Signals, issue 122 by Australian National Maritime Museum

SIGNALS quarterly NUMBER 122 MARCH • APRIL • MAY 2018

AE1 FOUND

Navy’s greatest mystery solved

TRAVELLING OUR WATERS

Indigenous watercraft symposium

SUBMERGED

Shipwreck exhibition goes on the road

ANMM.GOV.AU $9.95

Contents AUTUMN 2018

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.

Cover: The first sighting of AE1 in 103 years – side-scan sonar casts a sonic ‘shadow’ of the wreck. See story on page 6. Image Find the Men of AE1 Ltd

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3 BEARINGS From the director 6 FINDING AE1 The navy’s most baffling mystery is finally solved 17 TRAVELLING OUR WATERS Nawi symposium celebrates traditional Indigenous watercraft and cultures 25 CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL Classic craft and maritime trades back in Darling Harbour in April 28 WHERE THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE The Australian Maritime College establishes a campus at the museum 32 THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE Commemorating 90 years since Sydney Harbour’s worst maritime disaster 38 THE VIRTUAL ENDEAVOUR PROGRAM Technology enables virtual tours of the Endeavour replica 41 CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF KIDS ON DECK Two decades of creative play and discovery learning 47 SUBMERGED How a team of almost 200 people created our newest travelling exhibition 51 HOME IS THE SAILOR, HOME FROM THE SEA Classic yacht Varg contests the 8 Metre world championships in Norway 57 MESSAGE TO MEMBERS AND MEMBERS AUTUMN EVENTS Your calendar of activities, talks, tours and excursions afloat 67 MEMBER PROFILE Lesley and Gerry Smolders: maritime history buffs 70 AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS Wildlife Photographer of the Year; Gapu-Mon_uk; Arctic Voices and more 77 MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA Cockatoo Island: former prison, navy dockyard, World Heritage Site 86 FOUNDATION Seeking your support for SY Ena and MV Krait 93 EDUCATION Student ambassadors forge friendships and promote peace in Hawaii 99 COLLECTIONS Spirituality and the sea: the Mission to Seafarers Collection 103 TALES FROM THE WELCOME WALL Sixty years on, two survivors remember the sinking of the migrant ship Skaubryn 111 READINGS In Search of Fish and Fortune …. ; Exposed: the Dark Side of the America’s Cup 120 CURRENTS Defence minister announces discovery of AE1; we farewell Dr Stavros Kyrimis 122 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We recognise the museum’s principal supporters

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Bearings FROM THE DIRECTOR

THIS WAS THE THIRTEENTH SEARCH in 103 years, but finally Australia’s oldest naval mystery was solved. On 21 December 2017, it was announced to the public that the wreck of Australia’s first submarine, HMAS AE1, had been discovered off the Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea. Because of the generous financial support of the Royal Australian Navy and many Australian companies, the expedition was uniquely equipped with state-of-the art equipment, including a multi-beam echo-sounder, as well as sophisticated autonomous underwater technologies. The speed of discovery of AE1 took us all by surprise. I vividly remember just sitting down at the cinema as I received my first text confirming the search had commenced. Just as the end credits started to roll, I received a second confirming that a wreck at more than 300 metres had been located and identified as being that of AE1. But this is not just a ‘triumph of technology’ story, because without the countless months of planning and searching of the Bismarck and Solomon Seas on

01 Newspaper clipping of a black and white

photographic image of some of the officers and crew of AE1 and AE2, taken at Portsmouth, UK, 1914. From an unidentified newspaper. ANMM Collection Gift from Jennifer Smyth

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the previous expeditions, our search area would have been far too large. So an enormous debt is also owed to those who went before, and in particular RAN Commander John Foster, who in 1976 began his tenacious and dogged search efforts. It was only in October 2017 that this new search team was bought together by Rear Admiral Peter Briggs AO and the Museum’s Foundation Chair, John Mullen. Together both Peter and John have over 80 years’ experience in conceiving and leading complex maritime projects. Peter is arguably Australia’s most accomplished and experienced submariner, having served as Commander and Commanding Officer of HMAS Otway and later HMAS Oxley. Later Peter served as Director of Submarine Warfare Systems, commanded the 02

02 Frederick William Woodland, a member

of the AE1 crew lost when the submarine sank, in Royal Australia Navy uniform, 1914. ANMM Collection ANMS0824[020] Gift from Annie Goldie

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RAN submarine squadron and was also head of the Strategic Command Division. Peter and I first met in 2012 when, as chair of the AE2 Commemoration Foundation, he pushed ahead with the conservation of Australia’s second submarine, HMAS AE2, in the Sea of Marmara. For most of his life John Mullen has had a passion for maritime archaeology and is currently the chair of Australia’s largest communications and network technology company, Telstra. John’s foundation, Silentworld, has supported many of the ANMM’s maritime archaeological expeditions over the last ten years and in January 2009, solved a 180-year-old mystery when the wreck of Phillip Parker King’s survey vessel, HMCS Mermaid, was located by John’s expedition of the Flora Reef. Later that same year John led an expedition that examined the site where Matthew Flinders’ HMS Porpoise and the merchant ship Cato were lost on the evening of 17 August 1803 while carrying Flinders’ precious and as yet unpublished charts, journals and manuscripts of his epic Australian voyages. It’s my belief that ultimately it was the combined vision and leadership of John and Peter that made the crucial difference in this latest search for AE1. It now seems certain that AE1 and its crew of 35 men were lost as a result of a diving accident sometime on 14 September 1914 – a tragedy which was felt at the time by both our nation and our allies. But the finding of AE1 is significant not only because it solves a maritime mystery, but because its location brings some closure to the descendants of the submarine’s crew. In 1914 this was a personal and devastating tragedy felt first and foremost by the Australian, British and New Zealand families of the lost crew. And so it has been one of my great privileges over the last five years to receive the precious donations of mementoes, photographs and medals from descendants of AE1. All together in the national collection, these heirlooms serve as a permanent reminder of the service and sacrifice of loved ones – lest we forget.

Kevin Sumption psmDirector and CEO

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Finding AE1

AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST NAVAL MYSTERY IS SOLVED AT LAST It is more than a century since Australia’s first submarine, AE1, disappeared without trace in the waters off Papua New Guinea. Its fate remained a mystery until late last year, when the most recent of many searches finally found its wreck. ANMM Head of Research Dr Nigel Erskine was there when it happened.

01 01 The helm (steering wheel) on top of the conning tower.

It was attached to the submarine’s forward periscope pedestal. Image Find the Men of AE1 Ltd

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THE NOISE IN THE CORRIDOR outside my cabin wakes me. It’s several hours since I went to bed and it takes a few moments to remember where I am. I flick on the reading light to find my watch. It’s 9.20 pm and while I am initially annoyed at being woken, my brain is now registering that something is happening and that a loud conversation is going on in the corridor. I open the door to discover the cause of the commotion, momentarily surprising fellow expeditioners Paul Hundley (Silentworld Foundation) and James McPherson (Royal Australian Navy) into silence by my appearance (squinting in the bright corridor light) and my question – ‘What’s happening?’ ‘They’ve found something promising on the first AUV run! The Fugro guys are just trying to improve the image in the processing room but they think it’s the submarine.’ Now fully awake, I scramble to find some clothes and make my way down two decks to the data processing room. Under normal conditions it’s a generous space, but is crowded now with expeditioners, technicians and some off-duty crew members. The technicians look tired but, like everyone in the room, they are smiling broadly. A moment later I am looking at the image on the computer monitor that has caused such excitement. Equipped with side-scan sonar, the AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) travels at about three knots along a pre-programmed search line, maintaining a safe height above the seabed. As the name suggests, side-scan technology pulses sonic waves laterally from an underwater transmitter that is either towed behind a vessel or, as in this case, ‘flying’ free of the support vessel. As sound waves travelling out from the transmitter strike the sea bed, they are reflected back, gradually building a picture of the underwater terrain with all its features. Imagine a beam of light shining sideways on a rock at night. One side of the rock will be brightly lit, while the other remains in deep shadow. That is what the side-scan image looks like and, depending upon the height of the object off the seabed, it will cast an indicative shadow. Relatively flat objects (or sites) produce small shadows; objects of significant height produce broader shadows. Looking at the processed image from the day’s AUV run there could be little doubt that, more than 100 years after its disappearance in the first stages of World War I, we have found the wreck of Australia’s first submarine, HMAS AE1!

Something is happening and a loud conversation is going on in the corridor

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Background AE1 and its sister submarine AE2 were built by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness, England, for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and launched in 1913. At the time, E-class submarines represented the latest technological development in submarine design. Fitted with forward, aft and side torpedo tubes, the Australian submarines carried eight torpedos and could run at 15 knots (28 km/h) surfaced using their diesel motors, or nine knots (16.5 km/h) submerged using their electric motors. Although they were larger than earlier classes of submarines, accommodation for the crews on the 54-metre boats was cramped. AE1 carried a crew of 35 when it disappeared without trace on 14 September 1914. Leaving England in March 1914 for the long voyage to Australia, the two submarines were escorted by HMS Eclipse as far as Singapore, transiting via Malta, the Suez Canal, Aden and Colombo. HMAS Sydney (1) took over from HMS Eclipse at Singapore for the final leg to Sydney, where they arrived on 24 May 1914. All told, AE1 and AE2 had sailed 13,000 miles (24,000 kilometres) in 60 days. While they were towed by their escort for some of this distance, they operated under their own power for around 9,000 nautical miles (16,600 km). The gruelling voyage broke all records for submarine voyaging and must have sorely tested the crews of Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Australian Navy personnel. At the time of its disappearance AE1â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crew consisted of 24 British sailors, 10 Australians and one New Zealander.

