capable of collecting highquality data has been its build to an international radiated noise standard known as DNV Silent-R. Radiated ship noise interferes with acoustic signals, and Investigator’s design has served to minimise noise from all on-board machinery, increasing the range and resolution of the ship’s seabed mapping, sub-surface imaging, and marine ecosystem monitoring instrumentation.

03 The Chief Scientist’s cabin is one of 43 cabins

on board. Image Ann Jones/ABC

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Investigator is equipped with a suite of advanced geoscience equipment

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Investigator is one of the quietest vessels in the world, able to undertake acoustic mapping and sampling to the deepest parts of our oceans, and allowing scientists to provide better estimates of the number of fish and other species in the marine environment. Further, the vessel’s low noise signature allows scientists to survey fish and other species with a reduced likelihood of influencing their behaviour.

Investigator’s hull shape was designed using computer-based fluid dynamic analysis to ensure any bubbles formed by the hull moving through the water (bubble sweepdown) do not interfere with the acoustic equipment. To help achieve this, the hull was designed without a bulbous-shaped bow and tunnel bow thrusters and instead has a soft nose stem and a 1,200-kilowatt retractable azimuth bow thruster. The bow thruster also assists the vessel in achieving dynamic positioning (DP) class-1 and this control system enables the ship to hold station within very small tolerances.

The vessel is furnished with a full suite of navigational and radar equipment, including a speed log and multi-frequency scientific split-beam echo sounder. Investigator is outfitted with three diesel generators and is propelled by two fixed pitch propellers, each driven by a reversible electric motor.

Communication equipment includes an Inmarsat communication system, Inmarsat Fleet Broadband voice/fax/data, Iridium shipto-shore communications system, NextG mobile phone, Satcom C two-way data communications, weather fax, and HF/ MF and VHF radios. These capabilities allow Investigator to support live ship-to-shore video capabilities, which have been used for live television broadcasts, and to support education and outreach activities into Australian schools.

04 Scientists and support staff in the

Ops Room watch data streaming in.

Image Pete Harmsen/CSIRO

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Investigator has a range of onboard laboratories and preparation rooms

Mix-and-match science Investigator has a range of on-board laboratories and preparation rooms but can also accommodate 13 shipping containers that can be used for mobile laboratories, storage (equipment and samples) and special-purpose rooms (for example, a medical facility). The ship also has a range of cold rooms and freezers for sample storage.

The ship’s laboratory layout was very carefully planned.

During the design phase, end users of the spaces were heavily consulted to ensure that functional work-flow was considered. This is demonstrated through the practical sequence of laboratories to allow the efficient and expedient processing of samples from the rear deck through to more specialised analytical laboratories towards the front of the ship. Practical considerations for effective working spaces are also demonstrated in equipment and design features such as a conveyor belt and waste chute.

Investigator’s rear deck area allows for a wide range of equipment and container laboratories to be fitted, as required by researchers, and provides maximum flexibility for deployments.

Oceanographic research Investigator provides the capability to deploy and retrieve large surface and sub-surface moorings and oceanographic sampling equipment to depths of 7,000 metres, and to tow a variety of equipment, such as TRIAXUS systems – a towed undulating Conductivity, Temperature and Depth (CTD) system – up to 3,000 metres behind the ship to collect data.

05 Investigator provides a flexible research

05

platform that promotes collaboration.

Image Doug Thost/CSIRO

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A range of towed systems, dredges and corers can be deployed to collect samples and imagery from the seafloor

06

The CTD system is one of the most frequently used sampling systems on the vessel. Investigator can deploy a 12, 24 and 36 (Niskin) bottle rosette, the latter being the largest commercially available, to depths of 7,000 metres. This system is a fundamental tool for marine scientists and its basic function is to measure temperature, salinity and depth in the ocean.

The CTD system can also be fitted with a wide variety of other instruments to measure ocean properties, including dissolved oxygen and other gases, phytoplankton and the depth sunlight penetrates from the surface.

Geoscience research In addition to advanced geoscience equipment to map the sea floor, Investigator has a range of towed systems, dredges and corers that can be deployed to collect samples and imagery from the seafloor. The ship also has a gravity meter and is capable of seismic survey work, with a seismic compressor system fitted. These capabilities allow scientists to study and map geological features beneath the seafloor.

Biological research Marine biologists on board Investigator can study ocean life with the latest fish assessment sonar that can reach to depths of 3,000 metres and collect passive data on where species live, eat and breed. There is also a range of seafloor sampling equipment and the vessel has pelagic, demersal and benthic trawling capability to 5,000 metres.

The inclusion of optical samplers facilitates studies relating to the distribution of plankton and marine snow. The vessel also provides incubation facilities for keeping plants and animals alive.

06 Investigator offers invaluable student

training opportunities and marine research experience. Image CSIRO

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Atmospheric research Investigator is the first Australian research vessel with laboratories dedicated to analysing the interaction between the ocean and atmosphere. The vessel has an air sampling inlet on the foremast with air pumped to two dedicated laboratories and forward container laboratories. There are also facilities for releasing weather balloons and sondes for atmospheric profiling.

Atmospheric research data collected by the vessel provides for greater understanding and the ability to predict changes in local, regional and global weather and rainfall patterns.

There are also facilities for releasing weather balloons and sondes for atmospheric profiling

Applying for sea time In May 2014, the Australian government reaffirmed a commitment to the MNF, allocating AU$65.7 million over four years to operate Investigator. This funding supports approximately 180 research days at sea per year to be competitively funded on merit as granted voyages.

Applying enduring principles set out in the Guidelines for the Operation of National Research Facilities Report of 1984, research vessel time is awarded through a competitive,

07 Investigator’s configuration allows deployment

of a wide variety of equipment. Image Marine National Facility/CSIRO

07

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peer reviewed and merit-based applications process to meet national and international research challenges. The research enabled by the MNF contributes to Australia’s national benefit by providing key information to government, industry and other stakeholders to support evidence-based decision-making.

Given Investigator’s capacity to support research for up to 300 days per year at sea, the MNF can provide up to 120 additional days through user-funded voyages to maximise research in the national interest.

Delivering excellent marine research Following the successful completion of commissioning activities in 2015–16, Investigator is now maintaining a full schedule of research operations and is demonstrating the significant capability, capacity and benefit this advanced purpose-built vessel offers the marine research community and the nation.

The vessel has already enabled a wide range of research that would not otherwise be possible, including research that focuses on challenges in environmental and fisheries management, geological resources, regional and global climate, and coastal and offshore development.

During the 2015–16 financial year, Investigator delivered 234 operational days at sea, travelled 52,625 kilometres during voyages and mapped 262,688 square kilometres of the seafloor.

Among its achievements so far, Investigator has: • Enabled a 50-day remote voyage to study, for the first time, Southern Ocean volcanism and the role of active Heard and McDonald Island volcanoes, as well as nearby submarine volcanoes, in supplying iron to the ocean.

• During 2016, allowed three primary projects (originally proposed as separate voyages) to be combined into a single research voyage to the Southern Ocean, achieving significant logistical and scientific synergies, as well as creating significant cost benefits.

• Completed a program of 140 full ocean depth CTD casts on a single voyage from the ice edge to the equator along 170 degrees west in support of Australia’s contribution to the international GO-SHIP monitoring program.

• Supported the collection of high-precision baseline data about ocean change and variability in the Southern Ocean and East Australian Current through deployment, recovery and maintenance of long-term monitoring arrays.

The data collected is also important in allowing the calibration of global monitoring equipment.

The vessel has already enabled a wide range of research that would not otherwise be possible

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• Gathered high-precision bathymetric mapping data on every voyage to continuously improve the detail and precision of seafloor mapping in Australia’s vast marine estate.

This includes opportunistic use of Investigator to map specific seafloor areas in collaboration with the Australian Hydrographic Service as part of a holistic government approach to surveying and charting.

• Supported complementary and piggyback research projects, including multidisciplinary science, within the Primary Voyage Program to provide opportunities to a wide crosssection of the marine research community and maximise scientific benefit from every voyage.

• Enabled two multidisciplinary research charter voyages (with a third scheduled for 2017) in collaboration with industry to study the Great Australian Bight to contribute crucial baseline data for understanding the geology and biodiversity of this region.

• Provided the global community with real-time access to underway science and data through online portals and the vessel’s capability to support a wide range of data streams, including live ship-to-shore video broadcasts.

• Facilitated unique marine science education and training opportunities, and enabling initiatives such as the CAPSTAN postgraduate sea training program (an Australian first, coordinated by Macquarie University) and the CSIRO Educator on Board outreach program to promote STEM studies in schools.

For further information about the CSIRO research vessel Investigator, its voyages and the research it enables, visit the Marine National Facility website mnf.csiro.au Matt Marrison is the Communications Advisor of the Marine National Facility.

RV Investigator: Specifications Length: 93.9 metres Beam: 18.5 metres Draft: 6.2 metres (with gondola 1.2 metres below keel) Height from waterline: 37 metres Displacement (max): 5,893 tonnes Range: 10,800 nautical miles at cruising speed of 11 knots Complement: 20 crew + 40 science and support staff Internal storeys: 10 Commissioned: 12 December 2014 Designer: RALion Builder: Teekay Holdings Australia P/L, Sembawang Shipyard, Singapore Cost: AUD$126 million Home port: Hobart, Australia

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > AN ANCIENT AND PERILOUS TRADE

An ancient and perilous trade

AUSTRALIA’S UNIQUE PEARLING HERITAGE Currently showing at the museum is Lustre: Pearling & Australia, a travelling exhibition from the Western Australian Museum showcasing the unique role that pearlshell and pearling have played in our nation’s history.

Sarah Yu previews the exhibition, which is the result of a special partnership between the Western Australian Museum and Nyamba Buru Yawuru, Broome’s Yawuru Aboriginal corporation.

01 Aubrey Tigan Galiwa’s work bench after

01

applying the red ochre to his Aalingoong pearlshell design. Image courtesy Dr Stefan Eberhard

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THE STORY OF PEARLING IN AUSTRALIA is a complex and important one that has not previously been told in its entirety.

It covers a period of some 20,000 years, from the earliest evidence of pearlshell collection by Aboriginal people up to the present day. Lustre explores the beauty, significance and intrigue of pearls and pearlshell across time and cultures, intertwining ancient Aboriginal trade stories with the more recent industry development that transformed the north of Australia.

Involved in the exhibition were senior Yawuru, Karajarri, Bardi and Jawi, and Mayala elders from what is locally called Saltwater Country, off the coast from Eighty Mile Beach to Dampier Peninsula and King Sound in Western Australia. The exhibition was inspired by the life and work of Aubrey Tigan Galiwa, and his artistic work provides a deep understanding of the pearling story.

Many cultures of the world share a sense of mystery and fascination with pearls and pearlshell (also known as mother of pearl) as objects of desire, wealth, magic and power.

In Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania, mother of pearl has been a prestige material for thousands of years.

In many cultures, it still is. The shining scales of the serpentlike being Aalingoong of the Bardi and Jawi and Mayala people are connected with mother of pearl and power. The association between dragons and mother of pearl is not unique to the West Kimberley, but can also be found in a number of Asian mythologies. The iridescence of mother of pearl is beguiling, but more significant is the widely held belief in a link between lustre and rainbows, rain and water, the essence of life.

Aboriginal cultural significance of pearlshell While many people associate the trade in pearls and pearlshell with the exotic ‘Far East’, Australian Aboriginal people were, in fact, one of the first peoples to value the beauty and associated power of the pearlshell – collecting it for more than 20,000 years, decorating it with their stories and trading it across northern Australia and into the desert.

People might come from the east to our country. Old people will give them something … give them gifts with little carvings to take back to their home where they never see anything like that.

Lulga Francis Djiagween, Yawuru elder, speaking in 2015 on the gift of riji, engraved pearlshell from Western Australia I am one of the riji [pearlshell] carvers. That’s my life.

My grandfather and father taught me the old designs.

That’s how I tell the story of my country and the history of my people. I pass this on to my young people to take over from me.

Aubrey Tigan Galiwa, Mayala elder (deceased)

Many cultures of the world share a sense of mystery and fascination with pearls and pearlshell

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Most of the crew members were indentured workers, and they toiled hard for minimal rewards

02

Yawuru and Karajarri, Bardi and Jawi, and Worrora people have traditionally engaged in complex exchange networks, known as yinyali, anyja or wunan in their respective languages. The prized items at the centre of these networks, such as pearlshell, are key items in Indigenous rituals, mythology and social relationships. Both ritual objects and valued personal gifts, such as weapons, food or clothing, moved vast distances across Australia, through chains of partners on either small-scale interpersonal or larger-scale intergroup levels.

Different categories of objects moved in different directions.

The pathways often overlay Dreaming tracks or contours of landscape and, by the 1970s, incorporated modern roads, pastoral stations and flight paths.

Pearlshell may only have become a valued exchange item in the last 200 years, among the objects that moved east.

It is not known precisely when these networks began, but the movement of specific types of stone tools, hints of shared words in different languages separated by vast distances, and the Dreaming stories told by people, all suggest that they were in place well before the arrival of Europeans.

Lustre features a remarkable 2,000-year-old near-round natural pearl recently discovered in an Aboriginal archaeological shell midden deposit in a rock shelter site in the Admiralty Gulf.

Natural pearls are very rarely recorded in Aboriginal shell midden sites, and the Brremangurey Pearl – found 75 centimetres below the surface in a West Kimberley rock shelter, its lustre hidden by carbonate crust – is the oldest Australian evidence that pearlshell has traditionally been greatly valued by

02 Thistle under sail, passing another lugger,

1949. Image courtesy Western Australian Maritime Museum MHD 319/114

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Aboriginal people. By the time it was dropped by its last owner in Widgingarri, 2,000 years ago, this piece had already travelled 200 kilometres from the ancient shoreline. Even earlier, Aboriginal people carried other types of shell over great distances. Examples of shell movement include 32,000-year-old baler shell from Widgingarri, 32,000-year-old cone shell beads from Mandu Mandu Creek, 30,000-year-old tusk shell beads from Riwi, and 24,000-year-old baler shell from Shark Bay. The Riwi beads, found 500 kilometres from the ancient coast, are an exciting glimpse of an early long-distance network.

For weeks at a time, the crews lived on small wooden boats that were purposebuilt for pearling but lacked basic amenities

Today, cultural materials such as guwan (undecorated pearlshell) and riji (carved shell) are prized items in Aboriginal exchange networks across much of Australia. Far from the shore but still connected with water, pearlshell is a vital element in Central Desert rainmaking ceremonies.

Saltwater cowboys Lustre traces the evolution of technologies, from free-diving and hard-hat diving through to the farming of cultured pearls.

Told very much from an Aboriginal perspective, it also reveals the hardships endured not just by indentured Aboriginal people, but also of Malay and Japanese and other peoples – many of whom gave their lives to the industry. The story of the last of the Japanese hard-hat divers demonstrates that this dangerous practice continued into living memory.

They were sea pioneers … in their fleets of little luggers they charted the entire northern coast from Shark Bay to the Great Barrier Reef. Ion Idriess, Forty Fathoms Deep, 1937

03 The crew of a pearl lugger, Broome,

03

Western Australia, c 1900–1920.

Image National Archives of Australia

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The multicultural crews toiling on the pearling luggers endured some of the roughest maritime conditions

04

Armed with at best a basic chart and a compass – and their experience and local knowledge – the multicultural crews toiling on the pearling luggers endured some of the roughest maritime conditions. For weeks at a time, the crews lived on small wooden boats that were purpose-built for pearling but lacked basic amenities. They worked from sunup to sundown in seas with some of the biggest tides in the world. They faced cyclones, tide-rips and unforgiving currents that could suck the lugger of an inexperienced captain into vast, destructive whirlpools. Most of the crew members were indentured workers, and they toiled hard for minimal rewards.

It was a highly competitive industry, with bonuses based on the size of the catch. The head diver was also the ‘skipper’, or captain. He directed the work from the sea bed through a code of tugs on his lifeline – his life, and the success of the dive, depended upon the alertness and skill of his tender.

On board, the crew had to work together, with great trust and understanding, to ensure the divers were able to collect as much shell as possible.

The crew lived like family. There was a hierarchy that ran from head diver to shell-opener, and each man had his own well-defined duties. Lugger crews embodied a colourful mix of cultures, each with its own language, cooking style, customs, religion and personality traits. They came from places such as Malaysia, China, Timor, The Philippines and Japan.

When Japanese divers were banned after World War II, Chinese divers were engaged. Many workers encouraged their family and friends to take up pearling and would try to get them signed on to the same companies. Most Aboriginal men from Dampierland worked for the pearlers at some stage of their lives. A typical post-war lugger crew consisted of up to 10 men: as many as four divers, including the head diver, the number

04 Sunday Island men dressed for a ceremony

performed for members of the North-West Scientific Expedition, 1917. Image William Jackson, courtesy Western Australian Museum DA9312-153

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two diver, their replacements and ‘try’ divers, who were learning the trade; two tenders; an engineer to operate the engine and air compressor; a cook and several shell-openers and cleaners.

In the days of the hand-pump boats, more hands were required to man the pump. Even today, old lugger crews reminisce about the days when they were the ‘saltwater cowboys’.

Six to eight weeks, living on a lugger. Nine men. It’s very crammed, and it’s very hot. There’s no smoko, no lunch, nothing.

You just have your smoke, eat your lunch at the same time you work. ‘Smiley’ Ismail bin Ibrahim, pearling crew, 2006, quoted in Pearling Legends, Goolarri Media Enterprises, Broome

Pearling’s future The pearlshell beds found on 80 Mile Beach are a natural phenomenon in a concentration and sheer number seen nowhere else in the world. As long as the Kimberley environment is pristine, there’s always going to be an opportunity for the pearl industry to exist. James Brown, manager Cygnet Bay Pearls, 2015 Pearling has demonstrated an innovative capacity to survive by adapting to new conditions, markets and competition.

The meshing of pearling with tourism, and the marketing of Australia’s South Sea Pearls, bespoke pearl jewellery and natural pearls, keep Australian pearls at the pinnacle of the highly competitive global industry.

While in the past, pearlers were reckless with the management of the shell beds, pearling is now an environmentally benign industry. Nevertheless, pearling faces new threats in the modern world. A mysterious disease is killing adult shell. Climate change is affecting coastal currents. The oil and gas industry threatens the pristine marine environment where pearlshell lives.

Oil spills threaten water quality, mooring chains scrape the bottom of the seabed, and, in general, the increased marine traffic disturbs the waters.

The passage of time also threatens the very cultural heritage of pearling. If the stories of pearlshell are to be preserved and remain vibrant and relevant, the cultural traditions surrounding the harvest and use of pearlshell must continue to be passed down. Fortunately, Aboriginal elders, the current pearl farmers and old pearling families all share this desire to preserve and retell their pearling heritage.

Visions of Australia

Sarah Yu is the curator of Lustre: Pearling & Australia, the result of a partnership between the Western Australian Museum and Nyamba Buru Yawuru, the organisation of the Yawuru native title holders of the Broome region. She has lived and worked in the West Kimberley for over 40 years as an anthropologist, curator and heritage consultant focusing on relationships between people and their historical and cultural connections to country.

Lustre: Pearling & Australia was developed in close consultation with senior Yawuru, Karajarri, Bardi and Jawi, and Mayala elders from Saltwater Country, and is supported by the Visions regional touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > SS KOOMBANA

SS Koombana

LOST TO THE WIND AND WAVES

The sinking of SS Koombana during a tropical cyclone in 1912 is legendary in Western Australian maritime history. A century later, the ship’s resting place is still unknown, and its story has acquired an accretion of myth and romance, writes Project Officer Inger Sheil.