02 The last known photograph of AE1,

taken on 9 September 1914, five days before its disappearance. Image Sea Power Centre Australia

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With the addition of the new submarines, the Australian fleet comprised the battle cruiser HMAS Australia, light cruisers Sydney, Melbourne and Encounter, small cruiser Pioneer, and destroyers Parramatta, Yarra and Warrego, as well as older vessels of the former colonial navies. With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, and following a refit in dry dock at Sydney’s Cockatoo Island, AE1 and AE2 were sent as part of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) to try to neutralise the German presence in New Guinea and to destroy wireless communication stations. Germany had annexed north-eastern New Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelmsland) and the Bismark Archipelago (New Britain and New Ireland) in 1884, and the Marshall Islands and northern Solomon Islands a year later. The German administrative capital was Rabaul, and German interests in the Pacific were supported by the German Pacific squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee. In September 1914, AE1 and AE2 were part of the naval force under Rear Admiral Sir George Patey aboard HMAS Australia, supporting the ANMEF landings on 11 September that resulted in destroying German communications, with the formal surrender of Rabaul two days later. The whereabouts of the German Pacific squadron at that time were unknown and, with the possibility that von Spee’s ships could attempt a surprise attack, vessels from the Australian fleet were ordered to patrol St George’s Channel (between New Ireland and New Britain) to control access to Rabaul. It was while on this duty with its escort vessel HMAS Parramatta that AE1 disappeared, on 14 September 1914. Despite extensive searches during that night and over subsequent days, no trace of the Australian submarine was found – leaving Commander Henry Stoker (in charge of AE2) to conclude that the submarine had probably suffered an accident during diving: The sinking submarine would slip away down into the vast depths existing in those parts, rapidly filling as the increasing pressure of water outside forced its way through the hull, bringing a quick and clean death to the crew, whose end might well have come before their steel tomb had reached the ocean’s bed – there to rest undisturbed by man and his investigation. Henry Stoker, National Archives of Australia MP 472/1 With its disappearance, AE1 became the first RAN vessel lost in World War I.

The success of the 2017 expedition owes a great deal to advances in deep-water search technology

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Missing in action The men who disappeared with the submarine were: Officers Lieutenant-Commander Thomas F Besant Lieutenant Charles L Moore Lieutenant The Hon Leopold F Scarlett Petty officers and men Joseph W Wilson, Chief Engine Room Artificer 2nd class Thomas F Lowe, Chief Engine Room Artificer 2nd class John A Marsland, Chief Engine Room Artificer 2nd class James A Fettes, Engine Room Artificer 3rd class John Messenger, Engine Room Artificer 3rd class Harry Stretch, Chief Stoker Robert Smail, Petty Officer Henry Hodge, Petty Officer William Tribe, Petty Officer Thomas M Guilbert, Petty Officer John J Maloney, Stoker Petty Officer Charles F Wright, Stoker Petty Officer William A Waddilove, Stoker Petty Officer

Gordon C Corbould, Leading Seaman Sidney C Barton, Leading Stoker John Meek, Leading Stoker William E Guy, Leading Stoker John Reardon, Able Seaman Frederick W Woodland, Able Seaman Jack Jarman, Able Seaman James B Thomas, Able Seaman Arthur H Fisher, Able Seaman Frederick G Dennis, Able Seaman George Hodgkin, Able Seaman Percy L Wilson, Stoker John J Bray, Stoker Ernest Blake, Stoker Richard B Holt, Stoker James Guild, Stoker Henry J Gough, Stoker George Dance, Signalman Cyril L Baker, Telegraphist

03 Studio portrait of Able Seaman

Jack Jarman and a young woman, believed to be his sister. Jarman joined the crew of AE1 in February 1914. He was 21 years of age when it disappeared. Image Australian War Memorial P09222.001

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The project team It’s a sobering moment, looking at the grainy side-scan image of AE1 lying deep on the floor beneath our vessel Fugro Equator and remembering that this is the last resting place of 35 men. I can see that other members of the Find AE1 team in the processing room are similarly affected. The core of the team are all ex-submariners who – although serving in much later submarines – share a common camaraderie and experience that link them closely to the men of AE1. Project leader Peter Briggs (RADM RAN Rtd) served 40 years in the RAN (13 of those in submarines) commanding Oberon class submarines Otway and Oxley, then going on to command the RAN’s submarine squadron before becoming successively Head of Strategic Command, Head of Submarine Capability and Head of Systems Acquisition (Submarines). Roger Turner (Captain RN Rtd) served 30 years in the Royal Navy. A qualified nuclear power plant operator, he held senior marine engineering posts at sea in a range of classes of submarine and in support positions ashore. Both his father (Lt Cdr Tony Turner) and uncle (Lt Cdr Hugh B Turner DSC) served in the RN – the latter a submarine commander who died during World War II when his vessel, HMS Porpoise, was lost with all hands after a minelaying patrol off the British colony of Penang.

04 The expedition team on the aft deck of Fugro

Equator. Image Find the Men of AE1 Ltd

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Gus Mellon served in the Royal Australian Navy for 24 years, 18 of them spent in the submarine service. Joining in 1977, he served in Oberon class submarines, reaching the rank of Chief Engine Room Artificer. Commissioned in 1987, he later served as Marine Engineering Officer in HMAS Ovens. His last posting in the RAN was as Staff Officer – Submarine Escape and Rescue, at Navy Office, Canberra, during the lead-up to the sea trials for HMAS Collins. The combined knowledge of Peter, Roger and Gus on board Fugro Equator provided ‘real time’ initial analysis of the remains of AE1 as we received better imagery of the submarine from the AUV’s next mission and later when the drop camera was sent down, but they are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of submariners behind this latest effort to find AE1. Backing up the on-board effort is a much broader group of submariners and other professionals representing the Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA), Silentworld Foundation, Royal Australian Navy, ANMM’s Foundation, conservation and heritage experts, representatives of AE1 descendant groups – and of course the all-important sponsors who have provided financial support for the search. 05

The technicians look tired but, like everyone in the room, they are smiling broadly

05 The search expedition’s ship,

MV Fugro Equator.

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The 2017 search for AE1 is also based on the efforts of previous AE1 searches and the expertise gained from the AE2 project in Turkey, as well as the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean. In the forefront of earlier searches was Commander John Foster RAN. After first becoming interested in the story of AE1 while serving as Assistant Defence AttachĂŠ in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in the 1970s. Commander Foster led and actively promoted searches for the submarine over the next 30 years and formed the AE1 Association â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the forerunner of Find AE1 Inc. Commander Foster died in 2010, but the success of the 2017 expedition owes an enormous amount to him.

The technology Unsurprisingly, the success of the 2017 AE1 expedition also owes a great deal to advances in deep-water search technology. Our search vessel, the 66-metre Fugro Equator, is a dedicated survey vessel deploying a Hugin 3000 AUV capable of operating in depths up to 3,000 metres. The ship was one of three survey vessels contracted to search sections of the Indian Ocean for Malaysian Airlines MH370, which disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board. Over a period of 21 months the ship searched more than 50,000 square kilometres of the seafloor, operating in extreme weather. While not finding any sign of the missing aircraft, that sector of the Indian Ocean search area can now be ruled out in the search for MH370. Thankfully, conditions in the AE1 search area are very different, and are ideal for lowering the drop camera to capture close-up imagery of AE1 in the next phase of the operation. Unlike conventional ships that use fixed propellers, Fugro Equator is powered by two rudder propeller, providing great manoeuvrability. It also has a bow thruster that controls lateral

06 After the initial scan was processed

and the wreck tentatively identified as AE1, a drop camera was deployed to take close-up images. 07 The Hugin 3000 AUV being prepared for

deployment.

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movement of the forward end of the ship. With these propulsion systems linked to the ship’s dynamic positioning system, the vessel can maintain its position with an incredible accuracy of less than 10 centimetres. The drop camera has a depth rating of 3,000 metres and is fitted with still and video cameras and high-powered LED lamps to enhance visibility. Connected to the ship via a cable, and incorporating twin fins for directional control, the drop camera will transmit the first new images of AE1 in 103 years directly to the processing room. Everyone is excited by the prospect, and the number of people joining the technicians grows steadily as the drop camera is lowered. It’s a long way down and the agonisingly slow descent has everyone on edge as the minutes pass and the live camera feeds a uniform hazy green blur, until the sudden appearance of a fish signals that we are getting close to the submarine. Moments later there are more fish and then, gradually, a recognisable shape of one of AE1’s hydroplanes comes into shot. It takes a moment to figure out which end of the submarine we are looking at before Peter Briggs begins to direct operations. In communication with the bridge, technicians in the processing room relay Peter’s orders – ‘Half a metre to starboard’; ‘One metre forward’; ‘Lower the camera half a metre’ – and we gradually move along the submarine’s hull, excited by the clarity of the pictures as more-recognisable features come into view.

After several hours the drop camera survey was finally completed and the room erupted in spontaneous applause

08 The expedition team in the drop camera

control room. Above images Bayden Findlay

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Up to this point the team had been unwilling to officially confirm the discovery, but any lingering doubts about the vessel’s identity were now completely removed by the stunning pictures of the submarine’s fin, with the bridge helm and forward periscope clearly visible. After several hours the drop camera survey was finally completed and the room erupted in spontaneous applause. With the identity now confirmed, official news of the discovery was passed to the Royal Australian Navy for communication to various descendants of AE1’s crew, followed by an official announcement by the Minister for Defence – setting off a media frenzy.

Any lingering doubts about the vessel’s identity were now removed

One last task remained to complete the survey. Once again the AUV was launched, this time programmed to make multiple low-level passes along the submarine to create a complete photomosaic of the site. The results of this last AUV mission provided a stunning overall picture of AE1 and formed the basis for detailed analysis of the damage and its likely causes.

09 Part of the hull, showing extensive corrosion

subsequent to wrecking. Image Find the Men of AE1 Ltd

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Later that day the AE1 team, Fugro technicians and others who had collaborated so successfully in finding the submarine came together on the shipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foredeck for a short ceremony to remember the 35 men who died aboard AE1 on 14 September 1914. In light of the images we had all been viewing, the first stanza of the naval ode was especially poignant: They have no grave but the cruel sea No flowers lay at their head A rusting hulk is their tombstone Afast on the ocean bed.

On June 22 and 23 the ANMM will hold The Archaeology of War, a two-day conference exploring the importance of archaeology in the investigation of past conflicts, how this has been affected by technological advances and what role archaeology might play in public remembrance. See anmm.gov.au/whats-on/events for more details and a call for papers. 10 A composite image of the wreck of

AE1, comprising thousands of individual photographs, juxtaposed with plan and elevation drawings of the vessel. Images Find the Men of AE1 Ltd

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Travelling our waters

THE 2017 NAWI SYMPOSIUM CELEBRATES INDIGENOUS WATERCRAFT AND CULTURE

On 9 November the museum hosted the 2017 Nawi Symposium, ‘Travelling our Waters,’ focusing on Indigenous watercraft, stories and saltwater and freshwater cultures. This followed on from the ground-breaking first Nawi Conference, ‘Exploring Australian Indigenous Watercraft’, held at the museum in 2012. By Indigenous Programs Unit staff Helen Anu and Beau James.