01

01 SS Koombana, c 1910. ANMM Collection

Transfer from the Australian War Memorial

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THE RMS TITANIC has become a media touchstone for maritime disasters – founderings as far removed in time and circumstances as the Eastland and the Costa Concordia have been likened to that notorious sinking. The Adelaide Steamship Company’s SS Koombana, too, has been dubbed Australia’s Titanic. In this instance, however, there is at least a chronological proximity between the two transport tragedies, if little similarity in the circumstances of their losses.

Both steamships were lost within three and a half weeks of each other in 1912. The loss of the Koombana had hardly been confirmed when word came of the great North Atlantic tragedy on the far side of the world.

There was, however, a closer comparison to hand. The Adelaide Steamship Company had lost a ship under similar circumstances the previous year, when SS Yongala went down in a cyclone off Cape Bowling Green in Queensland. Both went down with all souls on board – at least 156 on Koombana and 121 on Yongala.

With no bodies recovered and scant wreckage found, their final resting place in the immediate decades after their losses was mysterious, giving rise to mythmaking and conspiracy theories.

But while the discovery of Yongala in the 1950s led to a revival of interest in the coastal steamer and its ongoing popularity as a dive site, Koombana’s final resting place still eludes us.

Perhaps this point of divergence in their fates is the reason Koombana is arguably the lesser-known vessel today, although it retains a legendary status in Western Australian maritime history.

Koombana’s final resting place still eludes us

02 Koombana’s First Class dining room.

University of Glasgow Archives UGD 4/18/1/6 No 1407. Courtesy Annie Boyd

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Koombana’s public spaces were luxuriously appointed and lavishly decorated

03

Koombana’s career was both brief and eventful.

Built by Alexander Stephens & Sons of Glasgow and launched on 27 October 1908, the steel-hulled ship was 340 feet (103 metres) long with a beam of 48 feet 2 inches (14.7 metres), a draught of 20 feet 8 inches (6.3 metres) and 3,668 gross register tonnage. All of its compartments were fitted with watertight doors. Its name was suggested by the Western Australian Premier, Newton Moore, after the Koombana mill near Bunbury, Western Australia.

The Western Mail of 20 February 1909 described the new ship as the ‘first passenger and cargo boat that has been built exclusively for service on the Western Australian coast’.

Designed for the semi-tropical trade, it had accommodation for 300 first and saloon passengers.

Most cabins had only two berths. The public spaces were luxuriously appointed and lavishly decorated. The drawing room walls were of sycamore and satinwood, and passengers were furnished with comforts such as a Broadway piano, two Chippendale writing desks, occasional tables and electric fans. The baths were also fitted out with luxury in mind, with stands of marble and basins of German silver.

Commencing on 12 March 1909, Koombana operated a coastal service between Fremantle and ports to the north-west of Western Australia. Although voyaging to comparatively sparsely populated areas of the state, Koombana had, by the standards of the era and location, a generous fit-out that led to some suggestions that the ship was too large and luxurious for the route. Extreme tidal ranges meant that at some ports the ship sat high and dry alongside the jetties at low tide.

03 Koombana’s First Class social hall.

Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Canberra 0186/ N46/354. Courtesy Annie Boyd

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Local newspapers indignantly rejected proposals that it should operate on another route, with the Hedland Advocate of 19 December 1908 stating that ‘any suggestion made by irresponsible persons that she is not to remain on the North West running is entirely incorrect, as the steamer has been specially built and designed for that purpose’. Mishaps on early voyages seemed to give some substance to the criticisms, as the ship ran aground on its first voyage off Shark Bay, taking ten days to refloat, and on its second voyage it struck an uncharted rock off Broome and was fortunate to escape serious damage.

There were highpoints, too, in these early years. Soon after entering service, in April and May 1909 Koombana carried the Premier of Western Australia, Newton Moore – who had named the ship – to preside over the official opening of the jetty at Port Hedland as part of a tour of the northwest. In November 1910 Koombana was part of the flotilla of vessels that welcomed the arrival of the Royal Australian Navy’s first two destroyers, Parramatta and Yarra, as they sailed into Broome.

When Koombana departed from Port Hedland on 20 March 1912, bound for Broome, it was only three years into its service.

Extant passenger lists are not complete, particularly in the second cabin, but those known to be on board included 72 crew and 84 passengers. The occupations and destinations of many of the passengers reflected the industries and occupations of the time: some were connected with the pearling industry and bound for Broome and the start of the 1912 pearling season, others were bound for Derby and involved with its beef cattle, still others were shearers engaged in seasonal work at Liveringa Station. A few were tourists or family members of those involved in business in the northwest who had travelled south for the summer to escape the extremes of the season.

Into the storm The weather had been hot and stifling for several days previous.

Abruptly on the night of Tuesday 19 March a stiff wind blew up from the east, followed by moderate winds and a little rain.

This had eased by dawn to a moderate north-easter.

Thomas Allen had taken command of Koombana in August 1911. An experienced captain, he soon encountered the difficulties of navigating the ship in the highly tidal-dependent ports of Port Hedland and Broome, and had touched bottom on the Port Hedland bar on two occasions in doing so.

The barometer had been dropping for three days and there were whitecaps out to sea as Allen weighed various considerations on the Wednesday morning, including the fact that Koombana was late on its run and a delayed departure

The occupations and destinations of many of the passengers reflected the industries and occupations of the time

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meant possibly missing the neap tide in Broome, essential to approaching the jetty. The masters of Koombana and Adelaide Steamship Company’s Bullarra, which was southbound, discussed the conditions. Allen made his decision – the passengers bound for Broome expected to be there by tomorrow, the run usually taking around 24 hours.

At 10.20 am, Koombana departed Port Hedland, followed at 10.40 am by Bullarra. By midday, once the ship was under way, the wind had again risen and was accompanied by occasional showers. Ashore and at sea the realisation that they were in for a bad blow began to set in, and people battened down their houses as luggers sought refuge up creeks.

A sense of what befell Koombana on that fatal voyage, as the tropical cyclone descended in full fury, can be gleaned from an account given to the Western Mail on 20 April 1912 by an officer of the Bullarra. Koombana, heading north, and probably detained by the need to reballast, would have run into the force of the storm earlier than Bullarra.

04

Bullarra encountered strong east-north-east winds and rough seas on leaving Port Hedland, and by 8 pm the ship was in the full grip of the cyclone. The crew struggled to keep the ship’s head to the waves, erecting canvas sails to help prevent it from turning broadside to the storm.

All the hands were at work securing fittings as they were torn loose and in replacing the canvas sails hourly.

The captain ordered the port anchor to be let go and 120 fathoms (220 metres) of cable run out to keep the ship’s head to the wind. Hatches were battened down with the exception of four kept open to ventilate the cattle, and crew were stationed to fasten them down if necessary. At noon the storm was blowing full force, the ship surrounded by darkness and mountainous seas, rain and spray blinding and hitting with a stinging force. Seas reached heights two to three times that of Bullarra, and one struck the bridge and captain’s cabin – 34 feet (10 metres) above the waterline.

At 2 pm they passed the eye of the storm and the wind died down, but the ship was still surrounded by high seas, all the more dangerous as waves were coming from all directions.

The crew prepared for the next onslaught, and the storm resumed at 6 pm. The conditions did not improve until 6 am the following morning.

Bullarra made it into Cossack three days after the cyclone, arriving to the news that Koombana was overdue in Broome.

Bullarra was patched up with temporary repairs and dispatched to search for the missing vessel.

04 Koombana’s captain, Thomas Allen.

The Western Mail, Saturday 6 April 1912, p 24. Courtesy Annie Boyd

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05

On 2 April, the manager of the Adelaide Steamship Company, Mr Moxon, received an ominous message from the master of the SS Gorgon: ‘Gorgon picked up panelled door, 25 miles north by west of Bedout Island, painted white on one side, and polished on other side. Silver fittings marked with crossed flags, and Walker and Hall…’. In an announcement, Moxon concluded that the door came from a saloon entrance of either the spar or hurricane deck of Koombana, and advised people to resign themselves to the fact that Koombana was lost. The premier and prime minister were informed of the discovery.

Stories circulated about a cursed pearl on board

In quest of Koombana Large-scale disasters tend to develop an accretion of myth and romance, not all of it strictly based on fact. In Koombana’s case, stories circulated about a cursed pearl on board, tales that dated back to at least the 1930s, and centred on Abraham Davis, a pearler from Broome. Early articles in the wake of the sinking noted that he had met a buyer from Shark’s Bay before joining the vessel and was supposed to have a number of valuable pearls in his possession. In later fictionalised accounts, one of these was claimed to have been the Roseate Pearl, a gem of astonishing size and beauty.

05 Alice (aged 30, left) and Genevieve Skamp

(27), who were on board Koombana with their mother, Jane Piggot. They had travelled south to escape the summer extremes of Broome, but were now returning to join Jane’s second husband, Sydney Piggot – master pearler and secretary of the Pearlers’ Association – for the start of the pearling season. Pigott family records, from Jim Mayhew, Coogee, WA. Courtesy Annie Boyd

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The century following the cyclone of 1912 has seen many searches for the lost ship. The original search was called off when the steamer Una found a location swarming with sharks and which seemed to have wreckage rising up from the sea floor. Although the account was by no means unquestioned, most searches since have centred on this area, 30 miles northnorth-west of Bedout Island.

Occasional reports would briefly raise expectations that the wreck had been found, only to see hopes dashed. In more recent years, search efforts have been spearheaded by the Koombana Search Group, the prime movers in which are Kerry Thom (former resident of Port Hedland and Koombana enthusiast), Ted Graham (former chairman of Finding Sydney) and Annie Boyd (researcher, author and diver). Each had instigated previous searches for the ship going back as far as the 1980s before collaborating on the current project.

For the last five years, the group has worked with the Dutch multinational company Fugro Survey, which has made survey vessels and crew available to the team on an ‘opportunity’ basis.

The in-kind support amounts to a substantial $50,000 a day to run the survey vessels. If an equipped vessel is passing the target area and can fit it within schedule, they divert to search for a day or two. In 2011 and 2012, there were three Fugrosponsored outings, which turned up one anomaly that warrants further investigation and which narrowed the search area.

The loss of Malaysian Airlines MH370 has had a significant impact on these efforts, with Fugro survey vessels spending three years joining the quest to find the missing plane in the southern Indian Ocean. With the search for the missing aircraft now suspended, they may return to the North West Shelf and locations closer to Koombana’s possible resting place.

Annie Boyd, writing to the author in January 2017, expressed her opinion of Koombana’s possible fate: It now seems likely that lightly-laden Koombana capsized.

One observation that favours this theory was that although many pieces of wreckage were found in 1912, no life-ring was among them. Only if Koombana ‘turned turtle’ would the rings stay on their hooks and go down with the ship. There is also this troubling story from July 1912, three months after Koombana disappeared: ‘Is It the Koombana? – Yesterday the Chief Harbourmaster at Fremantle (Captain C. J. Irvine) received the following telegram from Broome:– ‘Bullarra on passage from Cossack to Port Hedland passed a derelict. Appeared to be submerged bilge of a vessel 150 or 200 feet in length. Wreckage passed in lat.

20.10 deg. south and 118.3 deg. east.’ The discovery of wreckage

Ashore and at sea the realisation that they were in for a bad blow began to set in

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of such large dimensions has given rise to some speculation, and the opinion has been expressed that it is [a] portion of the ill-fated Koombana. The latter is supposed to have foundered just after leaving Port Hedland, somewhere in the vicinity of Bedout Island. When sighted by the Bullarra the derelict was about 50 miles to the north-west of Port Hedland, roughly speaking, so that its position would not be far from that in which the Koombana was supposed to have been lost.’ [newspaper report, ‘Is It the Koombana?’, The West Australian, Saturday 6 July 1912, page 11] It is quite possible, I think, that Koombana capsized but did not sink immediately. That complicates things!

Koombana’s sycamore and satinwood panelling would have long since disappeared, consumed by the diligent workings of marine life, along with the even more ephemeral furnishings of the drawing room. But perhaps the marble stands and silver basins from the bathrooms sit at the bottom of the sea, and one day we may find out whether a safe on board still holds, if not the Roseate Pearl of myth, then Davis’ real pearls. And we may pay our respects to the ship and the 156 or more souls who never made it to Broome.

The author would like to thank Annie Boyd, author of Koombana Days (Fremantle Press, 2013) for her assistance in preparing this article and in supplying images. For more information on the book and sources on the Koombana, visit koombanadays.com

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > REVIVING AN ANCIENT TRADITION

Reviving an ancient tradition THE NINGHER CANOES OF ABORIGINAL TASMANIA

There are many myths about Tasmanian Aboriginal people. It is strange that the most widespread of these – that they are gone – still persists in the minds of Australians, when so much of their continuing culture can be seen by those who care to look. Fiona Hamilton and Greg Lehman report on a recent project challenging this misconception.

01

01 Coloured plate from 1807 depicting two

Tasmanian Aboriginal bark canoes.

Artist Charles Alexandre Lesueur, engraver Claude-François Fortier. Plate XIV from Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes ... Partie Historique by François Péron, the account of Captain Nicolas Baudin’s expedition. ANMM Collection 00001137

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > REVIVING AN ANCIENT TRADITION

IN 2014, the culture of Tasmanian Aboriginal boatbuilding came to Hobart’s MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) as part of the annual Dark Mofo Festival. The author, as cultural producer, and canoe master Brendan (Buck) Brown, assisted by Jamie Everett, went about building a traditional Tasmanian canoe known as a ningher. For Buck and Jamie, both Aboriginal Tasmanians, it was about reviving this ancient practice of canoe-making by bringing together the maritime technology and history of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture. From gathering local raw materials – such as juncus reed to provide buoyancy – from across the island, to painstakingly tying together bundles of bark and reed with handmade string from swamp grass, and finally to the historic journey along the river Derwent to Waterman’s Dock in Sullivan’s Cove, history was being made and old traditions and culture were being revived. The ningher voyage carried the makers to a place of ceremony and was acknowledged in the old language, the Tasmanian Aboriginal language of connection to the past. Ancestral stories, knowledge and spirit converged with old language and contemporary ingenuity, determination and culture. Tradition, survival and innovation characterise the richness of Tasmania’s deep history.

To breathe life into the old ways is not just to reclaim them; it is to unleash their spirit upon the modern world

The old ways What makes Tasmanian Aborigines persist with the ‘old ways’?

Speaking their traditional languages and making shell necklaces, kelp water carriers and grass baskets are ways to practise their identity and culture.

One thing that keeps their cultural practices alive is a deep conviction that the idea of modern progress is worth nothing unless it is balanced with the wisdom of tradition and the knowledge of culture. The First Nations of Tasmania were swept from their country in the name of development just two lifetimes ago. The past lives with them and makes them.

Their families are the survivors of Tasmania’s Black War. This is who they are.

02 Brendon (Buck) Brown paddles the finished

02

ningher up the Derwent River. Image courtesy Fiona Hamilton

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To breathe life into the old ways is not just to reclaim them; it is to unleash their spirit upon the modern world – knowing that when this is done, they give life to our ancestors.

They breathe with our lungs, and speak with our voice.

They guide our hands.

When Buck Brown, Sheldon Thomas, Tony Burgess and Shayne Hughes created tuylini, the stringybark canoe for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2007, it was the first full-sized canoe made by Tasmanian Aboriginal hands since their people were exiled to Flinders Island in 1832.

Canoes like this were recorded by Nicholas Baudin’s expedition to Van Diemen’s Land in 1802. One of his artists sketched these canoes being used in Great Oyster Bay. There has not been a public exhibition of Tasmanian maritime technology in action since that time. In 2014, Dark Mofo changed all that.

03

Canoe masters When Francois Péron published the first detailed European account of a Tasmanian canoe in 1807, he described a vessel just like the one that took shape at MONA. On the morning of arriving with Captain Nicholas Baudin in the corvette Géographe, Péron was making his way overland to Port Cygnet in search of a watering place for his ships when he stumbled on two canoes laid up on the shore. Made of three rolls of bark, bound together with string, each was equipped with a clay hearth containing a smouldering fire.

The Frenchmen had no clue to the identity of the makers of these canoes. It probably did not even occur to them that this might be important.

Yet only a few hours before, Péron had had his first meeting with a young Tasmanian Aboriginal man. He wrote in his journal on 13 January 1803: … our chaloupe [ship’s boat] seemed to attract his attention still more than our persons, and after examining us some minutes, he jumped into the boat: there, without troubling himself with, or even noticing the seamen who were in her, he seemed quite absorbed in his new subject. The thickness of the ribs and planks, the strength of the construction, the rudder, the oars, the masts, the sails, he observed in silence, and with great attention, and with the most unequivocal signs of interest and reflection … he made several attempts to push off the chaloupe, but the small hawser which fastened it, made his efforts of no avail, he was therefore obliged to give up the attempt and to return to us, after giving us the most striking demonstrations of attention and reflection.

03 Buck Brown collecting juncus reeds from his

traditional lands.

All images from Ningher Canoe Project Facebook page, courtesy Fiona Hamilton

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The ningher voyage carried the makers to a place of ceremony and was acknowledged in the old language

04

Who would take so much detailed interest in the construction of the French chaloupe, except a boatbuilder? Péron did not realise it, but he had probably just met his first Tasmanian canoe master – who was clearly keen to give this strange boat a sea-trial! Sadly, Péron did not find out this man’s name.

It took until 1829 for another European, George Augustus Robinson, to finally record the name of a Tasmanian canoe master. Robinson describes him as possessing ‘a first rate characteristical skill in nautical affairs’ and notes that he ‘is esteemed a superior navigator. He has occasionally made comparatively long voyages extending a long way up the Huon River and is a perfect adept in constructing catamarans.’ This man, Manganna, was the father of Trucanini. Another expert canoe maker was one of Manganna’s countrymen, and the husband of Trucanini. His name was Woorredy.

Woorredy is known to have made dozens of canoes, using paperbark, stringybark and rushes. He told Robinson of the great seafaring nations of southern Tasmania: Tonight Woorrady [sic] entertained us with a relation of the exploits of his nation and neighbouring nations or allies. Said that the Needwonne natives – as also the Brune, Pangheiningh and Timequone – went off in catamarans to the De Witt Island and to the different rocks, and speared seal and brought them to the mainland. Also went to the Eddystone and speared seal: this rock is miles distant and is a dangerous enterprise.

Many hundred natives have been lost on those occasions.

04 Jamie Everitt and Buck Brown tending the

ceremonial fire.

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Those nations to the southward of the island was a maritime people. Their catamarans [were] large, the size of a whaleboat, carrying seven or eight people, their dogs and spears.

Woorredy learned his skills in his home country, Bruny Island.

He built canoes as he travelled with Robinson throughout the south-west and west coasts of Tasmania in an effort to end the war between Aborigines and the invading British settlers.

When Aboriginal people were removed by the governor to the islands of Bass Strait, Woorredy continued to make canoes as he needed them.

Buck Brown continues this tradition as one of a small number of today’s Tasmanian Aboriginal canoe masters.

Like the unnamed young man who inspected Péron’s boat, like Manganna and Woorredy, Buck comes from a family of master boatbuilders. Since the late 1800s, Buck’s family has been building boats on Cape Barren Island, in the same waters that carried Woorredy’s watercraft. From sleek, fast cutters, to luggers and other fishing boats, Cape Barren boats have met the needs of the Aboriginal community up to the present day.

Cape Barren boats have met the needs of the Aboriginal community up to the present day

05 Buck and Jamie wrapping reeds in paperbark.

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Buck Brown is inhabiting his ancestors and their places in country and drawing upon their perspective of craft and of country.

The ningher canoe project was never simply about making a canoe. It has always been about journeys – of acknowledging deep and profound loss, journeys about recovery, relationships, healing and struggling to regain control – and of what it takes to make a journey in the hope of becoming whole once more.

The ningher canoe is now on display at the Australian National Maritime Museum alongside traditional watercraft from Western Australia and New South Wales.

Fiona Hamilton is a Tyralore of the Trawlwulwuy of north-east Tasmania. She is a senior cultural practitioner, writer, artist, cultural producer and innovator. Greg Lehman is a descendant of the Trawlwulwuy people of north-east Tasmania and an Indigenous Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.

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06 Making a clay hearth to carry the

ningher’s fire.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > MADE IN AUSTRALIA

Made in Australia CHINESE JUNKS AND SAMPANS 1870–1910

Boatbuilding in far north Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was dominated by Chinese communities. Their traditional craft were also common in the Northern Territory, and were vital to the economy and development of both regions. Dr Stephen Gapps explores this largely forgotten episode in Australian maritime history.

01

01 Locally made junks in Trinity Bay, Cairns,

Queensland, about 1907. In 1891 there was reported to be a fleet of 15 junks operating from Cairns. Image John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

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A sample of Chinese industry can be witnessed, at Stratford, where a solitary Mongolian is rapidly building a boat, to carry 15 tons, for the Barron river trade. The vessel is in the familiar junk shape, and the tools used are fearfully and wonderfully made, but the Chinaman is getting there just the same.

(Cairns Post, 26 February 1890)

The first ship of any kind to be constructed in Cooktown was a Chinese junk

The [Johnstone] river seems alive with Chinese sampans, a peculiar punt-like vessel with which the Mongolians ply to and from their gardens – which fringe the river banks on both sides.

(The Queenslander, 8 June 1901) REGIONAL CELEBRATIONS across Australia for Commonwealth Day in 1901 were an intriguing mix of Empire and nation, and of games, picnics and pageants. In Geraldton (renamed Innisfail in 1910) in north Queensland, a ‘Water Picnic’ formed the centrepiece of Commonwealth Day celebrations. The festivities included ‘400 Chinese punts’.1 That so many vessels could be gathered together at Geraldton not only highlights the strength of Chinese communities in northern Queensland at this time, but also the dominance of Chinese boats and boatbuilding that had occurred from the 1870s – a prominence that has largely been forgotten in the broader story of Australian maritime history. While the stories of such Chinese workers as market gardeners, shopkeepers and gold miners are now reasonably well known, very little is known of the historical and material heritage of Chinese mariners, shipwrights and their vessels in northern Australia between 1870 and 1910.

02 Chinese workers on banana punts in the

Innisfail district, Queensland. Undated.

Image John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

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Chinese gold seekers had arrived in northern Queensland during the Palmer River gold rush of the early 1870s. The closest viable port was the mouth of the Endeavour River, which was hastily surveyed and harbour facilities constructed. Somewhat strangely, perhaps – given the river’s associations with the navigator James Cook – the first ship of any kind to be constructed in Cooktown was a Chinese junk.

The Brisbane Courier reported on 23 August 1877: Shipbuilding has commenced in Cooktown. Our Chinese friends have built and launched a vessel of about 30 tons. She is the regular junk so familiar to us in Chinese pictures, and is to be rigged entirely according to their own fashion. She is intended for the bêche-de-mer trade on the reefs close to here, but why they have adopted their own fashion in preference to ours is hard to say.

Historians have noted the powerful position of Chinese in the relatively isolated north, but have considered Chinese involvement in shipbuilding in northern Queensland to be ‘shadowy and speculative’. In fact, my research has shown it was quite open and prominent – as shown by the adventures of the enigmatic Ah Gim, captain of the Wong Hing.

Captain Ah Gim Between 1879 and 1885, two junks operated from Cooktown Harbour. They were wholly owned, crewed and skippered by Chinese. The captains had to pass the Queensland examinations for Master of a Coasting Vessel. According to Harbourmaster Sykes, Ah Gim was ‘quite ignorant of the use of a chart’, mistaking mountains on a map for water depths. Still, Ah Gim and another unnamed Chinese captain were granted their Masters tickets, largely on the basis of experience sailing to New Guinea and back many times.2 In 1884 Ah Gim was described as ‘one of the most respectable men in New Guinea waters’ who ‘makes very successful voyages backwards and forwards’. Another report perceptively noted that Ah Gim ‘and his crew are a sober, industrious company’ and that ‘the anti-Chinese cry is pretty often one of envy and jealousy of Chinese industry and perseverance’.3 Ah Gim’s vessel, the Wong Hing, was indeed successful.

One six-month cruise in 1880 was reported to have bought back 10 tons of bêche-de-mer that was valued at £1,100.

The Wong Hing was listed in the Australian Register of British Ships in 1884 as a wooden carvel-built vessel with an elliptical stern. It was recorded as having two masts, the rigging of a schooner and being 28 tons (28.5 tonnes) in weight and 36 feet (11 metres) in length. Interestingly, nowhere was it noted as being a ‘junk’.

In 1884 Ah Gim was described as ‘one of the most respectable men in New Guinea waters’

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Another junk built in Cooktown, the Sin O Ney (sometimes Sin Oh Way), was not entered in the Register of Shipping. On only its second voyage to New Guinea, disaster struck. The Brisbane Courier reported on 29 September 1880 that: A boat, containing seven men, the survivors of the crew of the Chinese junk Sin O Ney, arrived last night from Hula, New Guinea … on July 30 the natives decided to attack the Chinese in revenge for alleged misconduct towards native women. The attack was successfully made, eleven China-men being killed and the vessel captured and plundered.

Ah Gim continued to make dangerous seasonal voyages into New Guinean waters for at least another decade

Reports came back that the New Guineans had vowed ‘enmity to all Chinese’ (though it was noted, ‘not to the missionaries’).

Still, Ah Gim continued to make dangerous seasonal voyages into New Guinean waters for at least another decade – though with some added precautions, such as a pack of dogs to ‘guard against native attack’.4 By 1891, the Wong Hing had been broken up and Ah Gim was reported as master of the schooner Pride of Logan. In June that year, the Northern Mining Register reported that he had been killed and that a force of 70 police had been sent to New Guinea ‘for the purpose of punishing the natives who murdered Captain Ah Gim a short time back’.

03 One of the many types of Chinese junks

03

of the 19th century. Essai sur la Construction Navale des Peuples Extra-Européens, Admiral François-Edmond Pâris, 1841–43, ANMM Collection 00018682

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04

But obituaries of the inimitable captain were premature.

One can only imagine his countenance when Captain Ah Gim later sailed back in to Cooktown well and truly alive and in charge of the Pride of Logan – and with a hold full of bêchede-mer.

Sampans and junks across Australia The Chinese element is still in the ascendant, boating and storekeeping being run heavily by them … Four or five sampans trade regularly between Palmerston and Southport. Fishing and drying fish proved such a good line last dry season that four large sampans are building to work the trade on a greater scale.

(South Australian Register, 31 March 1879) Boats were critical to colonisation, settlement and trade in the north. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sampans and junks were also prominent in Port Darwin and the region.

They were a versatile craft eminently suitable to the area.

Sampans were reported as being used for fishing, passenger craft, tenders and lighters, floating produce stores, flood rescue vessels and for transporting ore and mining equipment.

They were often chartered by colonial authorities lacking watercraft for use as mail vessels, for police work and as supply vessels. There are several news reports from the 1880s of local police constables commandeering sampans to chase criminals or investigate murders.

The presence of sampans was more of a novelty in southeastern Australia. In the 1870s, an enterprising Captain Harvey bought back a sampan in a packing case from Singapore.

Harvey soon began entering his sampan into yacht races.

Firstly he raced on Wendouree Lake in Ballarat, Victoria, and then ‘Captain Harvey’s sampan’ was a regular sight

04 A typical sampan of the 19th century.

Essai sur la Construction Navale des Peuples Extra-Européens, Admiral François-Edmond Pâris, 1841–43, ANMM Collection 00018682

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on Melbourne’s Albert Park Lake – and often gained respectable results and prize money. In fact the sampan was such a hit that by 1880 there was a dedicated sampan race in the Albert Park Regatta.

So, too, in 1880 and 1881 a ‘Chinese sampan’ was racing in the annual Port Adelaide Regatta. In Darwin, probably due to the sheer number of sampans in the port, the vessels were regularly roped in to sailing regattas. In May 1884, the North Australian newspaper noted that: The arrangements for the Queen’s Birthday regatta are being vigorously proceeded with by the committee … In order to give the Celestial [Chinese] a chance of ‘chipping in’ [to] the sports, a sampan race will be added to the programme, and should be a highly exciting contest …

The importance of the Chinese boatbuilding industry in Australia has generally been ignored. New research suggests that the extent of Chinese watercraft built and operated in northern Australia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries was critical to the area’s development. The question also arises of whether Chinese design and technique had any influence on European watercraft in northern Australian waters.

With further historical and archaeological attention, the story of Chinese boatbuilding in Australia may at last be included in the narrative of national maritime history that has been almost singularly focused on European–Australian vessels.

1 Morning Post, 21 December 1901, p 2.

2 A E Sykes, A Cooktown Pilot 1879–1885, p 158. It seems from correspondence with Chinese–Australian history researcher Hilda Maclean that the unnamed captain may have been Gin Hop, noted as master of the junk Sin O Ney or Sing On Lee. 3 South Australian Weekly Chronicle, 19 January 1884, p 4; Sydney Morning Herald, 10 January 1884, p 6.

4 Illustrated Australian News, 12 April 1879, p 14; Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 19 February 1880, p 5. In fact, Captain Ah Gim had a long history of strained relations with the so-called ‘natives’. In 1879 and 1880, the Wong Hing was attacked at Orangerie Bay and Seal Island, only repelling its attackers ‘with great difficulty’.

Dr Stephen Gapps is a curator at the museum and is currently writing a military history of conflict in the Sydney region from 1788 to 1817.

This is an edited version of an article first published in Rediscovered Past: Chinese Networks, CHINA Inc, 2016.

The presence of sampans was more of a novelty in southeastern Australia

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > SUPPORTING MARITIME HERITAGE

Supporting maritime heritage APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN FOR MMAPSS FUNDING

The Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme (MMAPSS), established in 1995, provides financial and other support to incorporated not-for-profit organisations caring for Australia’s maritime heritage.

By MMAPSS Coordinator Sharon Babbage.

01

MMAPSS IS AN ANNUAL PROGRAM of grants and internships jointly funded by the Australian Government and the ANMM. To date MMAPSS has awarded more than $1.5 million and supported over 380 projects. Since 2000, 45 internships have been offered.

MMAPSS makes a positive contribution to and impact in the regional maritime cultural sector. It helps build community and frequently delivers skills exchange. As well as awarding cash grants and support for internships, the program also delivers in-kind, or non-cash, support. This may be in the form of donated showcases or ANMM expertise providing opinion, review or on-site assistance to deliver a workshop or develop a policy document, as in the examples below.

01 Flying Fish IV at Port Elliot Surf Life Saving

Club, October 2016. Image Cody Horgan/ ANMM

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The MMAPSS program has a priority to maximise the benefit of the support awarded

02

Port Elliot Surf Life Saving Club (South Australia) The Port Elliot Surf Life Saving Club (PESLSC) applied to the 2015–16 round of MMAPSS funding for the Flying Fish IV, a timber surf life saving boat. Built in 1968 in South Australian for the club, it is its only remaining timber surfboat.

The club considered Flying Fish IV to be in adequate condition to continue life as a static display craft, but they welcomed the opinion of an expert on whether it could be used occasionally in calm-water demonstrations. As the glue was reaching the end of its useful life, the structure was identified as delicate.

The club successfully applied for in-kind support for an ANMM shipwright to deliver a workshop on wooden boatbuilding skills and to provide expertise on the best ways to preserve, maintain and improve the vessel’s condition into the future.

Having previously been briefed by members of the PESLSC, Cody Horgan, ANMM Fleet Shipwright HMB Endeavour, led a workshop in October 2016 to discuss adhesives, finishes, vacuum bagging and ‘future proofing’ the vessel.

In their application for funding, the PESLSC indicated that they would invite other relevant organisations in their region to their workshop, so widening access to expertise and information about heritage vessel maintenance.

This strengthened their application, as the MMAPSS program has a priority to maximise the benefit of the support awarded.

02 The lines of the Shoalhaven River flood boats

Shoalhaven and Noah. Drawing by David Payne. ANMM image

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03

New South Wales South Coast – punts, flood and surf Many organisations have been awarded support over the years to have David Payne, the museum’s Historic Vessels curator, visit their museum specifically to spend time going over their craft and delving into its history. David will typically provide guidance for the development of a Vessel Management Plan (VMP), provide an assessment of the suitability of the vessel for inclusion on the Australian Register for Historic Vessels (ARHV), give written recommendation after the visit about the priorities for care of the vessel, measure the vessel and also produce beautiful drawings of the vessel’s lines. David is often able to develop the family and regional stories attached to these vessels and to document their different shapes and constructions.

How to apply for a grant For information on how to apply, see anmm.gov.au/ grants to find dates, sample applications forms and examples of the types of projects supported.

All applicants or potential applicants are strongly encouraged to make contact with the MMAPSS Coordinator to discuss their projects on 02 9298 3743 or via email at mmapss@anmm.gov.au.

In New South Wales in recent years, MMAPSS has helped museums to have David inspect two oyster punts, two flood boats and a surf boat: • 2012, Batemans Bay Historical Society’s Old Courthouse Museum: the ‘Canary of the Clyde’ project for a turpentine oyster punt • 2014, Merimbula–Imlay Historical Society: Gus Cole’s oyster punt • 2015, Berry and District Historical Society: the Berry flood boat Noah, a 24-foot clinker vessel built in 1888 • 2015, Shoalhaven City Council: the flood boat Shoalhaven, which embodies key elements of the region’s heritage – cedar, floods and river flat settlement.

03 The Shoalhaven River flood boat Noah,

• 2016, Pig & Whistle Line Museum, Tathra: a surf craft, and perhaps the first surfboat used by the Tathra Surf Club.

built in 1889, being drawn by a horse, as it would have been in its early days.

Drawing by David Payne. ANMM image

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Autumn activities MESSAGE TO MEMBERS

With the New Year well under way, we’re excited to be bringing you a range of tours, talks and commemorations this autumn, including annual favourites and events to complement our current exhibitions.

01

AS ALWAYS, IT WAS A BUSY SUMMER at the museum.

By popular demand we brought back both Voyage to the Deep and the theatre show Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. The Boxing Day and Australia Day cruises were well attended as usual, and everyone had a great time on the water enjoying the festivities.

01 New Year’s Eve 2016 at the museum.

Image Alistair MacDougall/MacEvent Photography

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02

03

04

The next few months are going to be busy, too, with a combination of interesting talks and Member events.

The exhibition Escape from Pompeii is not to be missed, showcasing more than 100 museum treasures from Italy, including jewellery, statues, marble reliefs and artefacts.

Continuing the Pompeii theme, retired CEO of Museums Victoria, archaeologist Patrick Greene, will present the Members Maritime Series lecture in April. He will show exclusive pictures of the ancient city, including parts usually inaccessible to the public, and also talk of Herculaneum and the villas of the wealthy Romans that overlooked the Bay of Naples – all buried along with Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. This quarter we also host the annual Wardroom Dinner on board HMAS Vampire, an unforgettable experience. Please be sure to book early as there are only 16 seats available for this exclusive event. Another date to remember is our annual Vivid Sydney cruise – we’ve something special planned this year, so keep an eye on our website for more information.

I’d like to let you know of some special reciprocal benefits to which ANMM Members are entitled: • Auckland Art Gallery: present your membership card for free entry plus a 10 per cent discount in the gallery store.

• Sydney Royal Easter Show in conjunction with the Royal Agricultural Society: purchase a one-day Royal ticket and receive complimentary access to the Members facilities.

Call the RASNSW membership department on 02 9704 1144 to purchase your tickets, mentioning that you are an Australian National Maritime Museum Member.

• National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy: upon appointment you will receive a free tour and 10 per cent discount in the museum shop.

02 Young visitors enjoy meeting the museum’s

dog, Bailey, over the summer. Image Annalice Creighton 03 Members board the museum’s new acquisition,

the immaculate SY Ena, for an exclusive harbour cruise. ANMM image 04 Captain Nemo’s Nautilus by Monkey Baa

Theatre returned to the museum over the summer holidays. Image Emma Bjorndahl/ ANMM

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06

We hope you make use of all your member benefits.

Check our website for more details.

The membership team is planning other exciting events and cruises, so please look out for these in our regular Member e-newsletters. If you are not receiving these emails and you would like to, please call Renae Sarantis or me directly in the Members office on + 61 2 9298 3646.

I look forward to seeing you at the museum over the coming months and would love to hear your feedback and any suggestions on your membership or your museum experience.

07

Oliver Isaacs Manager, Members

05 The Boxing Day cruise gave Members and

their guests a perfect view of the Sydney to Hobart race start. Image courtesy Michael Grant 06 A visiting mermaid entertains younger

Members. Image Annalice Creighton/ANMM 07 Interactive fun with Voyage to the Deep.

Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Members events AUTUMN 2017

MARCH

Members Maritime Series

Musical performance

An archaeologist’s diary – Interpreting Pompeii

The Three Seas

2–4 pm Thursday 6 April

7.30–9 pm Saturday 18 March

A soulful, song-based fusion of Indian and Western music

With archaeologist Patrick Greene Exclusive event

Exclusive exhibition tour

Vampire Wardroom Dinner

Escape from Pompeii – the untold Roman rescue

7.30–10.30 pm Saturday 8 April

5–7 pm Friday 31 March

Trade, tragedy and treasure – artefacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum

Gourmet three-course meal with mess dinner traditions Autumn holiday programs

Kids’ and family activities 9–23 April

Family activities

Art-making, interactive games, dress-ups, workshops and performances

Family fun Sunday

Family torchlight tour

APRIL

11 am–4 pm Sunday 2 April

Lively performances, film screenings, character tours and face painting Tours for mums, dads and carers

Seaside strollers tour: Pompeii 12.30 pm Tuesday 4 April and 10.30 am Mon 1 May (1.5 hrs)

For carers with children 0–18 months, join a museum educator to tour Escape from Pompeii

Pompeii mysteries 6–7.30 pm Thursday 20 April

Guided after-dark tour through our galleries and Escape from Pompeii Phil Renouf Memorial Lecture

Sydney – International port to local playground 6–8 pm Thursday 20 April

Rowan Brownette on the history and importance of Port Jackson

MAY Annual event

Battle of the Coral Sea Commemorative Lunch 11.30 am–3 pm Saturday 6 May

To mark the 75th anniversary of this pivotal World War II battle Guided tour

Behind the scenes: Conservation 2–4 pm Thursday 11 May

Special access to the museum’s Conservation Laboratory Family activities

Family fun Sunday 11 am–4 pm Sunday 21 May

Lively performances, film screenings, character tours and face painting On the water

Japanese midget submarines 75th anniversary tour 10 am–1.30 pm Sunday 28 May

Trace the movement of the submarines aboard a historic ferry On the water

Vivid Sydney cruise 6–9 pm Wednesday 31 May

See Sydney transformed into a wonderland of light sculptures

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Members events AUTUMN 2017

Available free

Bookings and enquiries

ANMM Speakers

Booking form on reverse of mailing address sheet. Please note that booking is essential unless otherwise stated. Book online at anmm.gov.au/whats-on/calendar or phone (02) 8241 8378 (unless otherwise indicated) or email members@anmm.gov.au before sending form with payment.

Minimum numbers may be required for an event to go ahead.

All details are correct at time of publication but subject to change.

ANMM has a team of professional speakers available to give talks in the greater Sydney area. Over 20 topics are available, covering significant maritime events and people in Australian history: Bass and Flinders, Captain Cook, navy battles such as HMAS Sydney (II) and HSK Kormoran, the attack in Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines, and events that were not covered in their day, like the bombing of Darwin.