01 01 Nawi speakers and delegates gather by the nearly

completed tied-stringybark canoe while its makers from the Lake Macquarie community apply the finishing touches. Image Beau James/ANMM

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THE 2017 NAWI SYMPOSIUM brought together more than 70 traditional owners, community members, supporters and researchers from across the country to extend the foundations laid five years ago. This symposium took a wider view, looking not only at traditional watercraft but also delving into broader themes of sea rights, public art projects and youth engagement. The full-day symposium and onsite displays, demonstrations and exhibits explored fundamental themes celebrating the intrinsic connection that Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders have with both saltwater and freshwater. For thousands of years our people regulated the waterways of this land, we paddled, sailed and travelled on inland creeks and rivers from the mountains to the sea … For thousands of generations … Shane Phillips, Nawi 2017 patron

More than 230 people attended the opening event of the symposium, held the evening before to coincide with the opening of Gapu-Mon _ uk Saltwater – Journey to Sea Country. This exhibition acknowledges the significant story of the Yolŋu people of north-east Arnhem Land and their fight for recognition of Indigenous sea rights through the Blue Mud Bay legal case. Eleven Yolŋu dancers travelled from the Blue Mud Bay region to perform their ceremonial dances and songs and to open the exhibition, which tells the ancestral creation stories of their waters and land. This stunning visual display spoke directly of their connection to sea country estates and the sea rights case of the Yolŋu people. Djambawa Marawili AM, ceremonial leader of the Madarrpa clan of north-east Arnhem Land, and a lead plaintiff in the Blue Mud Bay case, provided the opening address, highlighting the inseparable connection of freshwater and saltwater to the Yolŋu and the importance of this landmark legal case to Australia’s history. It is time for non-Aboriginal people to learn about this land, learn about the waters. So if we are living the way of reconciliation, you must learn about native title and sea right. Djambawa Marawili AM

Speakers investigated the difficulties faced by traditional owners in obtaining recognition of traditional water rights via the Western legal system 02 Djambawa Marawili AM, ceremonial leader of

the Madarrpa clan of north-east Arnhem Land and a lead plaintiff in the Blue Mud Bay case. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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The following morning the symposium began with a cultural welcome by Jannawi Dance Clan, an ensemble of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers, songman Matthew Doyle and yidaki (didgeridoo) player Brock Tutt. This ceremony acknowledged the traditional owners and spirit of the ancestors of the Gadigal clan of the Eora nation, who are the traditional custodians of the bamal (land) and badu (waters) where this significant gathering was taking place.

Throughout the symposium, the spotlight shone brightly on youth

Canoes, art and commemoration The first session led with a talk by Mariko Smith, ‘Vessels of culture, identity, and knowledge’, which explored Indigenous cultural resurgence through Aboriginal tied-bark canoemaking. She focused on the types and distribution of watercraft traditional to Australia’s south-eastern seaboard, where, she said, ‘colonisation and urbanisation had impacted heavily on Aboriginal peoples’ practice of their culture and responsibilities to their country’. The tied-bark canoe has been ‘transformed from its original purpose as a utilitarian object for transportation and fishing,’ she noted, ‘to something that resonates with today’s communities as a representation of the ongoing survival of Indigenous practice-based learning, which deeply connects Aboriginal peoples to country and culture, informing strong contemporary Koori identities and ways of knowing’.

03 Jannawi dancers perform in the museum

foyer as part of the symposium’s opening ceremony. The dancers used woven fishing nets and spears to enact stories of their traditional fishing practices. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Presenters also came from Erub (Darnley Island) in Torres Strait, 160 kilometres north-east of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula. One of the most remote communities in Australia, it is home to some 400 people. Jimmy Thaiday and Lynette Griffiths from Erub Arts spoke about the island’s revitalisation of traditional stories and practices by repurposing an environmental problem known as ‘ghost nets’ – marine debris discarded from commercial fishing vessels, which affects their island’s waterways and sea life. The artists’ cultural narratives are incorporated into the works, which have created a sustainable and economic success for the community and have also been exhibited nationally and overseas. In 2017 the ANMM acquired Emeret Nar, a life-sized outrigger canoe made from ghost nets. Its construction was based on research into historical sketches, such as those of Owen Stanley, a British ship’s captain who visited the region in the 1840s in HMS Rattlesnake. The session closed with a moving presentation by Uncle Peter Smith and Uncle Bill Leigh about the efforts of the Aboriginal community in Gundagai, New South Wales, to launch a public art sculpture in time to commemorate the 165th anniversary of the 1852 Great Flood of the Murrumbidgee River. This flood killed at least 78 people – a third of the town’s population – but more than 40 people were rescued by local Aboriginal men Yarri and Jacky in their bark canoe. After many years of planning and fundraising, a sculpture by renowned Melbourne artist Darien Pullen from the Meridian Sculpture Foundry was unveiled in June 2017. This powerful figurative work, telling the little-known story of the two heroic rescuers and their canoe, now takes pride of place in the main street of Gundagai. Interpretive panels installed beside the sculpture complete this tribute to two brave and skilful men and their part in Australian history.

Inspiring young leaders from all over the country shared their voices and their knowledge of their communities’ diverse traditional watercraft

Recognition of Yarri and Jacky has been a long time coming. Their story is not widely known, and in 2016 the Brungle–Tumut Local Aboriginal Land Council applied to have them honoured with posthumous bravery awards. The application was rejected, and the land council is now organising a petition to bolster support for another application.

Building knowledge The symposium’s second session, ‘Building knowledge’, focused on Indigenous youth engagement. Inspiring young leaders from all over the country shared knowledge of their communities’ diverse traditional watercraft. Delegates also heard from Aboriginal cultural ambassador Dean Kelly and ANMM staff members David Payne and Beau James, who have worked in partnership across many projects that engage young people in traditional Indigenous canoe-building.

04 Speaker Mariko Smith from Sydney.

Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Tazmyne Luschwitz from the Hunter Region of New South Wales represented female youth at the symposium. Tazmyne shared her experiences of developing her major work, ‘Retaining Culture by the Lake’, for her Year 12 Aboriginal Studies course. This explored the history of traditional Aboriginal watercraft of Lake Macquarie. Tazmyne consulted with elders and the community to obtain information on contemporary culture, how canoes in the area are made today, and the significance of these ongoing traditional practices as a major part of cultural revival. Junior and secondary boys from Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, travelled from their remote community to share their unique story. They also showed a short film they had produced, which followed them as they built an impressive traditional hardwood dugout outrigger canoe. Stages in the construction included identifying the tree, planning and designing the build of the outrigger, then testing it on the water. The school project formed part of their curriculum and their presentation was supported on the day by the school’s head of department, Aaron McMahon. Throughout the symposium, the spotlight shone brightly on youth. Media supporter NITV streamed the youth session live via social media, and by its end the session had attracted more than 15,000 viewers from across the globe. This showed the interest in Australian Indigenous watercraft and validated the voice of the young people, who demonstrated that these cultural practices have not died out. The youths themselves are the living example of that unbroken continuation as the future knowledge keepers. The Indigenous people are the key to understanding how to approach life on this continent. Watch, listen, hear, understand. Social media comment During lunch a variety of programming was on offer both inside and outside the museum for delegates and the general public to enjoy. A hanging display in the foyer featured three Indigenous watercraft from across the nation, all made by their respective community groups – a nawi (tied-stringybark canoe) from Sydney, a ningher (bark and rolled reed canoe) from Tasmania, and a gaalwa (double raft) from Ardyaloon (One Arm Point) on the northern tip of the Dampier Peninsula region of Western Australia. Aboriginal speakers from each of these regions attended the symposium. A highlight included Sheldon Thomas from Tasmania speaking about his experience of making more than 1,000 canoes and teaching the traditional technique in schools and prisons where, he said, it was the best way to highlight the

Indigenous watercraft Each Indigenous language has different words to represent watercraft specific to particular areas. Examples include: durrka – canoe, Central Arnhem Land, NT gaalwa – raft, Kimberley, WA gul – outrigger, Western Torres Strait gun’doo – canoe, Sunshine Coast, QLD guuyang banya – tied-bark canoe, mid-north coast, NSW lipalipa – dugout, Arnhem Land, NT nawi – tied-stringybark canoe, Sydney, NSW ningher – paperbark and reed canoe, TAS pao – large canoe, eastern Torres Strait rra–kalwanyimara – dugout canoe, Borroloola, NT sirib sirib na – small canoe, Mer, Eastern Torres Strait tuylini – stringybark canoe, TAS walpa – raft, Mornington Island, Gulf of Carpentaria yuki – single bark canoe, lower Murray River, SA 05 Tasmanian ningher canoe made

of rolled bark, reeds and string. Image Sheldon Thomas

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > TRAVELLING OUR WATERS

Artists from Erub (Darnley Island) have revitalised the island’s traditional stories and practices by repurposing an environmental problem known as ‘ghost nets’

values of Aboriginal culture. Sheldon shared the 42,000-yearold technique of using only stringybark, cork weed and cutting grass to make his ningher canoes. Frank Davey and Russell ‘Wossey’ Davey from Ardyaloon spoke of their involvement with the Bardi Jawi Gaalwa Project of the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. This produced the gaalwa that until recently was on display in the museum’s foyer. They described the tradition of making their unique gaalwa from mangrove poles and the ingenuity of the double raft, which comprises the joonyjol (bow section) and nirrongorrol (stern section). The men were part of the Bardi Jawi Dance Group who took their gaalwa to Guam in 2016, where it was a part of the Traditional Seafarers Gathering of traditional paddlers and voyagers for the welcoming ceremony of the 12th Festival of the Pacific Arts. ‘Our Languages Matter’, the 2017 NAIDOC Theme graphic exhibition in the Tasman Light Gallery, was on display during the symposium. It revealed more than 20 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names for diverse watercraft, accompanying a map by Curator of Historic Vessels, David Payne, showing the distribution of Australia’s Indigenous watercraft. Short films were screened in a pop-up gallery, showing the making of Indigenous watercraft from New South Wales and the Northern Territory. Outside the museum, a key attraction was the construction of a tied-bark canoe by Mylaa Buuranliyn (Black Cockatoo Dreaming), with community members from the Lake Macquarie region of New South Wales.

06 Bardi dancers on their gaalwa double

raft in the Bay of Hagatna, Guam, 2016. Image Wayne Quilliam

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > TRAVELLING OUR WATERS

More than 40 people were rescued from the 1852 Gundagai flood by local Aboriginal men Yarri and Jacky in their bark canoe

History, culture and sea rights The themes of the afternoon session were ‘History, culture and recent sea rights campaigns’. Speakers investigated the difficulties faced by traditional owners in obtaining recognition of traditional water rights via the Western legal system. Extending the morning session’s discussion of sea rights by Djambawa Marawili am, Lauren Butterly, a law lecturer at the University of New South Wales, spoke about the development of the Northern Territory land rights legislation, and how Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s original concept in the 1970s recognised sea rights, but the legislation passed in 1976 by the Federal Parliament under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser did not contain this provision. Michael Bennet has worked as Senior Historian at the Native Title Services Corporation (NTSCORP) since 2002, preparing expert historical reports for native title claims in New South Wales. He recently wrote a report assessing the strength of the Yaegl people’s link to their sea country in the north of the state. He offered insight into the recent decisions of the Yaegl Native Title and spoke of cases unresolved and those currently lodged. Dr Fred Cahir, Associate Professor of Aboriginal Studies at Federation University Australia, asked us to rethink the notion of ‘Heroes on water and the Australian legend’. Dr Cahir presented historical archival print media from the 19th century to the present that demonstrated countless misinterpretations of Aboriginal people. He challenged these notions and asked delegates to look more closely at the records, and instead see Aboriginal ‘heroes’ in bark canoes. Dr Cahir highlighted how

07 In the 1840s Owen Stanley sketched local

watercraft during a trip to the tropical regions of Australia. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. FL3175609

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > TRAVELLING OUR WATERS

Aboriginal people, as seen in archival records, repeatedly used their stringybark canoes to carry out heroic rescues – to the point where it was often remarked that ‘many a white man, and child, owed his life to the charity of these people’.1 The day’s final sessions looked forward, to the future of canoes. Aboriginal practitioners in their fields steered a panel discussion reflecting on history and embracing new knowledge shared around canoe heritages and current practices. Deborah Swan, Ngarrindjeri cultural practitioner, spoke of the ongoing work that is carried out through women’s groups and workshops. An official closing gathering took place outside the museum, next to the newly constructed bark canoe. Lake Macquarie community members explained the cultural significance behind its creation. The networking opportunities and the generous sharing of knowledge that the symposium offered were encouraging for many communities, who have since approached some of our delegates with invitations to visit them and engage in traditional watercraft building. After a cruise on the Tribal Warrior Association’s vessel Mari Nawi on Sydney Harbour, it was announced that the next Nawi Symposium is being planned for 2020. We look forward to another national gathering of Indigenous communities, again focusing on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander watercraft, stories and cultures. 08

The museum wishes to thank the Nawi 2017 Symposium Sponsor, the University of New South Wales, and media supporter, NITV, for their sponsorship. The museum also thanks all delegates and community speakers who travelled to join the national conversation about our Indigenous freshwater and saltwater heritages. 1 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, 1959 Further reading Canoe Cultures – Nawi 2017 ‘Travelling our Waters’ – anmm.blog/2017/11/07/ canoe-cultures-travelling-our-watersnawi-2017/ Day one, Nawi 2012 – ‘Exploring Australia’s Indigenous Watercraft’ anmm.blog/2012/06/01/day-onenawi-exploring-australias-indigenouswatercraft/ Day two, Nawi 2012 – ‘Exploring Australia’s Indigenous Watercraft’ anmm.blog/2012/06/01/day-twonawi-exploring-australias-indigenouswatercraft/ You can keep in touch to find out about future Nawi events and news via nawi@ anmm.gov.au 08 Canoe builders from Lake Macquarie

construct a tied-bark canoe outside the museum. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL

Classic &Wooden Boat Festival BACK IN DARLING HARBOUR IN 2018

The 2018 Classic & Wooden Boat Festival is on its way to the museum’s waterfront in April. It will build on the success of the last event, held in 2016.

01 01 Hurrica V, which featured in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013

film The Great Gatsby. Image courtesy Steve Gunns

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL

SINCE THE LAST Classic & Wooden Boat Festival in 2016, the museum has been working with stakeholders to further develop this event. It will celebrate all classic and wooden boats, acknowledge traditional boatbuilding skills and showcase the passion of the dedicated craftspeople who make these celebrated vessels.

More than 100 boats and over 20 stallholders will make their way to Sydney for the 2018 event

More than 100 boats and over 20 stallholders will make their way to Sydney for the 2018 event, the second in a series of three planned biennial festivals. At the launch of the series in May 2015, museum Director Kevin Sumption psm said: The festival is one of the key events in the museum’s calendar, where we celebrate the beauty and diversity of Australia’s heritage vessels and the amazing people who keep them going … The ANMM is extremely proud to have managed the Classic & Wooden Boat Festival for the last 20 years, and as we look to the future we are delighted that we have strong support from Australia’s boating community in planning and delivering three outstanding festivals in 2016, 2018 and 2020. The 2018 festival will be held from 13 to 15 April. The magnificent SY Ena will be one of the featured craft, along with the star of the film The Great Gatsby, Hurrica V. The Halvorsen Club will showcase a huge range of this historic firm’s famed motor cruisers and yachts, now collectors’ items. The festival program will see many other boats both afloat and on land around the museum and the adjacent Pyrmont Plaza, 02

02 The glamorous 65-foot Silver Cloud will

join other vessels from the Halvorsen Club. Image courtesy Lee Hunter

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL

The festival program will include a maritime marketplace where trades of all types will showcase their wares

as well as a maritime marketplace where trades of all types will showcase their wares for festival goers to peruse and purchase. There will be a further display of vessels in Cockle Bay at the marina on the eastern shore. Behind-the-scenes tours will focus on an array of items from the museum’s collection, and visitors will be able to cruise on some of Sydney Heritage Fleet’s vessels, taking in all the atmosphere of the festival and our beautiful harbour. Once again in 2018 the extremely popular swimwear parade will return, using the museum’s extraordinary education collection of ‘cossies’. Meanwhile, during the daytime there will be music and family-friendly entertainment, including the Kids’ Boatshed for younger visitors. Make sure to keep the first weekend of the April school holidays free to come to the museum and feast your eyes on glorious boats of all shapes and sizes. For more information see anmm.gov.au/cwbf or sign up for our email updates at cwbf@anmm.gov.au.

The owner of Hurrica V wishes to advise that the yacht is for sale – if interested, contact steve.gunns1@gmail.com

03 Sydney Heritage Fleet’s Lady Hopetoun.

Image courtesy Heather Kirk 04 A popular feature of the festival is a parade

of the museum’s education collection of swimsuits through the ages. Image Janine Flew/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > WHERE THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE

Where the past meets the future

AUSTRALIAN MARITIME COLLEGE ESTABLISHES A CAMPUS AT ANMM

This year the University of Tasmania’s Australian Maritime College has established a campus at the Australian National Maritime Museum. The campus will offer postgraduate and short courses in maritime subjects. By ANMM intern Jonas Groom.

01 01 AMC’s training vessel Bluefin in Sydney in 2017.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > WHERE THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE

IN A HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT, the University of Tasmania’s Australian Maritime College (AMC) has launched a major initiative at the ANMM that highlights AMC’s expertise as an industry leader in maritime education and skills development, in a venue devoted to showcasing maritime heritage and history. This initiative aims to build knowledge about Australia’s maritime industry and the expertise required to work in and explore it. Museum Director and CEO, Kevin Sumption psm, has stated: ‘The Australian National Maritime Museum is delighted to welcome the Australian Maritime College to Sydney. As the national centre for the promotion and conservation of Australia’s maritime heritage and culture, it is a natural fit for the museum to partner with our nation’s leading institute for maritime education, training and research.’ He continued, ‘This centre will provide unique opportunities for the museum to connect with the future leaders of our maritime industry.’ The establishment of the AMC Sydney Study Centre at the museum in busy Darling Harbour will serve to bolster the future development of Australia’s maritime industries. Founded in 1980 in Launceston, Tasmania, the Australian Maritime College is a centre of national excellence, with worldclass in maritime education, training and research. In January 2008, AMC was formally established as a specialist institute of the University of Tasmania – Australia’s fourth-oldest university and ranked in the top two per cent of universities worldwide.

02 Students from the AMC’s first short-course

intake studying at ANMM.

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With two campuses – located at Launceston and Beauty Point in Tasmania – the AMC has also successfully engaged in training programs in the Torres Strait Islands and in coastal seafaring programs in the United Arab Emirates, cementing its position as a leading maritime body, both nationally and internationally. Along with training maritime industry leaders of the future, AMC’s Sydney centre at the ANMM challenges the traditional notion of a museum as a static collection of the past. The college’s status as a leading institute for maritime education, training and research and its presence in Pyrmont boost the museum’s profile as an active component of Australia’s maritime industry. Kevin Sumption adds, ‘We’re also very excited about the opportunities this partnership brings for our visitors to engage with living industry and what will be the heritage of the future. Australia’s naval and maritime sector will indeed play a crucial role for our nation in the 21st century.’ Coinciding with this exciting development, AMC is also introducing a range of new programs. From this year, the college will deliver two postgraduate courses at the museum, along with a suite of specialised short courses through its commercial arm, AMC Search.

03 Graduates of AMC’s first short-course

program at the museum. All images Quentin Jones/AMC

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The Master of Engineering (Maritime Design) degree targets engineering professionals already in the workforce who wish to develop a career in the technical management of maritime engineering projects, including those in maritime defence, naval platform and autonomous underwater vehicles. The Master of Business Administration (Advanced) (Maritime and Logistics Management) is a business-oriented program that equips graduates with a high level of understanding of the logistics of maritime industries and prepares them to undertake senior management positions in these industries. The short courses on offer through AMC Search include security, safe bulk loading, vessel traffic services and ship planners,. More courses are planned. AMC’s Interim Principal, Professor Nataliya Nikolova, underlines the significance of forming an AMC Study Centre at the museum, saying, ‘Establishing a local presence in Sydney will allow us to strengthen ties with the surrounding ports, logistics, engineering and defence industries, as well as to provide our students with access to internships and project work within those sectors.’ The museum looks forward to hosting these courses in 2018 and beyond.

AMC’s Sydney centre at the ANMM challenges the traditional notion of a museum as a static collection of the past

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE

The legacy of the Greycliffe THE TAHITI-GREYCLIFFE DISASTER 90 YEARS ON

November last year marked the 90th anniversary of Sydney Harbour’s worst maritime disaster, the sinking of the ferry Greycliffe, which killed 40 people. Steve Brew reflects on the accident and the effect it had – and continues to have – on the city.

01 Many of the graves in this row of South Head

Cemetery contain victims of the Greycliffe disaster. All images Emma Bjorndahl/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE

ON THE AFTERNOON of 3 November 1927, as the Sydney Harbour ferry Greycliffe rounded Bradley’s Head under way for Watsons Bay, it was struck amidships by the 8,000-ton liner RMS Tahiti. At first, it seemed that Tahiti might only thrust Greycliffe aside, but the ferry wheeled around until it lay perpendicular to Tahiti’s course. The surge of the ship’s bow wave drove the little wooden ferry before it and, accompanied by the screams of its panicking passengers, pushed it over far enough to submerge its starboard side under several feet of water.