The complete list of talks can be found on anmm.gov.au/ Speakers. If you would like to invite a speaker to your club, please contact Noel Phelan or Ron Ray: noelphelan@bigpond.com / 0402 158 590 / (02) 9437 3185 ron.ray@aapt.net.au / 0416 123 034 / (02) 9624 1917

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Members events AUTUMN 2017

Musical performance

The Three Seas 7.30–9 pm Saturday 18 March

The Three Seas combine elements of Indian folk music with a Western style of song form and production in a band of engaging performers from India and Australia. The audience for this musical performance can expect a soulful, song-based repertoire with a diverse array of voices and unusual instruments.

Members and concessions $25 (including SIMA members), guest adults $40, students $15. Cash bar for snacks and refreshments 08

Under fives

Mini Mariners Every Tuesday during school term and one Saturday each month

Explore the galleries and sing and dance in interactive tours with costumed guides. Enjoy creative free play, craft, games, dress-ups and story time in our themed activity area. For ages 2–5 and carers.

Members free. Child $8.50. First adult $3.50, extra adults $7 (includes galleries). Online bookings essential at anmm.gov.au/ whatson 09

Exclusive exhibition tour

Escape from Pompeii – the untold Roman rescue 5–7 pm Friday 31 March

This exhibition reveals how the Roman navy came to dominate the Mediterranean, and how this control created a boom in maritime trade not seen again for a thousand years. Finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum – towns destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD – and from shipwrecks bear witness to the extent of this trade in raw materials and luxury goods.

Members free, guests $30. Includes light refreshments

08 Image courtesy The Three Seas 09 Marble relief of a Roman trireme.

© Ministero dei Beni Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Image © Claudio Garofalo

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Members events AUTUMN 2017

Family activities

Family fun Sundays 11 am–4 pm Sundays 2 April and 21 May

Join us for special themed family fun Sundays twice a term with lively performances, film screenings, character tours and face painting. Full program online at anmm.gov.au/familyfun or subscribe to our family e-newsletter to keep up to date on all the details.

2 April – Roman Invasion 21 May – Jewels of the Sea Included with any paid entry

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Tours for mums, dads and carers

Seaside strollers tour: Pompeii 12.30 pm Tuesday 4 April and 10.30 am Mon 1 May (1.5 hrs)

Tours for mums, dads and carers with children 0–18 months.

Join a museum educator for our very first stroller tour through our new exhibition Escape from Pompeii: the untold Roman rescue. Enjoy delicious catered treats in Yots Café, adult-friendly conversations in the exhibition and baby play time in a sensory space.

Strollers, front packs and baby-slings welcome.

Members $12, guests $18. Babies free. Includes morning or afternoon tea and admission to the exhibition

Members Maritime Series

An archaeologist’s diary – Interpreting Pompeii 2–4 pm Thursday 6 April

In preparation for Melbourne Museum’s exhibition A Day in Pompeii in 2009, Patrick Greene – recently retired CEO of Museums Victoria – spent six weeks in Pompeii. Working with Italian archaeologists, he visited parts of the ancient city that are usually inaccessible and returned with a comprehensive set of images. His talk takes us to Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas of wealthy Romans overlooking the Bay of Naples – all buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Members $20, guests $35. Includes afternoon tea

10 Guest speaker Patrick Greene.

Image courtesy Patrick Greene

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Members events AUTUMN 2017

Exclusive event

Vampire Wardroom Dinner 7.30–10.30 pm Saturday 8 April

The wardroom of HMAS Vampire will once again open exclusively for museum Members. Join us for a gourmet three-course meal with mess dinner traditions such as the passing of the port and the loyal toast. This is your opportunity to experience the Royal Australian Navy from an insider’s perspective. This prestigious dinner event will only proceed if all 16 seats are sold. Please book early to secure your place.

Members $170, guests $195. Includes three-course gourmet meal with wine

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Kids on deck

Roving with the Romans Daily 10 am–4 pm (hourly sessions) 9–23 April

Play, create and discover at Kids on Deck with art-making, interactive games and dress-ups! Be inspired by the fascinating history of the Roman Empire. Craft your own centurion’s helmet or wreath crown, mint marvellous jewellery and emperor-embossed coins or sculpt spectacular Roman inventions – from colosseums to catapults!

Included in any paid admission. Members free.

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Science show

Empires and eruptions! Spectacular science of the Roman world Daily (except Saturdays) 11.30 am, 12.30 pm and 2 pm 9–23 April (30 minutes)

How did the Romans build one of the biggest empires the world has ever seen? – with their amazing inventions! Come and discover how their extraordinary buildings, roads and waterways were constructed, and how a whole city ended up frozen in time by a volcanic eruption. Enjoy spectacular science demonstrations and a cast of kooky characters in this live and interactive show.

Included in any paid admission. No bookings required

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Guests at the 2015 Vampire Wardroom Dinner. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

12 Interactive science show. Image Annalice

Creighton/ANMM

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Members events AUTUMN 2017

Family torchlight tour

Pompeii mysteries 6–7.30 pm Thursday 20 April

Join your character guide for a dramatic after-dark tour through the museum galleries and our exhibition Escape from Pompeii.

Enjoy creative capers, light refreshments and exclusive after-hours access to the exhibition. Ages 4–12 and adults Members $18 child, $10 adult. Guests $22 child, $18 adult.

Includes light refreshments

Cabinet of Curiosities touch trolley

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From togas to triremes 11 am–12 noon and 2–3 pm daily 9–23 April

Explore curious replica artefacts that tell the story of the Roman world in this hands-on discovery device in our galleries.

Included in any museum entry

Activity backpacks

Explore Escape from Pompeii Available every day 8 April–30 August

Explore our latest exhibition Escape from Pompeii and the museum galleries with fun and creative activity backpacks especially designed for children ages 2–12. Limited availability.

Book your backpack at the concierge desk on arrival.

Rental is free for Members and paid ticket holders

Phil Renouf Memorial Lecture

Sydney – International port to local playground 6–8 pm Thursday 20 April

Rowan Brownette’s career at sea included 29 years as a marine pilot in Sydney and seven years as Pilot Manager and Senior Pilot for the Port Authority of NSW. His talk will focus on the history and importance of Port Jackson to the development of the colony of New South Wales, the rapid growth in the number of its wharves, and their disappearance to make way for an aquatic playground.

Costs to be confirmed; please see our website.

Includes refreshments 13 Wharves of Sydney. Map courtesy of Rowan

Brownette

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Members events AUTUMN 2017

Youth workshop: Reporting LIVE from Mt Vesuvius!

Two-day TV presenting workshop 10 am–4 pm 12–13 April

Create and star in your own imaginative TV segments inspired by our Escape from Pompeii exhibition. Learn clever techniques in green-screen, scripting, directing, acting and film-making as you produce your own creative digital stories. Have your finished work displayed for family and friends in a special-event cinema screening. Ages 8–14 Members and earlybird special to 6 April $140, guests $160.

Bookings essential. Book at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays 14

Youth workshop: Sculpture spectacular

Casting and mould-making 10 am–4 pm 19 April (ages 8–11) or 20 April (ages 10–15)

Be inspired by the archaeological casts in our Escape from Pompeii exhibition! Experiment with specialist sculpting and mould-making materials to craft spectacular creations using your own favourite objects, your hands or your feet. Create your own moulds and casts to fill with a variety of materials – soap, wax, plaster or even chocolate!

Members $75, guests $78. Bookings essential at anmm.gov.au 15

Annual event

Battle of the Coral Sea Commemorative Lunch 11.30 am–3 pm Saturday 6 May

This special annual event commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea between Australian, US and Japanese forces in the Pacific in 1942. Museum Members together with members of the Naval Officers Club are invited to join us as we remember those who fought and died during this pivotal battle of World War II. The event will begin with a remembrance service followed by a two-course lunch. Your MC will be journalist and author Mike Carlton.

Members $95, guests $105. Includes canapés and a gourmet two-course meal with wine

14 TV workshops. Image A Creighton/ANMM 15 Former US Ambassador to Australia,

John Berry, at last year’s Coral Sea commemoration. Image A Frolows/ANMM

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

Members events AUTUMN 2017

Guided tour

Behind the scenes: Conservation 2–4 pm Thursday 11 May

Join us for a Behind the Scenes tour led by the team of the museum’s Conservation Laboratory. Usually off limits to the public, the lab is where museum magic happens. Objects from the collections are researched, documented and lovingly conserved to museum standards before going on display. We’ll talk about the challenging area of shipwreck conservation, as well as other projects under way. Come armed with questions about museum practice and your own treasures for our specialist conservators.

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Members free, guests $20

On the water

Japanese midget submarines 75th anniversary tour 10 am–1.30 pm Sunday 28 May

In 1942, three midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour to attack docked naval vessels. Find out what happened next on this great harbour tour into Sydney’s history with a National Parks and Wildlife Service guide. Trace the movement of the submarines aboard a historic ferry and learn about the civilians and naval personnel involved in this extraordinary story. Enjoy morning tea on Fort Denison and visit Garden Island to see the conning tower of one of the midget submarines.

Members and concessions $75, guests $80. Includes cruise and morning tea

On the water

Vivid Sydney cruise 6–9 pm Wednesday 31 May

Join our exclusive chartered cruise to see Sydney transformed into a wonderland of light sculptures as part of the Vivid Sydney celebrations. A relaxing atmosphere and delicious catering combine to make this the easiest and most stress-free way to see this annual festival of light, sound and ideas. We are planning something extra special for this event – look out for further information on our website. Please book early to secure your spot on board.

Members: adults $95, family $270. Guests: adults $110, family $295.

Children $55. Includes refreshments 16 Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney

2016. Image Jean-Philippe Menard/ Shutterstock, Inc

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > AUTUMN EVENTS

A passion for hanging around boats MEMBER PROFILE JUDIE STEPHENS oam

This issue we introduce a new regular feature profiling one of the museum’s valued Members. First up is founding and life Member Judie (Jaz) Stephens oam.

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Why did you become a Member?

I was fascinated by the architecture and design of the building and loved its superb location.

I wanted to be a part of it, and all these years later I’m delighted to be part of the museum’s 25th anniversary.

Do you have a nautical background?

I’ve got a passion for hanging around boats, and I like to be around Sydney Harbour water watching. I am very nomadic, either travelling or planning to travel, and my travels are often based near water.

In 1986 my first nautical adventure was being a passenger with my family on the Russian ship Mikhail Lermontov, which hit rocks in New Zealand’s Marlborough Sound and sank on 16 February 1986. Sadly, one crew member drowned. Later I cruised on the Queen Elizabeth, a very different experience.

17 Judie with West Papuan crew in Indonesia,

2016.

Image courtesy Judie Stephens

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MEMBERS AUTUMN 2017

In 2006 I flew to Peru and took a broken bus over the Andes to Pulcapa, where I met up with an old wooden boat called Henry.

My friend and I hung up our hammocks and waited a few days until we set forth with hand-loaded cargo, crowds of people, animals to eat and animals to play with. Three boats later we arrived in Brazil, two very happy mariners.

In 2010 my best friend, international photographer Christina Bull from Caught in Colour, came with me and met skipper David de Rothschild when the plastic bottle boat Plastiki sailed into Sydney.

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Last year I was invited on a scientific and photographic expedition to Raja Ampat and West Papua in Indonesia.

We were on a live-aboard 34-metre pinisi wooden schooner.

The picture shows three of the crew proudly wearing the t-shirts that I gave them. It was stunning to see leatherback sea turtles nest and to swim with amazing and very friendly whale sharks.

One of my favourite places outside Sydney is Antibes, France, where I hang about and watch the super yachts. This year I’m off to Cuba (the most musical island on our planet) and intend to float around on some boats looking for the Bermuda triangle.

I guess it’s just as well I’ve written this before I go!

What’s your favourite aspect of museum membership?

The museum offers information about important maritime events, including the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Tasmania this year. It also brings amazing joy and discovery with its varied exhibitions. Last Christmas I treated my World War II veteran friends to a visit to the museum and we were all fascinated by MV Krait. It’s wonderful to come to our very cherished museum and just be curious.

Also this Australia Day I enjoyed sharing a day on our stunning Sydney Harbour, joining in the Aussie celebrations with fellow Members of the ANMM.

18 Judie with Plastiki skipper David De Rothschild

in 2010.

Image courtesy Judie Stephens

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PUT A TOUR GUIDE IN YOUR POCKET

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE APP

Search ‘ANMM’ in your store or visit www.anmm.gov.au/visitorApp

USE OUR FREE WIFI

IMPORTANT: Turn on your Bluetooth to pinpoint your location

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > EXHIBITIONS > ESCAPE FROM POMPEII

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2017

Escape from Pompeii THE UNTOLD ROMAN RESCUE

01

Opens 31 March

IN 79 AD MOUNT VESUVIUS ERUPTED, spewing huge waves of volcanic ash and debris over the thickly populated Bay of Naples. The eruption was noticed at the nearby Roman naval base at Misenum, and in response the fleet’s commander, Pliny the Elder, ordered the Roman fleet to rescue as many people as possible. This is one of the first recorded rescues by sea of civilians by a military force.

01 Detail from a diorama made for the exhibition

by Geoff Barnes and Roger Scott, imagining scenes at the Roman base at Misenum on 24 August 79 AD. Pliny the Elder (wearing a straw hat) consults his maps after his sister has drawn his attention to a curious cloud forming over Mount Vesuvius. Intrigued, he plans to take a closer look in one of the fleet’s warships.

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The exhibition reveals how the Roman navy came to dominate the Mediterranean, and how this control created a boom in maritime trade not seen again for a thousand years. Finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum – towns destroyed by the volcano – and from shipwrecks bear witness to the extent of this trade in raw materials and luxury goods. As this was the only naval force remaining in the Mediterranean, Pliny the Elder was free to use it to aid the people threatened by Vesuvius.

Objects displayed in Escape from Pompeii: The untold Roman rescue include jewellery, ceramics, sculptures, frescoes from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and artefacts recovered from ancient shipwrecks. It also features haunting body casts of some of the victims of Mt Vesuvius.

The exhibition introduces the Roman navy through interactive multimedia and 3D animation, and evokes the formidable force of the volcano that destroyed Pompeii 2,000 years ago.

Will Mather

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2017

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2017

Lessons from the Arctic – How Roald Amundsen won the race to the South Pole 1 March–30 June This exhibition in the museum’s Vaughan Evans Library outlines the successful expedition of Roald Amundsen and his crew to Antarctica. It contains more than 200 photographs of the preparation and execution of the historic expedition of 1910 to 1912. Created by the Fram Museum, Norway, it is augmented with objects from our collection and books on polar exploration from our library.

Free. Open 10 am–4 pm Monday–Friday in March; 10 am–4 pm Monday–Wednesday in April, May and June Sponsored by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, Canberra

02

Treasures of the American Collection Currently showing We celebrate the 25th year of the museum’s USA Gallery in an exhibition featuring more than 100 objects acquired with the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

The exhibition features masterful ship paintings and seascapes, portraits of dour ships’ captains, intricate ship and engine models and other treasures of a collection that documents the American– Australian maritime relationship in trade, science, migration, defence, exploration, politics, popular culture, love and war.

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Lustre: Pearling & Australia Until 13 August From a 2,000-year-old natural pearl found in a Kimberley rock shelter to modern lustrous pearl jewellery, Lustre: Pearling & Australia traces the fascinating heritage of pearling across the country’s north, from Shark Bay to the Torres Strait Islands.

The exhibition delves into the gritty human story of pearling, weaving together intersecting strands of Aboriginal, Asian and European histories to reveal insights into one of Australia’s oldest industries.

Lustre was curated in a partnership between the Western Australian Museum and Nyamba Buru Yawuru. The exhibition is sponsored by Visions of Australia.

02 Amundsen’s first meeting with the Netsilik

Inuit at his Arctic base Gjøahaven, October 1903 (detail). Reproduced courtesy The Fram Museum 03 Crew of a Broome pearl lugger, 1900–1920

(detail). National Archives of Australia

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EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2017

Bailey curates: Dog and cats all at sea Currently showing Animal companions have been cherished on board ships for as long as people have made sea voyages. In a life from which children and families are often missing and very much missed, pets provide a focus for affection.

Sydney photographer Sam Hood went on board thousands of ships between 1900 and the 1950s. He took countless photographs of crew members, and in many cases their animals. This selection of photos shows how much pets meant to many seafarers.

Its guest curator – the museum’s own dog, Bailey – puts his playful interpretation on these images of his seagoing predecessors.

04

ANMM travelling exhibitions

East Coast Encounter – re-imagining the 1770 encounter University of the Sunshine Coast Gallery, QLD 16 February–25 March Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, QLD 28 April–17 June East Coast Encounter is a multi-arts initiative involving Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, writers and songwriters to re-imagine the encounter by Lieutenant James Cook and his crew with Aboriginal people in 1770.

05

This project has received administrative and financial support from Sunshine Coast Council, Museum and Gallery Services Queensland, The University of the Sunshine Coast, Arts Queensland and the Australia Council.

War at Sea Maritime Museum of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS Until 18 June 2017 The histories and stories of the Royal Australian Navy and its sailors, less widely known than those of the soldiers at Gallipoli and the Western Front, are told through first-hand accounts from diaries and journals, objects, film and interactives from the National Maritime Collection, the National Film and Sound Archives and the Australian War Memorial.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

04 American ship’s officer with pet dog, early

20th century (detail). Samuel J Hood Studio, ANMM Collection 00020559 05 Undiscovered 4 (detail), 2010 by Michael

Cook. ANMM Collection

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EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2017

Horrible Histories® Pirates – the Exhibition National Wool Museum, Geelong, VIC Until 17 April 2017 Get hands-on with pirate history at our exhibition based on the bestselling Horrible Histories series. Take command of a pirate ship, design and project your own pirate flag, try out different weapons from cutlasses to cannons, and find your fate on the wheel of misfortune. Learn about the ships pirates sailed on, the punishments they suffered and the rules they lived by.

The unique approach to storytelling of author Terry Deary and illustrator Martin Brown comes to life in this blockbuster family exhibition.

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Produced in association with Scholastic

War at Sea panel display Community museums, RSL clubs and public libraries, TAS and VIC Until June A graphic panel display based on the major touring exhibition War at Sea: The Navy in WWI. The panel display highlights the contribution the Royal Australian Navy made in the First World War. 07

This modular display has been shown at more than 110 RSL clubs, museums, libraries and visitor centres since 2015.

The panel display will continue to tour to diverse community organisations in 2017.

Voyage to the deep: Underwater adventures Fremantle Maritime Museum 26 May–20 August Based on Jules Verne’s 1870 classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, the exhibition brings to life the mythical deep-sea world of Captain Nemo and the fantastical submarine Nautilus.

Kids can climb aboard and take control at the helm, peer through the periscopes, crank the propeller, test out the bunks and explore the Cabinet of Curiosities, full of wonderful marine specimens.

For children under 12, it’s a hands-on experience with opportunities to touch, explore and play.

06 Image © ANMM 07 Interactive adventures with Voyage

to the Deep

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EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2017

The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800 to 1804 Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS 7 January–20 March This exhibition showcases original sketches and paintings created

by Baudin’s artists Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit during the voyage of 1800–1804.

Guardians of Sunda Strait Houston Public Library, Houston, Texas, USA 2 March–24 June An exhibition about the loss during World War II of HMAS Perth and USS Houston, including objects from the Australian War Memorial, Royal Australian Navy, US Navy, University of Texas and Australian National Maritime Museum.

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09

08 Image © ANMM 09 Detail of porcupine fish by Charles-Alexandre

Lesueur or Nicolas-Martin Petit, watercolour and ink on paper. Image courtesy Museum d’histoire naturelle, Le Havre

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A UNIQUE WATERFRONT WEDDING VENUE IN THE HEART OF DARLING HARBOUR

Showcasing city views and set amongst a fleet of historic vessels, the Australian National Maritime Museum is the ultimate waterfront location for your wedding ceremony and/or reception. With elevated vantage points ideal for photography and five-star catering by Laissez-Faire, the museum offers an exclusive absolute waterfront venue for your dream wedding.