The effect on the community was devastating and the impact on individuals and families was debilitating

With the sickening creak and snap of splintering timber, Tahiti’s sharp steel bow then burst through the ferry like an axe. Greycliffe’s 130 passengers and crew were flung into the water, and many were dragged to their deaths. The liner barely faltered as it passed through the debris, amid dozens of spluttering and screaming survivors. It is 90 years since those events of November 1927 ended 40 lives, and yet the moemories still evoke horror and leave an unfathomable sadness in the families whose lives the Greycliffe disaster scarred. There were perhaps several comparable disasters in Australia during the last century: the Rodney ferry capsize and the Granville rail disaster, both in Sydney, the Newcastle earthquake, and more recently the Thredbo landslide, to name a few. As different as their circumstances were, however, they had a few things in common: there was little warning; they were swift; and the innocent victims were powerless to control events – they did not stand a chance.

02 The grave of William Paradice, who was a

senior medical officer at Sydney’s Garden Island naval base. His widow, Kate, outlived him by 68 years and is buried with him.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE

Greycliffe took a broad cross-section of the community to the bottom of the harbour with it. They ranged widely in age, from just two to 81 years old. Some were retired, some at the peak of their careers, others in the prime of their youth. Among them were six school children and the science master of Sydney Boys’ High School. Three doctors also died: one from the NSW Prisons Service, another the Chief Quarantine Officer of NSW, and the third a Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Australian Navy. Three further navy personnel were drowned, as were seven tradesmen from Garden Island Dockyard. Six holiday-makers from New South Wales and Victoria also met their deaths, alongside Australia’s first female pilot and a former mayor of the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt. An architect, a retired master mariner, three retired gentlemen and seven housewives completed the sad list.

All these losses were tragic, but two cases stand out. In one instance, members of three generations of one family were killed. Visiting from Melbourne, Ruby Crook, her two-year-old son, Donald, and her retired mother, Florence Frost, all died together in the accident. Ruby’s husband Jack, who had not accompanied them on the trip, lost his wife, his only child and his mother-in-law. Another sad case was that of the young wife and six-year-old daughter of John Corby, from Biniguy, near Moree. Visiting Sydney for the first time, the family had originally intended to take their holidays in August, but postponed them until the beginning of November. On the afternoon of the accident, they had planned to take the ferry to Watsons Bay for an enjoyable afternoon, then travel back to the city by tram. They had been in the city barely two days. The unenviable and dangerous task of recovering the dead was undertaken by Harbour Trust divers Thomas Carr and William Harris. Moving into a part of the hull that had not yet been searched, Harris was startled when the form of a young girl appeared out of the darkness. His light revealed a haunting figure, standing upright with outstretched arms, her clothes torn. One of her feet was caught in some twisted steel. He wrote on his slate, ‘HAVE FOUND THE BODY OF A LITTLE GIRL’ and sent it up to the pontoon. After much physical and emotional effort, he released her foot and sent her body to the surface. He had found 15-year-old Betty Sharp. Although some victims came from further afield, most lived in the far reaches of Sydney’s South Head. Many streets in the suburbs of Vaucluse and Watsons Bay were home to casualties. 03 Eleven-year-old Bernard Landers’ grave

in South Head Cemetery.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE

Greycliffe took a broad cross-section of the community to the bottom of the harbour with it

In Fitzwilliam Road, almost every second house suffered a loss or injury. They had simply been enjoying a quiet run home from the city on the ferry, just as they had done countless times before. The effect on the community was devastating and the impact on individuals and families was debilitating. Lives and perceptions changed forever. Although the physical wounds of the injured healed with time, survivors carried emotional scars and often relived the nightmare of fighting for the surface as the ferry sank. In some cases, the emotional strain also cost jobs. Families mourned their losses; many had also lost their breadwinner and found themselves in significant financial hardship. In late 1927, the Greycliffe Disaster Relief Fund was set up to help them. By the time it was wound up in March 1931, almost £6,300 had been raised through donations, aided by a further £535 in interest. Thirty-three people received amounts of between £3 and £110 each to buy clothing or cover funeral costs, and ten widows received assistance ranging from £275 and £880, according to their circumstances and dependants. While there is little outward sign today in Watson’s Bay and Vaucluse that the Greycliffe disaster occurred, subtle signs are there if one scratches the surface a little or looks closely enough. Perhaps the most poignant of these are the graves of the victims in South Head Cemetery, and in cemeteries further afield. Eleven-year-old Bernard Landers’ epitaph at South Head reads: It seems but a day since he bade us goodbyeHis heart full of hope and his spirit so highHow little we thought when he left us that dayThe grim hand of death would soon tear him awaySo gentle and kind – how we miss his dear faceNow we know that on earth we can ne’er fill his place…

04 Greycliffe alongside the wharf at Watsons

Bay, c1915. © Gwen Dundon

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE

Survivors carried emotional scars and often relived the nightmare of fighting for the surface as the ferry sank

Others carry more obvious indicators, such as ‘A Victim of the Tahiti–Greycliffe Disaster’. The only public memorial, the Greycliffe Memorial Gates, was unveiled at St Peter’s Anglican Church, Watsons Bay, by Bishop D’Arcy Irvine in May 1929. While the original timber gates no longer exist, stone plaques can still be seen today on either side of the entrance on Old South Head Road. One consequence of the tragedy was that many South Head residents decided not to travel to the city by ferry any more and climbed Old South Head Road to take the tram instead. Ferry passenger numbers fell significantly and, exacerbated by a growing trend in automobile ownership and the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, the Watsons Bay and Taronga Park ferry services were soon amalgamated. By 1933, however, passenger numbers were so poor that Sydney Ferries discontinued altogether the service to Nielsen Park, Parsley Bay Wharf (at the northern end of Fitzwilliam Road), Central Wharf (off The Crescent) and Watsons Bay. Minimal services to Watsons Bay resumed in 1987, but those to Nielsen Park, Central Wharf and Parsley Bay were never reinstated. More tangible artefacts survive in the form of a number of photographs in private and public collections, court records in the New South Wales State Archives, and a short silent film clip of the aftermath in the National Film and Sound Archive. Greycliffe’s engines were salvaged from the harbour floor and sold to a dairy factory in New Zealand. They were acquired by Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology in 1964, and are still there on display today.

05 A 25-ton section of Greycliffe’s hull,

containing the remains of the ladies’ cabin, is heaved into the shallows of Whiting Beach by the Sydney Harbour Trust sheerlegs. © Graeme Andrews Collection

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE LEGACY OF THE GREYCLIFFE

One cannot help wondering what might have become of the 40 victims of the tragedy had their lives not been unexpectedly cut short. What would the children have achieved in their lives had they had the opportunity? And what of the young doctor who was already Senior Medical Officer at Garden Island – where might his career have taken him? Or our first female pilot – what new chapters in Australian or international aviation history might she have written? Their lives are now frozen in time; their pictures depict faces from the ‘decadent 20s’, a time when Charlie Chaplin was a star of the silent screen and the charleston and foxtrot were all the rage. They were not destined to experience the devastation of the Great Depression, nor the horror of a second world war. They would not live to see great triumphs in medicine, such as organ transplants and the eradication of many of the world’s diseases. Nor would they see the jet age or watch man landing on the moon live on television. Some never experienced the emotions of falling in love, or the joys of marrying and having their own children, while others left their loves and children behind. While the tragedy has now passed out of living memory, the descendants and relatives of the victims still acknowledge the sad anniversary every November. It remains the worst maritime disaster ever to have occurred on Sydney Harbour. Steve Brew is a writer and genealogist. Members of every generation of his family since at least 1788 have been involved with the sea in some way. His book Greycliffe: Stolen Lives (Navarine Publishing, 2003) tells the story of Sydney’s worst maritime disaster and identifies those involved. It is available from The Store (RRP $35.00, Members $28): store.anmm.gov.au

06 On 7 November 1927, a large section

of the hull and ladies’ cabin was raised by the Sydney Harbour Trust’s sheerlegs. The name Greycliffe is clearly visible on the hull. © Graeme Andrews Collection

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE VIRTUAL ENDEAVOUR PROGRAM

The Virtual Endeavour program BRINGING HMB ENDEAVOUR TO ALL AUSTRALIANS

Exploring the HMB Endeavour replica has long been a highlight for many school students visiting the museum, but now students from anywhere in the country can navigate their own way through the vessel thanks to a new virtual program. By Head of Learning Peter Tattersall.

ON ANY WEEKDAY during school term, a visit to the HMB Endeavour replica is likely to be punctuated by the sounds of excited school students chatting away and volleying questions towards one of the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educators. Since its donation to the museum in 2005, the vessel has hosted tens of thousands of school students, providing a transportive experience to fuel the imagination and give insight into the incredible journey undertaken by Lt James Cook and his crew almost 250 years ago.

01 A 360-degree photo of the aft deck of the

Endeavour replica. Image Pippa Hambling/ ANMM

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For school students, curriculum-linked programs have been developed to augment learning

The museum takes very seriously its responsibility to interpret this wonderful replica for all visitors. We have conducted extensive research and trained large numbers of volunteers and education staff to ensure accuracy and meaningful context for all museum commentary. For school students, curriculum-linked programs have also been developed to augment learning and make the experience as useful to teachers as it is enjoyable for students. In 2016 the museum applied to the Australia Council for the Arts for funding to design, develop and deliver a virtual tour of the vessel. The museum, in collaboration with CSIRO Data 61, would undertake a ‘proof of concept’ before building the hardware, software and learning programs necessary to effectively run this cutting-edge digital learning program. The application was successful and the result is the Virtual Endeavour program, which gives students throughout Australia the opportunity to be guided, live, through the vessel and ask questions of our expert staff. With the aid of three specially designed spherical 360-degree cameras, a series of digital ‘hot spots’ and a web hosting site designed by Data 61, a student can be sitting in a classroom thousands of kilometres away while digitally exploring the vessel in their own way, engaging live with an ANMM guide. The Virtual Endeavour program represents a directional shift for the ANMM Learning team. By focusing on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subject areas, it symbolises a move to explore themes beyond historical investigation and to support our already popular science-based programs.

02 Pippa Hambling, Virtual Endeavour

Project Officer, gives a live tour of the ship. Image Amelia Bowen/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > THE VIRTUAL ENDEAVOUR PROGRAM

Available now, school classes can receive a free, guided virtual tour of the vessel, investigating the various scientific challenges facing the crew in the 18th century. Students can explore how the scientific undertakings of HMB Endeavour influenced the knowledge and practices of the day and how these have affected the practice of sciences today. The virtual tours are interactive and engaging, using a variety of teaching strategies and content variations to customise the experience for students of all ability levels. ‘Hot spots’ within the digital tour allow students to look more deeply into specific objects and themes through the use of image, video and text, while a special application allows students to ask direct questions of the facilitator. The tours provide six themes through which to explore the vessel – lightning, anchors, scurvy, Linnaean classification, the transit of Venus and scientific collaboration – each of which is mapped to the Australian curriculum. The development of the Virtual Endeavour program was not without its challenges – such as the reluctance of Wi-Fi signals to travel well through salt-washed wooden beams, and the need to develop unobtrusive and historically sound camera casings. However, the knowledge gained from this program will inform our broader schools program for years to come. The key challenge of offering meaningful connections with remote places, objects and people is one we will continue to embrace as we to bring our museum’s stories to all parts of the country. This program is a collaboration with CSIRO Data 61. It has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Department of Communication and the Arts Catalyst – Australian Arts and Culture Fund.

A student can be sitting in a classroom thousands of kilometres away while digitally exploring the vessel in their own way

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF KIDS ON DECK

Celebrating 20 years of Kids on Deck

MORE THAN JUST PAPER BOAT MAKERS AND GLITTER SHAKERS From its earliest days, the museum has made family-friendly programs an integral part of its offerings to the public. The very first, Kids on Deck, has been running for 20 years and has entertained hundreds of thousands of children, writes Programs Coordinator Annalice Creighton.

01 Creative creature sculpture in Kids on Deck,

2018. Image Emma Bjorndahl/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF KIDS ON DECK

IT HAS APPEARED IN ALL MANNER of spaces and places – the back corners of the Navy Gallery, a demountable classroom, inside temporary exhibition galleries, on board visiting vessels and our very own HMAS Vampire and HMAS Advance. It’s gone travelling offsite, down the coast to local festivals, along the corridors of children’s hospitals, to the sweaty marquees and fluorescent-lit expanses of trade shows, and amid the commanding turbine halls of Cockatoo Island.

Close to 500,000 visitors have passed through the doors, creating more than 1 million hand-crafted souvenirs of their visit to the museum

It’s Kids on Deck, our regular Sunday and school holiday family program for primary school–aged children and their carers, which celebrates its 20th birthday this year. In that time close to 500,000 visitors have passed through its doors, creating more than 1 million hand-crafted souvenirs of their visit to the museum – in paper, clay, string, glitter, plaster, beads, fabric, paint, badges, temporary tattoos and more. They have dressed up in costumes, enacted all manner of imaginary play, climbed on replica vessels and mastered the art of puppetry. They have engaged in creative play and discovery learning inspired by hundreds of different exhibitions on history, science, art, design, popular culture and more that the museum has shown over this time. 02

02 Paul Wilson as Kids on Deck mascot Bosun

Mess on board HMAS Vampire, 2003. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF KIDS ON DECK

Museums have a unique place in the cultural landscape to be spaces for intergenerational social experiences

Perhaps more importantly, 20 years of this seemingly small corner of museum activity also represents a larger commitment to making this place one of enjoyable, creative and memorable learning experiences for families. A maritime museum could easily veer towards showcasing Eurocentric histories and attracting older, mostly male, audiences of boat and heritage enthusiasts. This is a common perception even today, but the Australian National Maritime Museum decided early in its history to invest in consistent, low-cost, accessible programming for younger audiences. First came Kids on Deck in 1998, and then a whole suite of activities: Mini Mariners, creative workshops, family fun days, the Cabinet of Curiosities, theatre performances and more. The newest, a series of stroller tours and play sessions for babies and their carers, was introduced just last year. Di Osmond, former Visitor Programs Manager (1997–2003), remembers that the museum’s Commercial and Visitor Services section, as it was known then, ‘had a vision to increase public visitation and increase membership and we felt very strongly that family programs was the way to do it’. And so it began. Like a travelling circus, Kids on Deck moved from place to place, turning odd corners of museum galleries and vessels into maker spaces and adding new acts to the range of family programs as it went. Alongside these early programs grew theatrical shows, with a wacky cast of maritime characters, that involved story, circus, pantomime and more, and theatrical tours developed by the museum’s dramatically inclined educators and Visitor Programs staff. Our first foray into immersive interactive family

03 Kids aboard the speedboat Zoom created

for the PLAY exhibition, 2001. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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exhibitions was 1998’s Pirates (exhibited again in 2006–2007 and 2012–2013). This was followed by Secrets of the Sea (1999 –2002), Oceans of Stories and PLAY (2001), which spawned our long-lived summer outdoor science and water-play attraction, Wetworld.More recently, this pursuit of family-friendly museum experiences has created brilliant interactive touring shows such as Voyage to the Deep and Horrible Histories® Pirates – the Exhibition. What started with ‘a space with creative activities related to maritime subjects, current exhibitions and special events … [relaying] the message to children that museums are for everyone’ (ANMM Annual Report 1997–1998) rapidly grew a reputation for providing playful museum experiences that remain a mainstay of the museum’s public offer to the present day. Museums have a unique place in the cultural landscape to be spaces for intergenerational social experiences, live conversations, curiosity, creativity, meaning-making and memorable learning experiences that are inspired by, but not limited to, their collections. Families make up more than half of all visitors to the ANMM, and as every cultural organisation knows, positive experiences of museums in childhood are a huge determining factor in whether someone will visit again and again throughout their lifetime. Making whole museums, exhibitions and public programs for families is not new – it’s been happening all over the world since the late 19th century – but it remains a strategic investment in the long-term vitality of the institution and its stories.

04 Extravagant custom-made penguin and

explorer dress-up outfits were created for Kids on Deck inside the Antarctic Heroes exhibition, 2003. ANMM image

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF KIDS ON DECK

Many of the children who visited Kids on Deck with their families in the late 90s and early 2000s have now joined the family programs’ casual staff here. Something as humble as a handmade sculpture put together within the four walls of Kids on Deck and kept in pride of place upon their bookcase fulfilled the ultimate objective of any kinaesthetic learning activity – they remembered this place for years to come, were happy to return and, eventually, to invest their own time and talents into this program. ‘I remember making an air-drying clay sculpture, covered in all different sea creatures, in Kids Deck [during the Secrets of the Sea exhibition]. I hung it up on my wall at home for years, I think I still have it somewhere,’ says Megan Baehnisch, a current supervisor in family programs. Tiffany Hastings, another member of Kids on Deck staff, says: 05

We have seen kids starting a session at the start of the day and leaving with an impressive masterpiece five hours later. I’ve seen some incredible shipwrights and marine architects in the making, and had wonderful conversations with young historians and geographers. What is even more precious to me is being able to work with the amazing Kids on Deck team, who are ever so passionate about each child that walks through the doors realising their creative potential. For educator and character guide extraordinaire John Lamzies, the summer family exhibition and activities program called Pirates! that the ANMM ran in 1998 was the catalyst for decades of delivering magical theatrical public programs. John volunteered to dress as a pirate to help muster children along to the gallery, and was an instant success. ‘They responded beautifully to his deliciously scary incarnation, Captain Grognose Johnny, and it was an obvious move to incorporate this extra dimension of his skill set into other school and holiday programs,’ recalls Jeffrey Fletcher, Senior Education Officer. Among John’s personae are the enticingly cheeky aforementioned pirate Grognose Johnny; Stormy Grey, the 185-year-old stowaway; reggae-loving jellyfish expert, Dr Shaka Wobbly; French able seaman Maurice Matelot, accompanied by Renée, his imaginary rabbit; and Iceman Otzi, just to name a few. He can still be seen on many a torchlight tour or family fun day mustering a motley crew of children and carers outside Kids on Deck, to be swept along on a character tour that will be equal parts eccentric, hilarious, educational and entertaining. John was one of many extraordinary actors among the early education and public programs staff who took the museum’s theatrical tours to new heights of fanciful filibustering fun, employing theatre as a powerful interpretation device for all manner of complex and serious exhibitions to connect our

05 Kids on Deck as part of the Secrets of the

Sea exhibition, 2000. ANMM image

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF KIDS ON DECK

young audiences with the content through immersive, emotive and memorable storytelling. Actor and clown-doctor Paul Wilson is yet another who has a long history of theatrical aliases at the museum. He recalls the controversial cardboard cut-out that was Kids on Deck’s first mascot, Bosun Mess, who was devised as a roving character as well as a brand for the then-new initiative Kids on Deck. ‘He was a little cheeky, always silly and great fun’, although it wasn’t long until there were ‘complaints about his carrying a sword’. The early years boasted huge visitation figures, impressive for any museum and pleasing for those who were out to compete with other Sydney-based institutions. Keeping up the mass production wasn’t always easy, though. ‘We had 400 kids a day through there, in this tiny space in North Gallery … and pirate school in summer … it was manic,’ says Di Osmond. What’s perhaps more remarkable is that this little screen-free maker space, and the suite of family activities it spawned, remains as popular today as in its first year, if not more so. Behind the scenes we’ve kept sailing due to the many gifted staff in our programs and education team, some wonderful communications staff and visitor services teams, our incredible designers and preparators (who make the most spectacular custom paper-craft templates I’ve seen in any museum yet, and who never fail to turn a challenging near-zero dollar budget into a beautifully crafted mechanical interactive in under three days) and many more who’ve kept the doors open in and out of seasonal booms for creating, playing, discovering.

This little screen-free maker space remains as popular today as in its first year, if not more so

Like any public program, it’s a quiet success. It’s no blockbuster exhibition, major building project, hero collection object or stakeholder event. It’s unlikely ever to grace a building banner, bus-back ad or Signals front cover. It’s just the one, the many, the thousands, unassumingly crafting a tangible memory of a moment at a museum; something delightful, surprising, furiously coloured, diligently decorated, embodied in a masterpiece of cardboard engineering, lengths of string and sticky tape, a smidge of glue, a sprinkle of glitter and a few bobbing wiggly eyes.

06 Character-guide chameleon John Lamzies

as Otzi the Iceman, 2007. ANMM image

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > SUBMERGED

Submerged

CREATING AN EXHIBITION WITH OUR BIGGEST TEAM EVER

A new travelling exhibition, Submerged – Stories of Australia’s shipwrecks, began making its way around Australia in February. Its creation took 12 months and involved almost 200 people around the country. Creative Producer Em Blamey explains what it took to bring this ambitious project to fruition.