Discuss a site visit with our weddings specialist 02 9298 3625

venues@anmm.gov.au

anmm.gov.au/venues

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > SHIPWRECK HUNTER

MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA

Shipwreck hunter DAVID MEARNS oam

David Mearns oam is one of the world’s most experienced and successful deep-sea shipwreck hunters. Over his 30-year career he has led the research and discovery of 24 major shipwrecks, including HMS Hood, HMAS Sydney, HSK Kormoran and Australian Hospital Ship Centaur. He was the special guest speaker at the museum’s 25th anniversary lunch in November 2016, and the following is an edited transcript of part of his talk.

01 01 The X turret of HMAS Sydney.

Note the sighting ports open for the gun layer. 4 April 2008. Image David Mearns/Australian War Memorial P09281_268

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ONE QUESTION I GET ASKED an awful lot is how I became a shipwreck hunter. I started out as a marine scientist and I decided I didn’t want to go around chasing fish. I was more excited about finding shipwrecks. The first one that I did was the Lucona, and it really got me started because it was a very high-profile ship and a big success.

Proksch had facial surgery and his fingerprints altered so he thought he was untouchable

Lucona was a normal cargo ship that was hired in 1977 by an Austrian called Udo Proksch to go from Italy to Hong Kong with his own cargo, which he said was very expensive uranium processing equipment, and which he insured for $17 million.

In fact, the cargo was scrap metal and Proksch himself oversaw the loading of the ship with his own load captain in Italy.

In among this scrap metal, he included a bomb with 150 kilograms of TNT, timed so that the ship would blow up halfway across the Indian Ocean. It sank in two and a half minutes. Of the crew of 12, only six people survived, including the captain and his wife, who were picked up and rescued.

The following day Proksch put in a claim for the $17 million insurance, and that started a 14-year legal battle to finally charge him and put him behind bars.

Proksch fled to the Philippines where he was living with Imelda Marcos. He had facial surgery and his fingerprints altered so he thought he was untouchable. When travelling through Europe he had the audacity to fly back through Vienna, where a customs official saw him at the airport.

He was apprehended and put in handcuffs, and so began the most expensive criminal investigation in Austrian history.

During the trial, Proksch stood up and said to the judges, ‘Where is this Lucona?’ because the ship had never been found.

02 The sonar image that identified the Lucona.

02

All images courtesy David Mearns unless otherwise stated

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Hood would have hit the seabed at about 20 knots, and it created an enormous impact crater

03

‘Find the Lucona. You cannot convict me without doing that,’ and that’s exactly what the judges did. They hired my company to conduct the search for Lucona and I was appointed as the expert witness to the Austrian court. My personal expertise as a geologist and training in the reading of geophysical sonar images meant that I was also very good at picking out manmade objects, like shipwrecks, amid the natural geology of the seafloor. On the very last trackline within our search box we found Lucona at a depth of 4,200 metres – deeper than Titanic.

So this was the first major shipwreck I found, which resulted in me specialising thereafter in the research, location and filming of famous deepwater shipwrecks. And the amazing thing about Lucona was that the video footage of the damage caused to the ship by the time-bomb was so crystal clear that I didn’t even need to go into court as the expert witness to give my testimony because all the evidence was right there.

Within three weeks of showing the video in the court in Austria, Proksch was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail for the murder of six people, conspiracy to murder and insurance fraud. He appealed against that sentence and on appeal, he got life. And life was indeed life because he died in prison after having heart surgery.

Finding Hood and Bismarck When I began to get more involved in the research of lost ships I had an idea to find and film both the Bismarck and HMS Hood shipwrecks for the 60th anniversary of the battle between them. Bismarck had been found but its position was secret, so we had to re-find it, and Hood had never been found.

03 HMS Hood and the impact crater it caused.

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I thought it was a bit unfair that the German side of the story had been told, but the story of Hood’s remarkable history and sacrifice seemed to have been forgotten. Hood is the largest single loss in British Naval history – 1,415 men died, and only three survived. It was an extraordinarily tragic and horrible loss, but another interesting aspect was the contrasting history of these two ships. Hood had been the flagship of the British fleet, the most feared and loved warship around the world for over 20 years, whereas Bismarck’s entire operational life lasted just nine days. On only her sixth operational day at sea Bismarck went into battle with Hood in the Denmark Strait.

It was May 1941, and the Germans were sending large battleships out into the Atlantic to try to destroy the British convoy and they had been very successful. Before Bismarck, two other battleships of the Kriegsmarine had gone out and they had sunk over 100,000 tonnes of Allied shipping.

Hitler then sent out the Prinz Eugen and Bismarck to repeat that feat. On 24 May at six o’clock in the morning, just off the coast of Greenland, the battle started. On the fifth salvo, a shell from Bismarck entered Hood’s aft magazines and blew it up, sinking the 45,000-tonne ship in about two minutes.

04

HMS Hood is the largest single loss in British Naval history – 1,415 men died, and only three survived

Shortly afterwards Winston Churchill gave his famous order, ‘Sink the Bismarck at any cost’. Literally the entire British fleet – aircraft carriers, every spotter plane, every reconnaissance plane, bombers and so on – went after Bismarck to avenge the loss of Hood, which they did off the Bay of Biscay three days later. Even though Hood and so many men were sacrificed, the loss of Bismarck did stop Hitler from using the surface ships of his navy for the remainder of the war. He would no longer expose any of his large capital ships in war and so, in that sense, the British did prevail.

My expedition aimed to find and film both wrecks.

I re-found and filmed Bismarck at a depth of 4,900 metres and then we did Hood, all in the same 30-day expedition.

This is where my expertise as a geophysicist came in. I was trained to read these images mostly to see rocks. But if you want to find a shipwreck, it’s a good idea to know what a rock looks like, as opposed to a shipwreck.

Ships don’t sink gradually to the seabed, as people often think.

They go straight down and they go very fast. Hood would have hit the seabed at about 20 knots, and it created an enormous impact crater. Most ships in very deep water are found upright if they’re intact. But if they break up and their hydrodynamic shape is lost, then you’ll find them upside down or on their side. But all other ships, we find them intact, which is very handy for investigation.

04 HMS Hood (foreground) engaged in its

mutually fatal battle with Bismarck.

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Probably the best thing we did during that entire expedition was to bring Ted Briggs out. He was the last living of the three survivors from Hood. He was a boy signalman when he joined Hood at the age of 15 years. He was on the bridge as a signalman, listening to the battle and to the commanders during the battle. And when it was clear that Hood was sinking, there was no order to abandon ship. Commander James Warrand allowed Ted to go past him to step off the vessel, and that was the last anyone saw of Commander Warrand, so Ted Briggs owes his life to that kind gesture.

Commander Warrand was the navigating officer for the entire squadron, not just Hood, and his was the most accurate position that I used to find the vessel. It was an important part of the story to be able to bring Ted back to say farewell to his shipmates. We had made a bronze plaque with all the names of the men who were lost, and on behalf of the Hood Association Ted released the plaque on the site. Now it lies on the seabed as a roll of honour in memory of his shipmates, and other people’s fathers, brothers and relatives.

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We later made two expeditions to try to recover Hood’s bell.

We were successful in 2015, but the earlier expedition in 2012 was important to me because we took James Warrand with us. James is an ANMM Member and volunteer, and the son of Commander Warrand. For me, his presence closed the circle in terms of the Hood story.

Technology To film shipwrecks, we use remotely-operated vehicles – submersibles fitted with a camera, connected by a cable to a surface ship. They have cameras, lights and thrusters that you can move them around with, and they can reach any depth in the ocean. I started my career in deep water and now the oil and gas companies are beginning to catch up with the extreme depths that we are able to get to. My company actually owns three Guinness World records for deep water, including the deepest shipwreck ever found at 5,780 metres – that’s 2,000 metres deeper than Titanic.

The most amazing equipment, I think, is the sonars because without them we have nothing to film. I use a particular type of sonar that I developed at the start of my career, which can cover huge areas of the seafloor very, very quickly.

To give you an example, when they found Titanic in 1985, it took them about 45 days with the equipment they used then.

We developed this technology in 1990 to find Lucona and Derbyshire and a lot of other shipwrecks. We could search the same area in two days, and this is the type of equipment that we used to find HMAS Sydney.

05 The scan of HMAS Sydney. The acoustic

shadow cast by the ship shows its bridge and turrets, identifying it as a warship.

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Searching for Sydney and Kormoran HMAS Sydney was a remarkable ship with a remarkable ship’s company, who came back from the Mediterranean in 1940 as basically the rock stars of the navy. They had sunk a bigger, faster, more powerful Italian heavy cruiser, the Bartolomeo Colleoni, and, despite being bombed right, left and centre, Sydney was able to figure a way through all of this devastation with hardly a scratch or a casualty. She came back as a ship that everybody loved and also the lucky ship, and that’s one reason people could not accept how Sydney was sunk and all her men killed.

My first day in the archives, I found information nobody had ever seen before

For a country the size of Australia at the time, the loss of those 645 men was just as devastating as the loss of Hood was to England. So, Sydney was a ship that was definitely worth finding to be able to retell that story and to clear up a lot of these mysteries.

For me, it was a great challenge to try to find this ship that people thought was unfindable. I think the line that they used was, ‘Finding a ship is like a needle in a haystack, but finding Sydney was like a needle in a thousand haystacks,’ because they just did not know where it was. But essentially I re-created the voyage, and that was the first bit of work that I did.

06 Damage to HMAS Sydney’s seamen’s mess

below the B turret. 4 April 2008. Image David Mearns/Australian War Memorial P09281_399

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Sydney was returning from escort duty and the two ships spotted each other. Kormoran dashed off into the sun, but the faster Sydney caught up. Sydney was communicating by flags with Kormoran and asked the question that the Kormoran captain couldn’t answer, which was a secret call sign specific to all Allied and neutral ships. Kormoran was disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, the Straat Malakka, and when the captain couldn’t answer that question, he knew he had to fight. The two ships were between 1,000 and 1,500 metres apart and side by side – the naval equivalent of point-blank range. Kormoran now had the biggest advantage, that of surprise.

When I started looking in the archives in England I was told that people had searched for years in Australia, England and Germany for documents. Among a number of things that they were looking for were the records of the court of enquiry that is held whenever a capital ship is lost. There wasn’t one done on Sydney, however. The first day that I went to the archives, I gave them a reference number for a document I was curious about. They brought up an old wooden box with huge black letters saying ‘Kormoran’. This box had been miscatalogued in the archive for over 45 years and it just so happened I had asked them for some code numbers from another document 07

07 A 5.9-inch gun situated in HSK Kormoran’s

No 2 hold, trained 135 degrees to starboard.

Image David Mearns/Australian War Memorial P09282_248

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somebody had given me, and which led to this box. I thought this was fate. Literally my first day in the archives, I found information nobody had ever seen before, including an original drawing of the action between Sydney and Kormoran by a German lookout stationed in the crow’s nest.

Finding that box of documents was a great start in my research, but the really key thing was finding a German–English dictionary, which was given to Kormoran’s Captain Detmers when he was a prisoner of war. This is where he hid his detailed account, which included a reconstructed log from the engine room and bridge log during the actual battle.

And he did it very cleverly by putting dots under various letters, so that if you de-dot this dictionary, it spells out in German the entire account. This is the primary source, made within days of him being captured as a POW, which I used in my analysis to determine where to find the ship.

We also brought a new dimension to the search by using leeway analysis. A rubber liferaft with 25 German sailors packed into it like sardines was found 82 hours after Kormoran sank. I knew the time that Kormoran sank. I didn’t know the position where it sank, but I knew the position where the raft was recovered by a passing ship, the Aquitania. If I could calculate the drift of the raft over that 82-hour period, its speed and direction, that would give me a starting point for where Kormoran sank. And if I could find Kormoran, maybe I could find Sydney. To do that I commissioned a meteorological and oceanographic study that allowed me to see all the possible locations where the raft started its drift. From the reverse drift analysis I was able to show that the drift of the raft matched up with what the Germans had said. So for me, this was independent, scientifically determined, credible proof that the Germans had been telling the truth, although many people didn’t believe this.

Kormoran is a merchant vessel, with a very different profile to a warship. So when we found the first shipwreck and the acoustic signature was that of a merchant ship, I knew that this was Kormoran, not Sydney.

Just a few days later, we found Sydney. That image showed the shape of a warship with bridges, guns, and so on, very different to the image of Kormoran. So on the basis of these images alone, we were able to announce we had found both ships.

One of the reasons I do what I do is to retell the stories of shipwrecks by locating and filming them. We bring their stories to a new generation and in a format that they are not normally used to, and in that way, the service and the sacrifice of the men who are often lost in these ships will never be forgotten.

David Mearns is a Chartered Marine Scientist and fellow of the Marine Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club.

He has authored two books and dozens of articles and is regularly featured in documentaries made for television.

In October 2010 David was awarded a prestigious Maritime Fellowship Award by the UK-based Maritime Foundation for an outstanding lifetime contribution in a particular maritime field. In November of the same year David was awarded an honorary Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to Australia by locating and filming the wrecks of HMAS Sydney II and AHS Centaur.

David’s next book, Shipwreck Hunter: My Life in Deep Water, is being published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and will come out later this year.

The full transcript of David Mearns’ talk, including his account of finding the hospital ship AHS Centaur, is at anmm. gov.au/davidmearns For more information on David’s investigations, see bluewater.uk.com.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > ART OF TORRES STRAIT

Art of Torres Strait NEW ACQUISITIONS TO THE INDIGENOUS COLLECTION

Two generous donations to the ANMM Foundation from a private donor have recently enabled the museum to increase its Indigenous holdings.

The works acquired will help to highlight the intrinsic connection that communities in Torres Strait have to Sea Country and to Australia’s maritime history and culture.

01

AMONG THE 12 OBJECTS acquired so far through these donations is a series of works by award-winning Torres Strait Islander artists. They incorporate traditional knowledge and practices in a contemporary context, while emphasising the deep cultural connection of our First Nations peoples to Saltwater and Freshwater country and also reflecting upon their resilience and ever-evolving culture and stories.

01 Kisay Dhangal, bronze and pearlshell statue

by Alick Tipoti of the dhangal (dugong), an important animal to the people of Torres Strait. Image Roger D’Souza, courtesy of the artist and The Australian Art Network

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Environmental changes and damage are occurring in Torres Strait, such as large quantities of discarded nets drifting through the waters and killing marine life

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Contemporary artist Alick Tipoti was born on Waiben (Thursday Island) in Torres Strait. As early as 1990 he developed a deep interest in art and has since become an internationally acclaimed dynamic printmaker and sculptor. The museum was supported to acquire Tipoti’s life-sized 3D work Kaygasiw Usul, which means ‘the trail of dust underwater created by the shovel nose shark’ in the language of the Maluyligal people of Torres Strait. The sculpture is a literal representation of an ancestral totemic shark whose underwater trail forms the Milky Way galaxy. The tide always changes when the Kaygasiw Usul star constellation swings as if though it’s dancing with the kisay (moon). The complexity of the associated ancestral story and mask, which is traditionally used by men only, is reflected in this multi-faceted work in which Tipoti has bought together many hidden and exposed elements. He explains: This particular mask was inspired by the original turtle-shell masks in the British Museum in London, UK. As a Torres Strait cultural protocol, I have not replicated it exactly as the original. Like my forefathers before me, I have composed and choreographed a traditional mask dance, only performed by men, about the star constellation that brings this mask to life.

02 Au Gem Wali (Island Dress), Maryann Bourne,

2016. ANMM Collection 00054888.

Reproduced with permission of the artist

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Warrior Dance, by the late John Dorante from Kirriri (Hammond Island), won Best Cultural Artefact at the 2015 Gab Titui Art Awards on Thursday Island. In this wooden carving, acquired in 2015, the artist captured the memory and ritual of a Torres Strait Islander warrior preparing for warfare. It depicts the warrior in his war-dance regalia, traditionally worn in preparation for battle, armed with bow and arrow and wearing the traditional pearlshell necklace and a dhari (headdress) made from the feathers of a variety of reef heron.

Legendary stories continue to be told through song and dance performed from time immemorial

These legendary stories continue to be told through song and dance performed from time immemorial, evoking the history of people who lived from the sea.

Au Gem Wali (Island Dress), by Maryann Bourne, is constructed of ‘ghost nets’ (discarded fishing nets) and rope. The artist won the National Museum of Australia History through Art Award at the 2016 Gab Titui Art Awards on Thursday Island.

Environmental changes and damage are occurring in Torres Strait, such as large quantities of discarded nets drifting through the waters and killing marine life. The artist creates a contemporary interpretation of the original cloth dress introduced to the Torres Strait by Christian missionaries who arrived in 1871. Before then, women’s traditional attire was grass skirts, known as wesur, zazi, tolop and wali in the various languages of the islands.

The artist used discarded ghost net collected by Islander sea rangers. The artwork also acts as a metaphor for changes to Torres Strait Islander women’s traditional attire over time.

Successive generations of island women continued to modify the au gem wali to what is worn today. The colours of this dress are symbolic of the Torres Strait Islands flag.

03

03 At the Taba Naba exhibition in Monaco

last year, Zugubal Dancers completed a performance of the story of Kisay Dhangal, the moon and the dugong. Artist Alick Tipoti is seated bottom right, holding a traditional drum and wearing a large pearlshell necklace and the traditional dhari (headdress) of the Torres Strait Islanders. Image Donna Carstens/ANMM

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These donations to the ANMM Foundation were made by Ms Christine Sadler and her late husband, Mr Sid Faithfull.

Mr Faithfull, who passed away in 2014, was one of the Far North’s most accomplished entrepreneurs. He created Sea Swift, Australia’s largest privately owned shipping company, with more than 30 vessels and 300 staff keeping communities connected across northern Australia.

Ambassador status is given to those who donate more than $100,000 to the Foundation. Anyone interested in becoming an Ambassador should contact Andrew Markwell, Head of the ANMM Foundation.

Ms Sadler requested that her donations be directed to Indigenous acquisitions and programs related to the Torres Strait Islands and far north Queensland, and the museum established a dedicated program for this purpose.

We are currently consulting with several Torres Strait Islander communities to acquire two new major works for the Sid Faithfull and Christine Sadler program. One of these is another stunning pearl-and-bronze sculpture by Alick Tipoti, titled Kisay Dhangal.

Torres Strait Islanders have a strong affinity with the dhangal (dugong). Culturally it is significant as a totem of many clans throughout the Torres Strait, as it is important both medicinally and as a food source.

The sculpture represents a dugong swimming in the moonlight in a position called san tidayk, which in the artist’s traditional language describes when the mammal flips its tail to dive down to the seagrass beds on which it grazes.

The myriad incised patterns refer to these underwater grass beds, which are under threat due to large merchant ships that are forcing dugongs away from their feeding grounds.

The patterning also represents the Torres Strait Islanders’ cultural knowledge of the dugong and its habitat.

The values of Sid and Christine are entrenched by their donation. They have always valued the rich cultural diversity of northern Australia and have sought to work in partnership with local communities, proactively employing Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.

Having lived and worked in the maritime industry in the uniquely beautiful Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Torres Strait Protected Zone and Arafura Sea, Christine is determined to see the richness of the culture of the region reflected in the museum’s collection.

In November 2016, the ANMM Council made Ms Sadler an inaugural Ambassador of the museum in recognition of her significant donations.

The Australian National Maritime Foundation supports the museum and its collection. It is the museum’s fundraising arm, and has deductible gift recipient status, enabling it to issue tax receipts for donations and gifts in kind.