01 A banner from the exhibition, telling the stories of the

City of Rayville and Wollongbar II wrecks. The scaled human figure reveals the small space available for readable text, despite the size of the banners. Image Daniel Ormella/ANMM

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AS A RULE when developing exhibitions, the smaller the team, the easier and more efficient the process, especially for a small project. There are fewer people to disagree, and compromises can, well, compromise the outcome. So imagine my wariness when told Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be developing a travelling exhibition about shipwrecks with the help of hundreds of people from across the country. The museum would be collaborating with the Australian Maritime Museums Council (AMMC) to co-create an exhibition with input from their Australia-wide membership. Fortunately, in this case, we demonstrated that with big teams, we can achieve big outcomes.

Funding from the Visions of Australia regional exhibition touring program allows us to take the project on the road

The first step was to engage people in the project; to let them know what was planned and how they could be involved. Funding from the Visions of Australia regional exhibition touring program (an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians) allowed us to take the project on the road and bring together AMMC members from across the country. We held seven workshops in six states, seeing 198 people from 88 different regional museums and organisations. The day-long workshops had several functions: we wanted to explain the project and encourage people to get involved, but also to offer professional development. So we included practical exercises and tips on writing for exhibitions and we brought in conservators and maritime archaeologists to give expert advice on displaying shipwreck objects. Plus, of course, there were great networking opportunities. The exhibition would comprise a series of banners featuring shipwreck stories supplied by AMMC members. In the workshops, I wanted to convey the key constraints of this type of exhibition, to help participants craft their submissions.

02 Andrew Chappell (left) and Peter Rehn

share shipwreck stories during the workshop aboard PS Marion at Mannum, South Australia. Image courtesy Pauline Cockrill, History Trust of SA

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The inherent tragedy of shipwreck stories engages our emotions

Banner exhibitions are great for touring: they’re inexpensive to freight, easy to set up and flexible in how they’re arranged. However, there’s limited space for text at a comfortable height to read (without bending or tiptoes) and you can only use twodimensional content; no objects or interactives. So the writing has to be both engaging and concise. Also, as the audience will vary depending on the time of year and the venue, there needs to be something for everyone, from primary-school kids to ‘grey nomads’ and foreign tourists. Quite a challenge. Fortunately the exhibition topic is a great help, as the inherent tragedy of shipwreck stories engages our emotions. Their dramatic tales of daring, death and discovery draw us in. Combine these with eye-catching imagery and visitors should be hooked. But it might not be that easy. Museum audiences are unique. They don’t settle down comfortably in a quiet corner to read your work, as they might that of a favourite author. They’re standing up, on the move, often tired and possibly distracted. Research has shown that on average, they only read about 50 words per panel, stop reading if they hit unfamiliar words, don’t follow a set path from panel to panel, and stop at fewer than half of them. You really have to ‘hook’ them, to draw them in to your content – like fishing with facts! Museum visitors want easy, spontaneous, convincing language. My key advice was this: write it as you’d explain it to a mate at a barbecue. Workshop participants and all AMMC members were encouraged to tell the stories of their local shipwrecks (in just 150 words), add notes on available images and objects and submit them to the website. Members then voted for their favourites. Finally, a joint panel of AMMC and ANMM representatives sat down to work out the final list of stories

03 Ian Fuller, a survivor of the sinking of Degei

in 1974. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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to include, taking into account the voting, but also ensuring there was at least one from each state and a variety of vessel types and ages. With 68 stories to choose from and only 14 slots available, it wasn’t easy, and inevitably there were some great stories we couldn’t feature in the exhibition. But they’re all available as a digital archive on the AMMC website: maritimemuseumsaustralia.com There were also great shipwreck stories we would have liked to consider but couldn’t, as no-one had submitted them. Maybe in the next exhibition … With the final selection made, it was then only a matter of fact-checking and editing all the text and sourcing (and copyright clearing) sufficient high-quality images to illustrate them. This sometimes involved sending ANMM’s intrepid photographer Andrew Frolows off to capture an object, wreck site or even, in one case, a survivor. Meanwhile, designer Daniel Ormella was striving to make all these different elements and types of content work together to form a cohesive and attractive exhibition – no mean feat when you’ve everything from early engravings and newspaper clippings to modern 3D digital models and photogrammetry to include. There was a lot of tweaking and proofing and last-minute-weneed-another-image panics, but we got there, and the banners started touring in February this year. We’re printing multiple sets, so they can be in several places at once. Venues hosting the exhibition can augment it with shipwreck objects from their collections and their own shipwreck stories (if they’re not already in the exhibition). They can use our templates so that their labels and story panels will match the rest of the exhibition. The final product is very different from the one a small team from the ANMM would have produced. Developing an exhibition with contributions from hundreds of people is not without its challenges, and we learnt a lot from the process to feed into any future projects of this type. But crucially, the large team allowed us to cast the widest net and gather a huge array of fabulous exhibition content – from rescuers to racehorses, errors to eels. Australia has about 11,000 shipwrecks – roughly one for every three kilometres of coastline. Most of them remain undiscovered, but those we’ve found have yielded some amazing stories, enough for many more exhibitions. Submerged – stories of Australia’s shipwrecks is coming to a venue near you from February 2018. Upcoming exhibition venues are listed on our website. Do dive in!

Australia has about 11,000 shipwrecks – roughly one for every three kilometres of coastline

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > HOME IS THE SAILOR, HOME FROM THE SEA

Home is the sailor, home from the sea CLASSIC YACHT VARG COMPETES IN NORWAY

After sailing for Australia in the World 8 Metre Class Championships in Norway, Bruce Stannard returns home buoyed by the spirit of international sportsmanship.

01 01 Approaching the leeward mark,

Vargâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foredeck crew prepares to hoist their headsail. All images courtesy Kraig Carlstrom

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > HOME IS THE SAILOR, HOME FROM THE SEA

WITH THE BENEFIT of 20–20 hindsight, the romantic idea of shipping the beautiful 8 Metre classic yacht Varg 20,500 nautical miles from Tasmania to Norway to compete against some of the world’s most distinguished racing sailors strikes me now as a folly worthy of Cervantes’ delusional knight-errant, Don Quixote de la Mancha. We failed to come within cooee of the coveted silver trophy, the Neptune Cup, and yet, tilting at the World Championship windmill was a deeply rewarding personal experience. It is a view that I hope is shared by all those who had the privilege of participating in what was a most memorable international regatta. Now I fully appreciate the profound wisdom in Baron de Coubertin’s admonition on the true spirit of sportsmanship: ‘The important thing,’ he said, ‘is not to win but to take part. The important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.’ Varg (the Norwegian word for wolf) was the fifth oldest boat in the fleet in terms of the evolution of 8 Metre design and our consistent fifth placing reflected this. She was the only 8 Metre with an auxiliary engine and the only one not entirely stripped bare for racing. We certainly sailed as well as could be expected, given that our crew were all amateurs with little appreciation of the enormous physical and mental demands that were made upon the competitors during the seven days of racing out on the Skagerrak, the tricky North Sea course off the Oslo Fjord. We were up against highly paid, superbly fit young sailing professionals and their well-honed racing skills clearly made the difference.

The Hankø Yacht Club is not in the least bit grand, but is instead delightful in its simplicity

02 Picturesque Hankø Yacht Club hosted the

8 Metre World Championship fleet.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > HOME IS THE SAILOR, HOME FROM THE SEA

Varg was taken ‘home’ to Norway to compete as a special tribute to one of the world’s great yachtsmen, Norway’s revered Sailor King, Harald V

The World Championship regatta was won by Britain’s remarkably adept Avia Willment, the only woman skipper in the entire fleet. Ms Willment, who delights in turquoise-painted toenails and laughs at herself as ‘The Witch of the Wave’, had a remarkably fast boat, Miss U, with a radical new tandem keel. She was also smart enough to employ a crack crew of young professionals, all of whom were at the top of their game. Varg was taken ‘home’ to Norway (where she was originally designed by Johan Anker in 1924), not to win the Neptune Cup at all costs, but to compete as a special tribute to a truly remarkable man, one of the world’s great yachtsmen, Norway’s revered Sailor King, Harald V. We went primarily to honour the king on his 80th birthday, and His Majesty in turn honoured the sailors from the Antipodes, and indeed all the other international competitors, by his presence among them. Still wearing his salt-stained sea boots and wet weather gear, the king left his famous green-hulled 8 Metre Sira moored alongside the royal yacht Norge and came ashore by launch day after day to relax over a cold beer with the racing sailors on the plain wooden docks of the Hankø Yacht Club. All the sailors were impressed, not only by the warmth of the king’s welcome, but also by his extraordinary ability at the helm. His Majesty may have been 80 years old but he certainly showed much younger sailors what a lifetime of seagoing experience means on the race course. Sira was always beautifully sailed by men who had raced together for the best part of a decade. The king and his crew raced each day in often quite trying conditions: lumpy seas, strong currents and winds of 20-plus knots. Only on the last day, when the result of the seven-race regatta had been all but decided, was the king persuaded to stay ashore. It was a wise move. On that day the North Sea turned into something of a maelstrom, with white-capped waves

03 Varg’s crew resplendent in their pure wool

Silver Fleece sweaters designed to evoke the spirit of 1924.

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whipped up by winds that gusted to 27 knots. Two of the racing yachts were dismasted, including the king’s own Sira. Anticipating the carnage on the race course, Varg’s owners, Kraig Carlstrom and Carolyn Mason, sensibly withdrew before the start and we returned to Hankø unscathed to prepare for the long sea journey home to Tasmania.