Broadly, the foundation’s purpose is to support the acquisition, conservation and enhancement of the National Maritime Collection. For more information about donating or leaving a bequest to the foundation, please contact Andrew Markwell on 02 9298 3777 or email amarkwell@anmm.gov.au

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RESEARCH AUTUMN 2017

A question of identity WHO IS THE MAN IN THE PORTRAIT?

A striking portrait of a Dutch navigator in the museum’s galleries poses a mystery. Is it Willem de Vlamingh, as has long been thought, or someone else? Dr Nigel Erskine examines the latest evidence.

01 01 Portrait of a Navigator by Jan Verkolje. The subject

was previously thought to be Dutch navigator Willem de Vlamingh. ANMM Collection 00019487

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WALKING THROUGH the museum’s Navigators exhibition, I have often stopped before the painting of a Dutch navigator hanging in the area that tells the story of the Dutch East India Company. This full-length portrait shows a well-dressed man standing beside a table covered by an oriental carpet and bearing the instruments of a navigator – a chart, dividers, astrolabe, backstaff and celestial globe.

In the background can be glimpsed a scene of three sailing ships off a beach with a boat rowing to the shore, where two men bow in ceremonial greeting to one another. One ship fires a salute that is answered by a cannon on the shore. One of the two men bowing is recognisable from his silk-ribboned coat and hat as the subject of the portrait.

The picture is unsigned and undated but is attributed to Jan Verkolje (1650–1693). For many years it has been thought to be a portrait of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) commander Willem de Vlamingh (1640–1698), who explored parts of the coast of what is now Western Australia in 1697 while searching for the crew of the missing ship Ridderschap van Holland, which disappeared on its way from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia in 1694. However, recent research suggests that the portrait may not be of de Vlamingh.

02

The arrangement of the sitter beside a table bearing references to their life is a tableau Verkolje often employed

The earliest known reference to the painting is from an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, London, in 1878, when it was lent by John Evans and described in the catalogue as ‘Portrait of a Young Dutch Naval Officer’.

John Evans (1823–1908) was a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1864 until his death, and served as president of several other prestigious societies. He was a trustee of the British Museum and was created a Knight of the Order of the Bath in 1892.

His eldest son, Arthur (later Sir Arthur Evans, the archaeologist famous for discovering and reconstructing the Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete), is believed to have inherited the majority of his father’s collections, but the painting may have passed to his second son, Lewis (1853–1930), who was a noted collector of scientific instruments – particularly astrolabes, of which he reputedly developed the largest collection in the world.

His collection formed the basis of the book The astrolabes of the world by Robert Gunther, published by Oxford University Press in 1932.

The painting was sold at Christie’s in London in 1994, described in the catalogue as ‘Jan Verkolje (1650–1693) – Portrait of a Navigator, said to be De Vlamingh’. It was acquired by the museum in 1996. By coincidence, a preliminary ink study for the picture (described as ‘Jan Verkolje – Portrait of a navigator’) surfaced in 2000 at Christie’s Amsterdam auction.

02 A preliminary study for Portrait of a Navigator.

Image courtesy Harvard Art Museums

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Two arguments against the sitter being de Vlamingh are that he was 53 at the time he explored the Western Australian coast, whereas the sitter in the painting appears much younger; and that as Jan Verkolje was a Delft painter, his subjects were generally residents of Delft and it is unlikely that he would have travelled to Amsterdam, where de Vlamingh lived.

As the painting is unsigned, a high-resolution image of the picture was sent to an expert at the National Gallery, London, who concluded that both the painting and the preliminary sketch are by Jan Verkolje.

Jan Verkolje was born in Amsterdam, the son of a locksmith, and only took up drawing after an accident confined him to bed for several years. After he recovered he became the pupil of painter Jan Lievens until moving to Delft in 1672, where he was accepted into the town’s guild of St Luke (Sint Lucas-gild) as a master painter the following year. To become a master, a painter had to first serve a six-year apprenticeship and then successfully submit an example of their work to the guild.

03 Portrait of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek,

natural philosopher and zoologist in Delft,

by Jan Verkolje, 1680–86. Image courtesy Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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The work of Verkolje and his peers appealed to the increasingly wealthy Protestant middle class in the Netherlands

04

Guilds were common in the main towns throughout the Netherlands. They brought together a broad and varied assembly of artists, artisans and craftsmen who, once members of the guild, were permitted to ply their trade within the designated town. Many of the guilds were named after the evangelist St Luke, regarded as the patron saint of artists.

Apart from artists, members of the Delft guild of St Luke included stonemasons, sculptors, glassmakers, weavers, book binders, engravers, silversmiths and various other trades.

Each of these was identified by a distinctive escutcheon bearing insignias of their trade.

Guilds offered their members protection from outside competition, and once a member was admitted they retained a strong association with the town, with the guild actively supporting their interests locally. The Delft guild of St Luke was controlled by a group of six ‘headmen’ elected annually, and Jan Verkolje served as one of these in 1678, 1682, 1683 and 1687.

04 Portrait of Petronella Boogaart by Jan

Verkolje, 1679. This work features the same carpet used in Verkolje’s Portrait of a Navigator. Image courtesy Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

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While membership of a town guild provided protection, it also meant that members were effectively unable to work freely in other towns. In this regard, Jan Verkolje’s membership of the Delft guild of St Luke from 1673 onwards supports the argument that he is unlikely to have painted the portrait of Amsterdam resident Willem de Vlamingh.

Guilds – common in the main towns throughout the Netherlands – brought together a varied assembly of artists, artisans and craftsmen

The work of Verkolje and his peers, among them Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch, appealed to the increasingly wealthy Protestant middle class in the Netherlands, who preferred scenes that reflected their own tastes and interests, instead of paintings with religious or mythological subject matter. Verkolje’s works were often small portraits, interiors or historical subjects and were noted for their outstanding finish.

Verkolje worked in the period of the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of the Dutch republic (1581–1795) when, following separation from Spanish rule, the United Provinces in the north became the centre of wealth in Europe as their traders united to form the most powerful trading company in the world – the Dutch East India Company.

Coinciding with this period of newfound wealth and confidence was a new emphasis on individuals who had contributed to the success of Dutch society through scientific, religious, political, commercial or other fields.

05 Reflectance Transformation Imaging

undertaken at ANMM showing detail of the scene on shore. Image Nick Flood/ANMM 05

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Verkolje’s Portrait of a Navigator demonstrates great skill in the use of light and shadow to bring depth to the figure, while the exceptional treatment of the shimmering pink ribbons on the shoulder, neck, cuff and garter is typical of textiles in many of Verkolje’s portraits. The arrangement of the sitter beside a table bearing references to their life is also a tableau Verkolje often employed, as seen in his portrait of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a zoologist, pioneer of microscopy and resident of Delft, painted in 1686.

Another example of a Verkolje painting exhibiting these compositional hallmarks is the portrait of Petronella Boogaart, signed and dated 1679. However, unlike the portrait of Leeuwenhoek, reference to the sitter’s life and position in society are indicated here by the complete absence of objects associated with a career. For the sitter in this case is a gentlewoman, a person of wealth who, by definition, did not work, and, as indicated by the book held in her hands, had time for leisure pursuits.

Again Verkolje demonstrates his mastery in depicting textiles in Petronella’s exquisite dress and golden shawl. Beautiful in her youth, dressed in the height of fashion and ornamented with expensive bracelets, necklace and earrings, Petronella Boogaart is represented as the epitome of gentility. However, of particular interest in regard to the ANMM’s painting Portrait of a Navigator is the carpet that Petronella is leaning on.

A comparison of the two paintings clearly shows the carpet’s design elements – a prominent pale blue ‘petalled’ motif, black ‘wings’ design and white background border – are common to both paintings and indeed the same carpet appears to have been used in both. And given this coincidence, it is not unreasonable to assume that both paintings were completed around the same time – that is, about 1679, 15 years before Willem de Vlamingh’s exploration of the Western Australian coast.

Research into the life of Petronella Boogaart reveals that she was born in 1661 and was 18 years old when the portrait was painted. She was the daughter of Adriaan Boogaart van Beloys, burgomaster (councillor) of the city of Delft and one of the seven directors of the Delft chamber of the VOC. The VOC was controlled by 60 directors representing the interests of each of the six city provinces making up the union, with 20 from Amsterdam, 12 from Zeeland and seven each from Rotterdam, Delft, Enkhuisen and Hoorn. Ultimate power lay in the hands of the board of ‘17 Gentlemen’ who controlled the company, meeting in Amsterdam two or three times a year.

06

06 The escutcheons of some of the various craft

guilds in Delft, bearing the insignia of their trade: painters, tile makers and embroiderers.

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Of the 17 directors making up this all-powerful board, eight were elected from Amsterdam and four from Zeeland, while the remaining cities elected one each, with another director elected in rotation from the five smaller cities.

It appears likely that the sitter in Portrait of a Navigator is either Petronella Boogaart’s husband Franco or possibly her brother Nicolaes

In 1684 Petronella married the wealthy 26-year-old Franco Reijerszn van der Burcht who, in the same year, was himself elected a director of the Delft chamber of the VOC. Petronella was one of nine children, and one of her brothers – Nicolaes Boogaart van Beloys (1662–1746) – also later became a director of the VOC chamber of Delft.

Taking these connections into account, it appears likely that the sitter in Portrait of a Navigator is either Petronella’s husband Franco or possibly her brother Nicolaes. Both men lived in Delft, were well connected to the VOC and were young men around the time Jan Verkolje was commissioned to paint the portrait of Petronella Boogaart. Ultimately identification of the sitter may be revealed through further research into the background scene in Portrait of a Navigator. What historic episode does it refer to and what part did the sitter play in it?

In time we may find answers to these questions, but for now at least, the evidence suggests this is not a portrait of Willem de Vlamingh.

The author wishes to thank his ANMM colleagues, curator Kim Tao and librarian Karen Pymble, for their assistance with his research.

Further reading Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries – Work, Power and Representation, edited by Maarten Prak, Catharina Lis, Jan Lucassen and Hugo Soly. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Gower House, Croft Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, England, 2006 Archief voor Nederlandsche Kunstgeschiedenis, edited by D O Obreen.

Van Hengel & Eeltjes, Rotterdam, 1878. Available online at http:// objects.library.uu.nl/reader/index.php?obj=1874-33492&lan=en#pa ge//11/33/91/113391215112649161672138200487867526265.jpg/mode/1up Laura J Snyder, Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer and the Reinvention of Seeing, WW Norton & Company, New York, 2016

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COLLECTIONS AUTUMN 2017

A keen eye and a quick hand THE WATERCOLOURS OF PERCY HOCKINGS

The people, plants, animals and boats of Thursday Island are vividly portrayed in the museum’s collection of sketches and watercolours by artist Percy Hockings.

David Payne, Curator of Historic Vessels, takes a closer look.

01

YOU CAN GO OUT and buy a set of paints easily – a dozen tubes in a box, bright enticing colours looking for a scene to complement the palette: viridian, cadmium red and yellow, raw umber, Van Dyke brown, Payne’s grey and Prussian blue, indigo, turquoise, tangerine, ivory white and black.

These are colours that speak of the vivid tropics. Percy Hockings (1867–1950) had those colours, a talent for watercolours and a reason to go there – cousins in the islands around Torres Strait – so, enticed by the lure of the north, he went off to Thursday Island. He captured the romance of this pearling region in a collection of his material that the museum acquired in 2015.

01 A lugger beached at an unidentified bay

on Thursday Island, painted in 1919.

All images ANMM Collection 00054409

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Percy Frank Hockings trained as an architect, which explains his draughting accuracy and attention to detail

02

03

The dazzling sunlight shines through, there are plants and wildlife, backgrounds with grand theatrical scenery, vignettes of people, and an overall feeling of the rich and vibrant social scene humming away.

One of the images that first caught our attention had luggers at anchor, silhouetted against an afternoon sky (image 03, above).

It was like a sepia print, with blacks and delicate shades of brown, and also like a photograph; it caught what was happening at the time rather than posing and adjusting things to suit as you might with a formal painting. It’s a sketch, quickly taking in the craft in different stages of unrigging, with someone rowing out – they would be gone from the scene in a moment.

His profile drawing of a pearling lugger is a classic draughtsman’s outline (image 02, above). There are lightly drawn grid lines and reference lines for proportioning, with the craft then constructed around these margins and pencilled in strongly over the top.

02 Percy Hockings’ accurate profile sketch

of a lugger and its proportions.

03 A typical lugger scene caught in ink and wash.

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Another scene picks up the strong sunlight and a rare clarity to the air

04

There are further notes around the edges: ‘mainboom = half height mast, out of ballast – sail light cream, spars dark cream’.

The light horizontal line though the sheer shows someone with a very keen eye who wants to get this important curve right – lower at the stern than the bow, with the tangent touching the sheer curve well aft – and that’s how a designer works when he is creating a plan to build from.

Other images show the fleet careened on the low tide.

These scenes had been photographed in black and white by others, including Frank Hurley, but here was another interpretation of the fleet, coloured and accurately portrayed (page 98, image 07). The angle of heel is not accentuated, a coppered bottom is depicted in panels just as it would be tacked on, the luggers’ slightly scrambled and uneven orientation to the sea is in place. A bit of action comes from people heading out in a skiff, with one lugger under sail and the steamer approaching a landmark, the Thursday Island wharf.

It’s a background familiar to many. Tiny writing notes what is clearly apparent – ‘rain squall from SW’. You can see it rolling over Prince of Wales Island just opposite and you know it was coming his way within minutes, just as the steamer berthed.

At the east end of Thursday Island, Percy was perhaps perched on an outcrop, looking down across the bay at low tide (page 97). As our eyes roam the scene we realise this is a building and repair yard for the luggers. Parts of the spars and hulls show through, buildings begin to become apparent, a lugger and its diving pump stand out in the foreground, but closer still are two people on another rock. Were they there briefly, or did they need to be there to complete the picture?

04 This scene picks up the strong sunlight and

a rare clarity to the air, which help to depict the details of Prince of Wales Island opposite.

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The landscape image that most captivates me is one from 1919 (page 94). It’s a quick painting, perhaps, but it’s wonderfully impressionist. Some instantaneous lines gave it a shape to fill in, trunks of the palms are a single stroke of brown, leaves the same in green. Two goes at a wash of green put foliage on the tree, while a dab of orange picks out a feature in the road cutting as it rounds the point. It’s a calm scene, despite the rapid nature of its creation on paper.

Providing a contrast in subject, but just as revealing of the artist’s ways, were the closer observations of wildlife and plants.

Subjects are given a botanist’s and naturalist’s treatment, profiled and notated, as if he were there to record something new, which to him it was.

The angler fish (page 99, image 08) is a great example, excepting one thing – he notes the type but not which species it is. But that’s not critical here. The critical points are what has been observed and how the fish has been brought to life again after being caught, with its eyes firmly focused on the angler’s wand over its wide mouth that it uses as bait to catch its prey.

05

05 Looking down on slipways on Thursday

Island’s eastern side.

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06

07

Big letters carefully scripted say, ‘Life Size Angler Fish, caught Wanetta Slip Sept 8th 1923’, then in more natural handwriting he gets down to anatomical details: ‘main feet 9 toes’ – a key feature of their fins – and a correction at the bottom, ‘shown a little too green’. We can forgive him for that, and thank him for pointing it out.

Turn to another page and a bird looks back at you, delicately attached to the paper with fine lines around a light wash (page 99, image 09). Percy notes Van Dyke brown for the body, but the creature is about to move ahead, elegantly stepping off the page – this bird has been caught just in time. It seems to have caused great fascination to Percy Hockings, and no wonder when you look at its specialised legs and claws.

06 Another lugger portrait is picked out in blue,

golden tans and chocolatey brown to give the weathered brightness that so many working craft wear once the elements have taken their toll on that yearly coat of paint.

07 Luggers beached at low tide near the

Thursday Island wharf, with a storm approaching.

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08

The illustration focuses on its wide footprint of long spindly claws and a many-jointed assembly of toes and forward-bending legs. Percy does not name it, but identifying it was not hard; its colour scheme and intriguing legs make it stand out easily in the bird books as the red-crowned jacana, common to the tropics. Its extraordinary legs enable this small bird to scoot over lilies on lakes.

His plant drawings are classical too, broken into parts with colours mixed to bring out the hues. The one titled ‘Erythrina, natural size’ is easily identified through its well-depicted leaves and flowers. It is Erythrina vespertilio, well known to many as the bat’s wing coral tree, and native to north and north-east Australia. Others might know it as grey corkwood or maybe just ‘bean tree’, while one Western Desert Aboriginal language calls it ininti. Hockings has done a very clever drawing on 20 September 1923, working in layers and superimposing views he has captured of the principal aspects of leaf, flower and seed. Van Dyke brown comes out again for the seed pods.

It’s been a useful tube of paint, that one.

09

Providing a contrast in subject, but just as revealing of the artist’s ways, were the closer observations of wildlife and plants

His drawings speak about the social side of island life as well, with images of people, some marked with a wry humour.

On 2 August 1919 a little boy, George Sing, was selling cabbages from a basket almost half his size on Thursday Island.

How do we know this? Percy has sketched and painted George in two locations on the same page (page 100, image 11).

The big image is a simple coloured rendition with a barefoot George trying to balance against the weight and awkwardness of the basket and cabbages, braces holding up his shorts, a grimace on his face. Percy let him pass, then sketched his reverse view in a few seconds of quick lines that once again pick up the motion and balance, even though it is now a

08 The angler fish Percy Hockings caught

at Wanetta Slipway.

09 Red-crowned jacana.

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11

fleeting moment frozen in time. The basket is now on George’s other shoulder; maybe Percy showed interest so George stopped, hoping for a sale, but I think not. Despite the quite green-looking cabbages, Percy notes them as ‘Weedy Cabbages, 2/6 each’ – maybe he is like me, not a cabbage fan. At the top, though, we are left wondering what else he saw. Percy has pasted a newspaper headline cutting that reads ‘My life is an open book’, then pencilled in ‘full of inscrutable riddles’.

A longer version of this article is available as a digital story at anmm.gov.au/ percyhockings David Payne’s regular feature on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels will return next issue.

Percy’s sketch of a diver is magical. We have a smiling, animated person still in his heavy clothes – this may be the tropics, but the water gets cold as you dive deeper. The drawing picks up the bulky nature of the clothing, and while it has not been coloured in, we know from the notes that he had a cream sweater, light blue flannel and heavy blue trousers. His name is Diver Swank, and he is carrying a red box of pearls – maybe that’s why he is smiling.

Percy Frank Hockings (10 October 1867–24 July 1950) trained as an architect, which explains his draughting accuracy and attention to detail. Percy rarely practised as an architect, however, and was able to spend much of his time travelling widely. With his brother Edwin Morton Hockings he travelled the world (Europe, the Pacific and Thursday Island) and between them they accumulated a wealth of their own drawings, oil paintings and watercolours, of which these examples are a small part.

The collection was donated to the museum by Dr Edwin John Hockings and his brother Dr Marcus Tilbury Hockings.

Percy was their great-uncle.

10 Sketch of a pearl diver on Thursday Island,

1919.

11

George Sing with cabbages for sale.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > THE CASE OF MRS O’KEEFE

WELCOME WALL AUTUMN 2017

The case of Mrs O’Keefe A WATERSHED FOR WHITE AUSTRALIA

In the 1940s, a Dutch East Indies family who had been evacuated to Australia during World War II found themselves under threat of deportation. The infamous court case that ensued was an important step towards overturning controversial legislation banning non-European immigrants. By Kim Tao.

01

01 The O’Keefe family at Bonbeach, Victoria,

1956. Left to right: Annie O’Keefe, Geraldine, John O’Keefe, Peter and Mary.

Photographer Neil Murray. Reproduced courtesy National Archives of Australia: A1501, A429/5

In one of history’s great migrations, more than six million people have crossed the seas to settle in Australia.

The museum’s tribute to all of them, The Welcome Wall, encourages people to recall and record their stories of coming to live in Australia

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‘We were kept shielded from all the nasty things as children. My memory as a child was really happy’

02

WHEN JAPANESE FORCES INVADED the Netherlands East Indies (NEI, now Indonesia) in 1942, Samuel Jacob (1907–1944) and Annie Maas Jacob (née Dumais) (1908–1974), along with seven of their eight children, were evacuated to safety in Australia. Both Samuel, a headmaster, and Annie, a domestic science teacher, were Dutch subjects by birth and enjoyed many privileges because of their profession. Samuel also served as a civil administrator in the eastern Indonesian city of Merauke, a Dutch military post and site of an Allied air base during World War II. While he was decorated for bravery by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Samuel’s support of the Allied forces would also put his welfare and that of his family at risk.

Samuel and Annie’s daughter Johanna (Mary) Burns (née Jacob), who was seven years old at the time of her family’s evacuation from the Aru Islands in August 1942, recalls, ‘My father was a head man, a leader, and he was wanted by the Japanese.

When the war came, Father and Mother kept things to themselves, and shielded us from complicated things like war.

I can remember when the Australian Air Force came and there was a lot of bombing. My parents got us all, packed our things, and we tried to hide to avoid the bombing. Because my father was a wanted man, we owed a lot to his Indonesian followers who helped us to escape from one island to another, from one village to another. And all this happened at night time. We were all separated in the canoes. My eldest brother Samuel [then 13 years old] was left behind because he was at school on another island, Ambon. That was traumatic for my parents, especially for my mother, to leave him behind.’

02 The O’Keefe family in 1949. Back row,

left to right: Annie O’Keefe, John, Mary, Patrick, Therese, Bernadette and Tineke.

Front row: John O’Keefe and Peter.

Herald & Weekly Times Limited portrait collection. Reproduced courtesy State Library of Victoria

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Samuel, Annie and their seven children – Ann (11), Tineke (nine), Mary (seven), Bernadette (six), Therese (four), Patrick (two) and John (one) – were reunited on a yacht in the Arafura Sea and then rescued by the Royal Australian Navy corvette HMAS Warrnambool. They were the only civilian passengers on board. Mary remembers, ‘The Dutch helped transfer us to the warship. They had a call, and the captain said they had to pick up an Indonesian family with some other forces. We were brought to Darwin in September 1942 and settled into a big hospital. The Australian Army was there too.’

The Jacob family was among 15,000 wartime evacuees (nearly 6,000 of whom were non-European) who were granted temporary refuge in Australia on the understanding they would return home at the end of the war.

03

Following a short stay in Darwin, the family travelled in a military convoy to Adelaide, via Alice Springs. On arrival they were met by the Red Cross and transported to the Metropole Hotel in Bourke Street, Melbourne, where they shared a floor with the NEI Army. Mary states, ‘My parents began looking for a place for the family to live. A lot of the places they went to, they were rejected because a family with seven children was a bit too much for some owners.’ Eventually they rented the ground floor of a two-storey house in Shenfield Avenue, Bonbeach, in Melbourne’s south-east. Their landlord was a retired postal clerk named John William O’Keefe (1889–1975).

In August 1943, Annie gave birth to her ninth child, Peter.

She continued working with the Red Cross, while Samuel served as an intelligence operative with the NEI Army in the latter stages of the war. In March 1944, Samuel was sent to New Guinea on a mission for the NEI Intelligence Service, and asked his landlord John O’Keefe to look after his wife and children should anything happen to him. Tragically Samuel died in a plane crash near Mossman, in Far North Queensland, while returning from Merauke in September 1944. Mary says, ‘I don’t even remember my father going away. All I remember is my mother telling us you must write a letter to your papa.

My mother got the telegram. My eldest sister Ann was with her. My sister said she cried and cried and cried.’ It was not until 1989 that the wreckage of the Dutch C-47 Dakota was discovered in dense jungle, and Samuel Jacob’s remains were buried in the Cairns War Cemetery, Queensland.

After World War II ended in 1945, the Australian government, under the nation’s first Immigration Minister, Arthur Calwell, sought to repatriate all non-European wartime evacuees.

While most departed voluntarily, some 800 wanted to stay in Australia permanently. Among them were the widowed Annie and her children, who had now settled into Australian life,

03 ‘Mother and 8 children may be deported’,

The News, 26 February 1949, p 1.

Reproduced courtesy National Library of Australia

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Calwell’s controversial deportation order and perceived lack of sympathy for the family attracted widespread criticism

04

with the children achieving outstanding results at their Chelsea school. In June 1947, in the face of increasing government pressure to leave, Annie and John O’Keefe – known as Uncle Jim to the children – were married at St Joseph’s Church in Chelsea. Mary recollects, ‘Uncle Jim was a marvellous Irish– Australian. He helped us a lot during our school years with our homework. We’d sit at the big dining table with books everywhere. He helped my elder sister with shorthand.

She was a secretary.’ But the government maintained that the marriage did not give Annie the right to remain in Australia as a permanent resident. In early 1949 Calwell issued a deportation order for Annie O’Keefe and her children.

Reflecting on her childhood memories of this period, Mary reveals, ‘We had no idea – we thought we were here permanently. We were kept shielded from all the nasty things as children. My memory as a child was really happy. We had lots of friends and our house was full of kids. When we came to Australia, we lived right on the beach. We used to come home for lunch and go for a swim. The only time we heard what was going on was when the journalists came to our place to interview my mother and some of us. We had no inkling until my mother told us we had to go back. We asked her why but she didn’t tell us why. We were quite amazed really because we’d lived here for a while before this came up.’

Calwell’s controversial deportation order and perceived lack of sympathy for the family attracted widespread criticism in Australia and overseas, and captured the imagination of the media and the public, who rallied behind the O’Keefes.

With financial assistance from public donations, the O’Keefe family appealed to the High Court of Australia, mounting

04 Mary Jacob helps her mother, Annie O’Keefe,

to prepare afternoon tea, 1956. Photographer Neil Murray. Reproduced courtesy National Archives of Australia: A1501, A429/3

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what would become the first successful legal challenge to the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (colloquially known as the ‘White Australia policy’). This policy aimed to prevent the entry of non-European immigrants through the administration of a dictation test. In March 1949, the High Court ruled that Annie O’Keefe could not be deported because she had not been declared a prohibited immigrant on entry in 1942 (as she had not taken the dictation test), nor could she become a prohibited immigrant through application of the test more than five years after her arrival.

Mary recalls, ‘Neighbours and friends had donated money to support our case to pay the court and for our education.

The church, the journalists and the papers were very good – they all gathered to organise money. During the case we always had the wireless on. It was to do with the politics in the parliament. And that was the time we used to listen to the politicians talking about immigration.I remember my mother and Uncle Jim coming in and saying we won, we were allowed to stay in Australia.’ The infamous case of Mrs O’Keefe helped to pave the way for the gradual dismantling of the White Australia policy throughout the 1950s and 1960s (it was finally abolished in 1973). In 1950 Annie and John had a daughter, Geraldine, but sadly Annie’s eldest son Samuel was never permitted to enter Australia. Annie O’Keefe died in Fitzroy in 1974 and John O’Keefe died in Camberwell in 1975.

05 05 Mary Jacob, 21, as a senior staff nurse

at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, 1956.

Photographer Neil Murray. Reproduced courtesy National Archives of Australia: A1501, A429/2

Today the Jacob siblings, many of whom followed their parents into teaching, are dispersed between Australia and Indonesia.

Mary, who jokingly refers to herself as ‘the black sheep of the family’, trained as a nurse after completing her secondary education in 1951. She later gained qualifications in midwifery and worked at the Royal Women’s Hospital Melbourne, Chelsea Bush Nursing Hospital and Freemasons Hospital, East Melbourne, until her retirement in 1995. She has been married to architect Peter Burns for more than 50 years and they have two daughters and a son.

Reflecting on her life in Australia, Mary says, ‘I admire all the people that helped my mother, my parents to escape Indonesia.

I give credit to them. I admired my mother a lot too. I miss her. There was no beating around the bush with her. I think she died really of stress. She was always worrying – about deportation, the court case, how she could survive, coupon days.’ On behalf of her siblings, Mary registered Samuel Jacob and Annie O’Keefe on the Welcome Wall with the dedication: ‘To our heroes – our parents. Thank you both for your miraculous escape, through the sacrifices of others, during World War II, which enabled us to grow up in this wonderful country Australia.’

The Welcome Wall It costs just $150, or $290 for a couple, to register a name and honour your family’s arrival in this great country. We’d love to add your family’s name to The Welcome Wall, cast in bronze, and place your story on the online database at anmm. gov.au/ww. Please call our staff during business hours with any enquiries on 02 9298 3777.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > AN INDELIBLE TRAGEDY

READINGS AUTUMN 2017

An indelible tragedy THE STORY OF HMAS CANBERRA

‘My God this is bloody awful.’

WITH THE OPENING QUOTE of her book HMAS Canberra: Casualty of circumstance, historian Dr Kathryn Spurling aptly captures the grim reality faced by Sub-Lieutenant MacKenzie Gregory, one of 819 crewmen aboard the County class heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra (I) in the opening moments of the Battle of Savo Island. The engagement, fought in the waters off Guadalcanal in the early morning hours of 9 August 1942, commenced with a surprise attack by an Imperial Japanese Navy task force against a flotilla of American and Australian warships protecting Allied amphibious landings in the eastern Solomon Islands. Canberra, at the head of the screening force, bore the brunt of the assault and within three minutes was dead in the water, burning fiercely and sinking. The action ultimately resulted in the loss of 84 of Canberra’s complement, as well as the cruiser itself, which was scuttled in what is today known as Iron Bottom Sound.

Canberra’s life and death are not well represented when compared with written histories of other Royal Australian Navy (RAN) warships lost during World War II, such as HMA Ships Sydney (II) and Perth (I). Spurling’s book goes a long way towards correcting this deficiency. Following the introduction, which describes the scene aboard Canberra as the Battle of Savo Island commences, the story rewinds to 1936, when MacKenzie Gregory enters the Royal Australian Naval College (RANC) at Westernport, Victoria, as a 13-year-old cadet midshipman. It then touches on the RANC experiences of Gregory and other cadets before introducing Canberra and chronicling its launch, inaugural voyage to Australia and first years as a commissioned warship. The second, third and fourth chapters relate the experiences of the ship and its crew between 1930 and the outbreak of World War II. During this period, Canberra undertook a series of cruises in domestic waters in which it often served as either an escort or flagship for government officials and visiting dignitaries.

Consequently, it earned a reputation as a ‘glamour ship’ whose appearance was given primacy over its operational capacity. At the same time, the RAN embarked upon a policy of downsizing its personnel and enacting policies – such as denying crewmen death and injury compensation – that detrimentally affected morale. Spurling argues that these factors

HMAS Canberra: Casualty of circumstance

By Kathryn Spurling, published

by New Holland Publishers, Sydney, NSW, 2016.

Paperback, 255 pages, illustrations, bibliography, endnotes. ISBN 9781742578859.

RRP $35.00, Members $31.50.

Available at The Store or online at store.anmm.gov.au

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The Battle of Savo Island resulted in the loss of 84 of Canberra’s complement, as well as the cruiser itself

01

and others significantly impeded Canberra’s (and the RAN’s) combat readiness even as events in Europe indicated war was inevitable.

The second half of the book addresses Canberra’s wartime service up to August 1942, and introduces the reader to several more of its officers and ratings. Among them are Engineering Officer Commander Otto Francis, who is responsible for keeping his vessel operational despite a litany of defects, and Supply Assistant Horace Keats, whose enthusiasm for naval service is quickly dampened by the realities of shipboard life. Following the outbreak of war, Canberra is tasked with escorting troopship convoys across the Indian Ocean, a duty that proves onerous and frustrating for its crew as they learn of the combat exploits of other RAN vessels, including sistership HMAS Australia (II). The mood improves following the ship’s first action against the German auxiliary vessels Coburg and Ketty Brovig on 4 March 1941, but is soon overshadowed by successive RAN losses – including HMA Ships Sydney (II), Perth (I) and Yarra (II) – that claim friends, colleagues and several former shipmates. By mid-1942, the Japanese have joined the conflict and brought it to home waters, where Canberra has just completed a refit and is caught undermanned and unprepared during the midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour on 31 May. Spurling observes that inexperience and inefficiency are prevalent among the cruiser’s crew as it departs for the Solomon Islands, and the net result plays out in the final two chapters, which address the Battle of Savo Island and its aftermath.

HMAS Canberra: Casualty of circumstance is well researched and draws upon an impressive array of primary and secondary historical sources. Spurling’s narrative is engaging and effective in introducing the reader to Canberra and those who served

01 HMAS Canberra’s ‘Y’ turret gun crew,

c 1940s.

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aboard it. She also expertly addresses her central argument that the cruiser and its crew were hobbled by the RAN’s subservience to archaic British naval policies, standards and beliefs, and that this ultimately resulted in the catastrophe at Iron Bottom Sound.

However, for all of its good points, the book does have some problems. Foremost among them is Spurling’s assertion that an ‘international cover-up’ altered official accounts of damage inflicted on Canberra in the opening moments of the Battle of Savo Island. A number of surviving Canberra crewmen reported that their vessel was accidentally struck by one or more torpedoes fired from the American destroyer USS Bagley, but the official inquiry into the incident dismissed these claims.

The book would have benefited from exploring this unresolved issue in greater detail, but unfortunately only devotes a couple of paragraphs to it in the closing pages (pp 219–220) of the final chapter. There are also a number of obvious editing flaws throughout the text, ranging from unfortunate page breaks (p 195) and remnant editorial comments (p 227) to multiple misspellings of ‘Admiral’ as ‘Admirable’ (eg pp 42 and 64).

Finally, given the book’s exhaustive bibliography and endnotes it is disappointing that it lacks an index and that the sources of its many images are not cited – either in each caption, or as a separate list.

These criticisms aside, HMAS Canberra: Casualty of circumstance is an enjoyable and informative read that focuses long-overdue emphasis on one of the Royal Australian Navy’s most historically significant warships.

Dr James Hunter Reviewer Dr James Hunter is the museum’s Curator of RAN Maritime Archaeology. He has worked in the field of maritime archaeology for nearly two decades, and has participated in the investigation of shipwrecks and other archaeological sites ranging from prehistory to the modern era.

02 HMAS Canberra’s 8-inch guns, c 1941.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > TURNING POINTS IN THE STORY OF SAILING

READINGS AUTUMN 2017

Turning points in the story of sailing

LEMONS, CHRONOMETERS, SIGNAL FLARES AND MORE

THIS BOOK IS PROBABLY BEST ENJOYED if you don’t approach it like a reviewer. Meaning, don’t read it from cover to cover as I did. Instead, have it to hand beside your bed or on a coffee table and dip into it when you have a few minutes to spare.

The cover design is stylish and enticing, so it’ll look good wherever you sit it, and might tempt visitors to peek into its pages. Covering, as you’d expect from the title, 100 nautical whatnots (with sizes ranging from a lemon to a hospital), there’s something to pique anyone’s interest. Anybody who picks it up for a quick flick through is sure to end up stopping and reading at least one entry.

But pedantic readers might be irritated when dates in the text don’t match dates in the headings, or find themselves wishing that some of the images were of higher quality or gave better examples of the items in question. The occasional sweeping generalisation might annoy some readers, too – for instance, about female sailors: ‘back in 1750 the rule among most menfolk was to keep ’em barefoot and pregnant’.

That said, there’s plenty of interesting information and quirky facts in here. The book tells how the schooner Bluenose got its name and that, as well as designing bridges, tunnels and boats, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was also brilliant at building blocks (he created a mechanised mill to make them). And I was pleased to see that some of the key things I’d have picked for my 100 made it in, such as John Harrison’s revolutionary chronometer, which starred in the museum’s recent exhibition Ships, Clocks & Stars: the Quest for Longitude.

A history of sailing in 100 objects

By Barry Pickthall, published

by Adlard Coles Nautical/ Bloomsbury, 2016. Hardback, 224 pages, illustrations, index.

ISBN 9781427918857.

RRP $45.00, Members $40.50.

Available at The Store or online at store.anmm.gov.au

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A flaw of the book is that, although each inclusion gives some information on that object, it sometimes fails to relate that information back to the book’s premise – namely, its significance to the history of sailing. For example, item number 21 is scrimshaw. There’s a large photo of a piece and the text tells us when and how it was made and the legal issues surrounding it today. But it doesn’t say why scrimshaw was significant in the history of sailing. In itself, scrimshaw wasn’t – but whalers, and the navigational and oceanographic insights gained from their extensive voyages, were, and discussions along these lines would have helped the book to meet its aims.

A word of caution to the non-nautical – there is a fair bit of specialised terminology in places, which the uninitiated may find hard to follow, such as ‘the jib would furl around its own luff rope without the need for a wooden luff tube’.

All in all, while I don’t dispute the choice of objects included and can’t immediately think of something that was missed, this book could have done a better job of using its 100 stories to convey the history of sailing. My advice would be: don’t trawl through the whole thing, just cast a hook in every now and then and see what tasty morsels you snag.

Em Blamey Reviewer Em Blamey learnt to sail aboard dinghies as a child in the UK, then progressed to delivering and racing yachts around Europe and travelling the world working on various tall ships. Creating exhibitions at the ANMM allows her to both indulge and share her passion for all things nautical.

READINGS AUTUMN 2017

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > A SHIP-SHAPED VIEW OF HISTORY

READINGS AUTUMN 2017

A ship-shaped view of history FIVE MILLENNIA OF SIGNIFICANT VESSELS

Vessel n. 1. A craft for travelling on water ... a ship or boat.

2. A hollow or concave article ... for holding liquid or other contents(Macquarie Dictionary, 6th edn, 2013) THIS HANDSOMELY PRODUCED and lavishly illustrated book presents to the reader a rich tapestry of stories, history, facts and human maritime endeavour from 2,550 BCE to modern times.

Ian Graham has selected 50 ships, each of which captures interesting insights into both maritime and wider social history of its time. In effect, each ship selected becomes the vessel in which pertinent details of maritime technology, construction, notable points of interest and achievements are placed in the wider national or world context.

For example, the entry for Captain James Cook’s Endeavour (pp 50–53) gives a short biography of its life as a Whitby Cat, an outline of its use for the scientific and exploratory work of Cook’s first world voyage between 1768 and 1771 (including the search for Terra Australis), how Cook enforced a lifesaving dietary regime on board, and his two subsequent voyages.

What is also pleasing is that the longer life of the vessel is briefly outlined after it was sold by the Royal Navy and, renamed Lord Sandwich, ended its life in Newport Harbour as one of the ships scuttled to form the blockade of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 1788. (Research into this wreck has been a focus of the museum’s maritime archaeology team since 1999.)

The first entry covers Pharaoh Khufu’s Solar Barge (pp 8–11) – some 4,500 years old – which was discovered and excavated in the early 1950s. The final entry gives the reader an insight into the increasingly popular world of passenger cruising with the ocean liner MS Allure of the Seas (pp 214–217).

Fifty ships that changed the course of history: A nautical history of the world

By Ian Graham, published by Exisle Publishing, Wollombi, NSW, 2016. Hardback, 224 pages, illustrations, index.

ISBN 9781925335309 RRP $36.95, Members $33.25.

Available at The Store or online at store.anmm.gov.au

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Throughout, there is a generous use of illustrations and, where appropriate, maps. These add to the informative text and enrich the publication and its appeal.

While each entry includes brief details of each vessel – type, launch date and location, length, tonnage, construction and propulsion – there is minimal technical information on each vessel. This may be a disappointment to those readers wanting more information on construction methods or rigging of each of the vessels selected.

A succinct two-page introduction gives an overview of the development of worldwide maritime endeavours. The book ends with a list of further reading: 40 publications under headings of General, Exploration, Submarines and Warships.

There is also a list of useful websites – 46 in all.

It is pleasing to see that this work, with so many interesting tangential links and stories, has a comprehensive index running over four pages.

Richard Ferguson Richard Ferguson is a former Project Officer with the museum, who worked on a program for 2020 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Lieutenant James Cook’s survey of the east coast of Australia.

READINGS AUTUMN 2017

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CURRENTS AUTUMN 2017

SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > OLYMPIAN, WORLD CHAMPION SAILOR, INNOVATOR

Olympian, world champion sailor, innovator VALE PAUL ELVSTRØM (25 FEBRUARY 1928–7 DECEMBER 2016)

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THE PASSING OF DANISH YACHTSMAN Paul Bert Elvstrøm in December 2016 was marked with considerable regret and immense respect by the sailing community worldwide.

In an amateur period he managed to bring his training regime and racing techniques to levels that compare well with those of today’s highly paid professional yachtspeople. However, he probably went further than most current elite sailors.

While he raced with a single-minded pursuit of victory, off the water he shared his talent, skills and innovations through his writing, sailmaking and other sailing-related activities.

01 A young Paul Elvstrøm at the 1948 London

Olympic Games, at which he won his first Olympic gold medal, in the Firefly class.

Image S&G/PA Images via Getty Images

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Paul Elvstrøm’s sailing results were extraordinary. Starting in 1940 and carrying on through to the late 1980s he won four consecutive Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles, sailing in seven different inshore yacht and dinghy classes, and another world title in the offshore ocean racing Half-Ton Cup. In 1996 he was named as Danish Sportsman of the Century, and a decade later he was one of the first people inducted into the International Sailing Hall of Fame.

Elvstrøm’s connections to Australia include winning his second gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956

His legacy to the sailing community probably began with two publications in the late 1960s: Paul Elvstrom explains the sailing rules and Expert dinghy and keelboat racing. Both were revised and updated in many subsequent editions. These texts gave confidence and technique to that huge pool of club-level sailors worldwide who just want to do a bit better each weekend – but many of those who moved up to much higher levels would be grateful to the foundation these books gave them as teenagers dreaming of bigger things.

His skills in designing and making his own championshipwinning sails allowed him to establish his own sailmaking company, Elvstrøm Dinghy Sails, which eventually had branches and franchises worldwide. Now trading as Elvstrøm Sails, it is one of Europe’s biggest lofts. He made spars, collaborated on designs and was an innovator of things we now take for granted, with his ideas and concepts for a self-bailer, sailing vest, the use of the boom vang and the technique of leaning out with foot straps.

Elvstrøm’s connections to Australia include winning his second gold medal – the first of three in a row in the Finn class – at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, and winning his last world championship, a victory in the Soling class, when the event was sailed in Sydney in 2004. In the mid-1970s he partnered with another designer to develop the International 6-Metre class Prince Alfred for the Australian syndicate sailing in the American–Australian challenge series. Built by Bill Barnett, it was quite radical, with a bulb bow projection, and although Elvstrøm also skippered the yacht, unfortunately it was not very successful.

Paul Elvstrøm died in his sleep at the age of 88 years on 7 December 2016 at his birthplace in Hellerup, Denmark, surrounded by his family.

David Payne

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > CURRENTS

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Museum receives awards In November the museum was thrilled to win four awards in just one week.

We won the silver award for Major Tourism Attraction at the NSW Tourism Awards. As it celebrated its first birthday, Action Stations added two new awards to its collection, receiving the National Commercial/Industrial Construction Award ($5 million to $10 million category) and the Display category award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival Awards in Berlin. We were also delighted to win Best Educational Game for our online game The Voyage in the 2016 SAE ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media) Awards.

Pictured (l–r): Naomi Farrelly of Lighthouse Consulting; ANMM staff members Alex Gaffikin, Jackson Pellow, Deanna Varga, Director Kevin Sumption and Hyewon Chang; and Nathan Hou of Australian Attractions.

Story Jude Timms, ANMM image

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Foundation 25th anniversary event In November the museum’s Foundation hosted 300 of its donors, sponsors, life members and friends for a cocktail celebration of its 25th anniversary to thank them for their support. Guests enjoyed a retrospective celebrating everything that has been achieved since the museum opened in 1991.

To carry out its important work, the museum depends on donations through its Foundation from our generous supporters. Foundation Chairman, John Mullen, talked to guests about its future priorities to enable it to build on its successes for the next 25 years.

John Mullen also made the exciting announcement that he intends offering the magnificent steam yacht Ena to the museum as a gift through the Foundation.

Pictured (l–r): Peter Dexter AM, ANMM Chairman; John Mullen, Australian National Maritime Foundation Chairman; The Hon Margaret White AO, ANMM Councillor; Paul Binsted, former ANMM Councillor; The Hon Duncan Gay MLC, former Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight; Katie Gay; Kevin Sumption, ANMM Director; Rear Admiral Stuart Mayer CSC and Bar, RAN, Commander of the Australian Fleet and ANMM Councillor. Story Jude Timms, image Andrew Frolows/ ANMM

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First Woman at the museum In November the museum

This new exhibition takes the visitor into both Kay’s private and technical worlds – to explore the woman, an avid knitter, and the resourceful navigator and sailor who repaired her boom in the days before rounding Cape Horn. In November Kay Cottee visited the museum to lend Ted, the large teddy bear that accompanied her, and her sextant, a traditional but critical navigation instrument in a time before cohesive satellite coverage.

The exhibition First Woman includes footage, interactives to probe the voyage, historic material from the museum’s collections and of course her historic yacht Blackmores First Lady, which visitors can board at appointed times.

Kay and Ted are pictured with Senior Curator Daina Fletcher, who holds the sextant. Story Daina Fletcher, image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

01

02

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opened a new installation about the first woman to circumnavigate the globe – Australia’s own Kay Cottee, who claimed the record in 1988 by sailing alone, without stopping and without any assistance.

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > SHARING OUR COLLECTION WITH GOOGLE

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Sharing our collection with Google VIRTUAL ACCESS VIA YOUR DEVICE

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YOU CAN NOW TOUR THE MUSEUM and browse highlights of our collection with the Google Arts and Culture app on your favourite smart device or desktop.

Google’s Cultural Institute began in 2011 as the Google Art Project. It is an effort to make important cultural material available and accessible to everyone, to digitally preserve it and to educate and inspire future generations. As partner of the program since 2015, the museum joins more than 670 institutions from around the world as part of a global repository of human history. You can explore the institute’s collections on their website or through the Arts and Culture app (from the Google Play Store or iTunes store).

01 Explore our Navigators Gallery. To find out

more about an object, simply click on the collection items in the tray at the bottom of the screen or hover your mouse over the item to select it (as seen with the globe in this example). Image courtesy Google Cultural Institute

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You can now virtually sightsee the museum’s permanent galleries and several of our historic vessels through Google Street View on the Arts and Culture platform or Google maps.

The Google team captured more than 500 panoramas of our galleries and precinct. This high-resolution imagery has been seamlessly stitched together to guide you through the museum.

You can spend an afternoon virtually walking through our galleries and casually reading the object labels … from the comfort of your favourite smart device. Our Navigators and former Watermarks galleries, in particular, have many treasures waiting to be discovered.

HMB Endeavour, HMAS Vampire, HMAS Advance and HMAS Onslow were also captured for Street View – digitising heritage vessels while they were in the water was a world first for Google. Indeed, the slight but constant rocking of the vessels (especially HMB Endeavour) proved a challenge for the Google team when capturing the imagery.

02

The Art Camera was developed by Google to capture the beauty and power of art in very fine detail. The camera captures a gigapixel image of the artwork, providing detail greater than can be seen when standing in front of the work.

The Art Camera allows you to see every brush stroke, crack in the paint and smudge by the artist’s hand – with incredible clarity. We have launched more than 25 new Art Camera objects on our online collection. These include traditional oil paintings of tall ships, contemporary Indigenous Saltwater Barks, modern landscapes and early charts of the Australian coastline.

We’re also proud to announce our first Google Expedition.

Expeditions is a Virtual Reality (VR) guided tour. Teachers and students download the Expeditions app (via the Google Play Store or iTunes) on to a smart device and then take a virtual excursion using 360 imagery and/or Google Cardboard VR. For HMAS Vampire, teachers access questions, notes and a tour of the destroyer, covering what shipboard life was like for the crew. Students are guided through the ship by their teachers in less than an hour. This is a fantastic initiative for students who can’t physically visit Vampire, and it is accessible worldwide.

Google is constantly expanding its digital cultural programs and the museum hopes to develop VR audio exhibitions of several collection objects in the near future. Stay tuned!

Kate Pentecost for the Digital team

02 Virtual excursions to HMAS Vampire are

possible with Google’s Cardboard interface.

ANMM image

SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > THE STORE

SEE WHAT’S IN STORE THE COMPLETE POMPEII An up-to-date, authoritative and comprehensive account of the rise, splendour and fall of this most famous of archaeological sites.

$49.95 / $44.96 Members

FROM GREAT DEPTHS: THE WRECK OF HMAS SYDNEY (II) AND HSK KORMORAN Stunning underwater photography and fascinating new discoveries of ill-fated WWII rivals HMAS Sydney (II) and HSK Kormoran.

$70.00 / $63.00 Members SUNKEN CITIES: EGYPT’S LOST WORLDS Explores the submerged remains of the ancient Egyptian cities Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, which sank over 1,000 years ago and were dramatically rediscovered in the 20th century.

$55.00 / $49.50 Members

ROMAN COIN BRACELET Includes coins featuring images of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon; Tyche, the goddess of fortune; and Roman emperor Hadrian.

Pewter with antique silver finish. Toggle and bar closure.

$99.95 / $89.96 Members ROMAN AMETHYST NECKLACE A beautiful Roman replica amethyst necklace with peridot, pewter chain and goldfinish findings. Lobster-claw closure.

$199.95 / $179.96 Members

VESUVIUS: THE MOST FAMOUS VOLCANO IN THE WORLD Looming over the Bay of Naples is Vesuvius, infamous for its cataclysmic destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD.

$29.95 / $26.96 Members

MANTEL CLOCK Break-arch mantel clock with attractive oak finish. Features rotating pendulum and hourly Westminster chime.

PEARLS This lavishly illustrated book presents these gems in all their natural lustre and discusses their social and artistic value.

$450.00 / $405.00 Members

$69.95 / $62.96 Members

Shop online at store.anmm.gov.au 9.30 am–5 pm 7 days a week | 02 9298 3698 store.anmm.gov.au | Members’ discounts

Books DVDs & CDs Brassware Models Gifts Prints Posters Toys Shirts Hats Scarves Souvenirs

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 118 > ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements The Australian National Maritime Museum acknowledges the support provided to the museum by all our volunteers, members, sponsors, donors and friends.

The museum particularly acknowledges the following people who have made a significant contribution to the museum in an enduring way or who have made or facilitated significant benefaction to it.

Honorary Fellow RADM Andrew Robertson AO DSC RAN (Rtd) Honorary Life Members Robert Albert AO RFD RD Vivian Balmer Vice Admiral Tim Barrett AO AM CSC Maria Bentley Mark Bethwaite AM Paul Binsted Marcus Blackmore AM John Blanchfield Alex Books Ian Bowie Ron Brown OAM Paul Bruce Anthony Buckley Richard Bunting Capt Richard Burgess AM Kevin Byrne Cecilia Caffrey Sue Calwell RADM David Campbell AM Marion Carter Victor Chiang Robert Clifford AO Hon Peter Collins AM QC John Coombs Kay Cottee AO Helen Coulson OAM CMDR Russell Crane AO AM CSM RAN John Cunneen Laurie Dilks Anthony Duignan Leonard Ely Kevin Fewster AM Bernard Flack Daina Fletcher Sally Fletcher CDR Geoff Geraghty AM Tony Gibbs Hon Brian Gibson AM RADM Stephen Gilmore AM CSC RAN Paul Gorrick Lee Graham Macklan Gridley Sir James Hardy KBE OBE RADM Simon Harrington AM Gaye Hart AM Peter Harvie Janita Hercus Philip Hercus AM Anders Hillerstrom

Robyn Holt William Hopkins Julia Horne RADM Tony Hunt AO Marilyn Jenner John Jeremy AM Vice Admiral Peter Jones AO AM DSC Hon Dr Tricia Kavanagh John Keelty Ian Kiernan AM AO Kris Klugman OAM Jean Lane Judy Lee Keith Leleu OAM Andrew Lishmund James Litten Tim Lloyd Ian Mackinder Casimiro Mattea Jack McBurney Bruce McDonald AM Arthur Moss Patrick Moss Rob Mundle OAM Martin Nakata David O’Connor Gary Paquet Prof John Penrose AM Neville Perry Hon Justice Anthe Philippides Peter Pigott AM RADM Neil Ralph Eda Ritchie AM RADM Andrew Robertson AO DSC RAN (Ret) John Rothwell AO Kay Saunders AM His Excellency the Hon Kevin Scarce AC AO AM CSC RAN David Scott-Smith Sergio Sergi Mervyn Sheehan Ann Sherry AO John Simpson Shane Simpson AM His Excellency the Hon Peter R Sinclair AC AO KStJ (RADM) Peter John Sinclair AM CSC John Singleton AM Brian Skingsley Eva Skira Bruce Stannard AM J J Stephens OAM Michael Stevens Neville Stevens AO Dr Andrew Sutherland AM Hiroshi Tachibana Frank Talbot AM Mitchell Turner Adam Watson Jeanette Wheildon Mary-Louise Williams AM Nerolie Withnall Founding Members Chad Bull Janette Biber Bruce Webster Margaret Molloy Kaye Weaver David Leigh Yvonne Abadee

Maria Tzannes George Fehrenbach Derek Freeman Alan Stennett Rob Hall Ivor MacDonald Nancy Somerville Ross Wilson Marcia Bass Christopher Harry Malcolm Horsfall Virginia Noel Dennis Rose John Lynch Barry Pemberton John Butler Judy Bayles Allaster McDougall Sybil Jack-Unger Richard Newton James Downie Glenn and Sue Yates Neville Sully John Seymour Peter Magraith Judy Finlason Cliff Emerson David Toyne Kenneth Grundy Geoff Tonkin David Voce David Waghorn and Helen Nickson Vincent Favaloro Colin Randall Denise Taylor Joan and Robert Killingsworth Ian Peters Robert Heussler Dean Claflin Harry Wark John Hamilton Kenneth Swan Mark Latchford James Hawkins Ross and Valda Muller Joyce Groves Lyndyl Beard Walter Pywell John and Marlene Vaughan Peter Wilson Marion Carter and Donald A Finlayson Angela and Teresa Giannandrea Fairlie Clifton Richard and Margaret McMillan Timothy Lewis Maxwell Beever Paul Joyce Petra Blumkaitis and Paul Wahltuch David Robinson Paul Cavanagh Robert and Mary Dick Michael Stacey Peter and Jan Scutts Peter Rowse John Hoey Ronald McJannett John Swanson Herbert White John O’Toole Robert Newell

Tim and Kathe Swales Peter Harvey Andrew Kerr Ronald and Toni White Michael Connor Len Watson Pamela Lowbridge John Carter Paul Richardson Peter O’Hare Stephen Dowsett Simon Barker Bruce Watson Steven White John Bach Bill and Eugenie Forbes Geoffrey Winter Michael and Evelina O’Leary Colin Delaney Mitchell White and Suzanne Peel Adrian Lane Halcyon Evans Bill Fenwick Stephen Smith David Cunningham Peter Inchbold Jean Morgan John Egan Barry Allison Walter Bateman Peter Siebert Michael Turner Stuart Ridland David Nutley Anthony and Katy Palmer Mark Johnson and Lyn Ashby James Littlefield Hilda Farquhar-Smith Robert Holman Bruce Small Garry Kerr William Bixley Derrick Heywood Peter Anderson Neville Rothfield John Brock Graeme Broxam Fred Cory Michael Dowsett Maxwell Surman-Smith Campbell Edmondson Paul Lincoln Tempe Merewether Sydney Jones Stephanie Ross Robert Murphy Derek Moore Anne Liddy Nigel Stoke Alan Ward Philip and Jennifer Andrew Peter Cramer Jeffery Coleman and Lindsey Marwood Allan Bridekirk Bruce and Robyn Tolhurst Chris Clark John and Cecily Ristuccia Andrew Johnston Phillip Good Dawn Springett Greg Swinden Ron and Helen Scobie

Edwina Gowans Murray Doyle Adrian and Glenda Hutchings Peter Gill Ian Robinson Trevor Thomas Jeffrey Mellefont Neville Marshall Bob Walton Peter Bailey Andrew St John-Brown Ann Parry Gary Wilson Kevin Murphy Richard and Christine Diaz Robert and Lynette Schaverien Richard Gardner Rosemary Mahon Daniel and Rosemary Howard Lindsay Rex Valerie Packer Angus Caporn Tom Fawcett Patrick Cooney and Madeleine Degnam Craig Webb William Abbott Neil Brough Susan Tompkins Michael Wise Ann Campbell Ken Woolfe Sarah Marang Chris Mitchell Rob Landis Lloyd Seaforth Poulton and Joan Poulton Margaret White Maxwell Bryan Peter Campbell Peter Cumes Len & Marion Graff Alan Brown Gregory MacMahon Cheryl Manns and Robert Scott Vicky Bourne John Inglis OAM Kenneth Edwards Stephen Robinson Margaret Arthur John Clifton Johan Brinch John Duncan Garry and Janice Sherwood Julie Armour Dawn and Ron Bradner Alexander Bradner Owen Summers Warwick Birrell Jack McBurney Brian and Judith Skingsley Marcus Blackmore AM Anthony Duignan Helen Kenny Honorary Research Associates Lindsey Shaw Jeffrey Mellefont Paul Hundley Rear Admiral Peter Briggs Ian MacLeod

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SIGNALS Signals ISSN 1033-4688 Editor Janine Flew Staff photographer Andrew Frolows Design & production Austen Kaupe Printed in Australia by Pegasus Print Group Material from Signals may be reproduced, but only with the editor’s permission.

Editorial and advertising enquiries signals@anmm.gov.au Deadline mid-January, April, July, October for issues March, June, September, December Signals is online Search all issues up to 109 (December 2014) at anmm.gov.au/signals. Issues 110 onwards available via the App Store Signals back issues Back issues $4 each or 10 for $30 Extra copies of current issue $4.95 Call The Store 02 9298 3698 Digital Signals Available on iPad from the App Store.

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All editions are free to Members – contact members@anmm.gov.au for your coupon code Australian National Maritime Museum Open daily except Christmas Day 9.30 am to 5 pm (6 pm in January) 2 Murray Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia.

Phone 02 9298 3777. The Australian National Maritime Museum is a statutory authority of the Australian Government.

Become a museum Member Benefits include four issues of Signals per year; free museum entry; discounts on events and purchases; and more. See anmm.gov.au or phone 02 9298 3646. Corporate memberships also available.

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ANMM Council Chairman Mr Peter Dexter am faicd Director and CEO Mr Kevin Sumption Councillors The Hon Ian Campbell The Hon Peter Collins am qc Prof Sarah Derrington Ms Maria Teresia Fors Rear Admiral Stuart Mayer csc and Bar Mr John Mullen The Hon Margaret White ao Foundation partner ANZ Major partners Austal Nine Entertainment Returned and Services League of Australia (Queensland Branch) Partners AccorHotels’ Darling Harbour Hotels AMSA APN Outdoor City of Sydney CoAsIt Contemporanea Progetti Expona Foxtel History Channel IAS Fine Art Logistics Institute of Italian Culture Italian Chamber of Commerce Italian Consul-General La Fiamma Laissez-Faire Royal Wolf Holdings Ltd Singapore Airlines Sydney by Sail Pty Ltd Total E & P

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