We spent seven days racing out on the Skagerrak, the tricky North Sea course off the Oslo Fjord

We could never have undertaken our World Championship odyssey without the generous support of the famous Norwegian shipping company, Wilhelmsen Lines, whose vessels have been trading between European and Australian ports since the mid19th century. Wilhelmsen safely stowed Varg and her steel cradle inside their Ro-Ro ships and carried the yacht around the world and back without cost and without so much as a scratch. Our rivals on the race course couldn’t believe we had come so far for a boat race. Lovely pine-clad Hankø, a small, steep granite island in the Oslo fjord, was in ancient times a royal hunting ground reserved for the king and his noblemen. It retains something of that aura of exclusivity, with lovely rustic white-washed wooden houses tucked out of sight on the hillsides or discreetly sited among manicured lawns by the water’s edge. The Hankø Yacht Club is not in the least bit grand, but is instead delightful in its simplicity. Its traditional Norwegian iron-oxide-painted weatherboards were neatly shuttered and trimmed with contrasting white and its Baltic pine floorboards sensibly left bare, with a minimum of simple wooden furniture. The conservative Norwegians certainly appreciate the aesthetic principle that ‘less is more.’ 04

04 A close start on the Skagerrak.

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The genuine warmth of our Norwegian hosts was at times overwhelming. My wife, Susan, has ancient Norwegian ancestral roots and I have my own close connections to the country thanks to a Norwegian knighthood bestowed upon me 30 years ago by King Harald’s father, King Olav. Once those links were understood, people went out of their way to welcome us into their homes, where we dined on traditional Norwegian summer seafood delicacies: shrimp, crabs, mussels and wild-caught salmon. They were all wonderful, but I confess I could not quite bring myself to sample the reindeer or the rich red whale meat which have for centuries been integral parts of the Norwegian cuisine. When King Harald invited us to a memorable evening reception aboard the royal yacht, Norge, we were given a rare glimpse of the royal family without formality and completely at ease. The king and his elder sister, Princess Astrid, received us with genuine warmth. Our skipper, Kraig Carlstrom, presented the king with a pure wool Varg crew sweater while my wife and I gave him a uniquely Australian gift on behalf of the entire crew. It was one which held a special meaning for the Sailor King and he was clearly delighted. In a small box especially made from 5,000-year-old Huon pine and Tasmanian blackwood we had placed the lovely curved white specimen shell of Argonauta argo. This was once the protective mantle of a pelagic octopus found among the islands of the Hunter Group

05 The king’s ship, Norway’s royal yacht Norge.

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at the western end of Bass Strait. Argonauta is the ancient Greek term meaning ‘sailor on the Argo’. King Harald knew that we had last been in Norway 30 years ago and he asked me about the changes I had noticed. I told him how deeply impressed we were not only by the enduring beauty of the magnificent Norwegian landscape with its rugged snow-capped mountains, deepwater fjords and dark pine-clad hills but also by the aura of quiet prosperity that was evident everywhere. Norway is today one of the wealthiest nations in Europe and much of its income, derived from the discovery of North Sea oil, is being carefully managed through a Sovereign Fund that is being wisely invested in major infrastructure projects such as ultra-modern transport systems: roads, tunnels, railways and efficient ferry links. Oslo has a spectacular new opera house, and a new national library is under construction on the city’s waterfront where the CBD has been transformed by glistening new office towers and university buildings. But while all these physical changes were obvious to everyone, I told the king I had also seen something else, something that struck a particular chord with me. Every house, every farm, every red barn reflected this new prosperity, not only in their sparkling new coats of paint, but also in the fact that outside each dwelling stood a flagpole from which flew the distinctive Norwegian flag or a long, streaming pennant displaying the Norwegian colours, red, white and blue. I ventured to suggest that the flags expressed a profound sense of Norwegian national pride. ‘Yes,’ the king said, ‘but do you know why that is? It is because for five years we lost our flag. During the war we were not permitted to fly our flag. Sometimes one has to lose something of genuine importance before one really appreciates its true value.’ Throughout our time in Norway, Varg flew the Australian Ensign, the ‘Red Duster’, from the staff on our transom and always flew the Norwegian flag from our starboard crosstrees. This simple, time-honoured courtesy was more than a matter of nautical protocol; it was in itself a symbol of the historic ties that Australia has with Norway and its people, the maritime links that go all the way back to the colonial era and which endure through the kind of efforts that we made in travelling 20,500 miles to help celebrate the Sailor King’s 80th birthday. As King Harald and I shook hands and said goodbye, I expressed the wish that there would be ‘many happy returns.’ ‘I hope so,’ the king said. ‘Yes, I sincerely hope so.’ Bruce Stannard AM is an award-winning author and journalist with a particular interest in maritime heritage. A Life Member of the ANMM, he served on the Interim Council of the ANMM and was a member of the museum’s inaugural Council.

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

Autumn attractions MESSAGE TO MEMBERS

After another successful summer, we would like to welcome all our new Members to the museum. We hope to see many of you, both new and existing Members, at some of our autumn events.

I HOPE YOU ARE ALL WELL RESTED after the summer break. Highlights of our summer events were again our signature harbour cruises. For the Boxing Day cruise, Members had prime position at the start line of the Rolex Sydney–Hobart Yacht Race, with expert commentary from Andrew Hawkins, who has sailed in this race a number of times. This was followed by the Australia Day cruise, spectacular as always, with attractions both in the water and in the sky overhead. We have a great line-up of events for you in 2018. Alana and I have focused on the Maritime Series this year, incorporating a variety of talks and book launches. We are also increasing on-water experiences with a ‘Meet the neighbours’ history cruise and our Vivid harbour highlights cruise, which includes a visit to Taronga Zoo’s spectacular Vivid precinct. We look forward to your feedback on these events.

01 Our free outdoor exhibition Container –

the box that changed the world continues until October. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Some other off-site events include a bus tour to the Port Botany container terminal. Two visits are planned for this year, in March and August. There are limited spots, so please book early. These tours are exclusive to the Australian National Maritime Museum and I would like to thank our major sponsor, NSW Ports, for allowing access. Our upcoming exhibitions include the return of Wildlife Photographer of the Year on 30 March. And mark your calendar for June, when we present The Women of River Country, showcasing 19 women, from the mid-1800s to the present day, who have connections to the magnificent riverscape of the Murray–Darling Basin – home to Australia’s three longest rivers, the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee.

Our current popular exhibitions include Container – The box that changed the world and Gapu-Mon _ uk – Journey to Sea Country. If you haven’t yet seen these, we encourage you not to miss out. I would also like to make sure you are all receiving our monthly emails and of course Signals magazine. If not, please contact Renae or me directly on + 61 2 9298 3646. The Membership team has been receiving positive feedback for events offered in 2017. We love to hear feedback so we can tailor our programs and events to your liking. When you attend an event, please make sure you fill out the feedback form to let us know what you think. For those of you who visited recently while construction work was under way in our foyer, we thank you for your patience and understanding while we build a better museum. Finally, thank you for your ongoing support of the Members programs and the museum. I hope to see you at the museum or one of our events soon. Oliver Isaacs Manager, Members

02 Yirrkala bark paintings feature in Gapu-Mon _ uk

– Journey to Sea Country. Image Janine Flew/ ANMM

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

Members events AUTUMN 2018

MARCH

MAY

Symposium

Annual event

HMAS Sydney – 10th anniversary of its discovery

Battle of the Coral Sea commemorative lunch

6–8 pm Friday 16 March

11.30 am–3.00 pm Saturday 5 May

Sydney’s war service and its fateful battle with HSK Kormoran

Annual remembrance service and lunch to commemorate this decisive battle

Behind the scenes

The Maritime Series

Port Botany container terminal tour

AHS Centaur

10.30 am–3 pm Thursday 22 March

Richard Jones talks about the history, fate and discovery of Australian Hospital Ship Centaur

Special access to Australia’s premier port, with industry experts to guide you

APRIL

Classic & Wooden Boat Festival 10 am–5 pm Friday 13–Sunday 15 April

2–4 pm Thursday 10 May

Book launch and talk

Tobruk and Beyond. War Notes from the Mediterranean Station 1941–1943 6–8 pm Thursday 10 May

Boats afloat and on shore, maritime trades, kids’ activities, boat rides and more

An illustrated collection of personal records of Vice Admiral Sir Albert Poland

Meet the neighbours

Exclusive tour

History cruise

Welcome to new Members

9.30–11.30 am Saturday 28 April

10–11 am Wednesday 16 May or Sunday 20 May

Discover the traditions and rich history of Sydney Harbour with an experienced guide

Find out what the museum has to offer On the water

Vivid harbour cruise and Taronga Zoo visit 6.30–10.30 pm Thursday 31 May

Exclusive catered cruise visiting Taronga Zoo’s first fully interactive and immersive Vivid Sydney event

Available free

ANMM Speakers 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

For your diaries 7 June – The Maritime Series: Navy vessels with Michael Harvey 2 July – The Maritime Series: Book launch – In Whom We Trust by Captain John Dikkenberg 2 August – The Maritime Series: When Australia Collides with Asia – Ian Burnet in conversation with Jeffrey Mellefont 30 September – Whale watching cruise

Bookings and enquiries 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. Members are requested to check our website for updated and new event information.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

Symposium

HMAS Sydney – 10th anniversary of its discovery 6–8 pm Friday 16 March

The fate of HMAS Sydney (II) was for decades one of Australia’s greatest wartime mysteries. Its wreck was only discovered in 2008, along with that of its rival, the German raider HSK Kormoran. Sydney’s impressive war service record ended on 19 November 1941 following a battle with Kormoran in the Indian Ocean off the Western Australian Coast. Sydney’s crew of 645 all perished. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the wreck of HMAS Sydney, the ANMM will present a symposium telling the story of Sydney – from its short, honourable service to the historic day that its wreck was discovered, to more recent years, when an expedition to the wreck captured a stunning array of images and scientific data.

Topics and presenters will include: the discovery of the wrecks, by UK-based shipwreck hunter David Mearns; the history of HMAS Sydney, by eminent military historian Wes Olsen; the significance of Sydney’s loss to Australia, by Senior Naval Historical Officer John Perryman and Finding Sydney Foundation President Cmdr (rtrd) Bob Trotter; and 3D footage of the wrecks from the 2015 expedition and visualisations, by Dr Andrew Woods and Tim Eastwood from the Western Australian Museum. Symposium presented in conjunction with Curtin University and the Western Australian Museum. Members $75, general $90. Light refreshments and wines will be served

03 Part of the wreck of HMAS Sydney.

Image courtesy David Mearns

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

Behind the scenes

Port Botany container terminal tour 10.30 am–3 pm Thursday 22 March

Port Botany is Australia’s premier port and home to the largest container facility in New South Wales. Join this special behindthe-scenes tour for a first-hand look at the operations of the port and to get close to the giant ships as they load and unload their valuable cargoes. Industry experts will act as your guides and share insights on the port and cargo operations. All of us rely on containers to supply everyday items, like appliances, furniture, clothes, whitegoods and food. Australian products such as wine, farm produce, manufactured goods, wool, cotton and other items are loaded into containers and exported to overseas markets. Container shipping connects New South Wales with the rest of the world and keeps the New South Wales economy functioning.

After a short overview presentation and briefing off site, light refreshments will be served, then you will proceed to the port. Numbers are limited, so book now to reserve your place. Members $45, general $60. Includes coach pick-up at museum, tour and light refreshments

Meet the neighbours 05

History cruise 9.30–11.30 am Saturday 28 April

Discover the traditions and rich history of Sydney Harbour aboard a beautifully appointed Rosman ferry. Admire the spectacular scenery while your guide unearths historic tales and identifies famous buildings and modern-day points of interest. Cruise past Circular Quay, The Rocks and the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as the former working dockyards of Cockatoo Island and Garden Island, then head west to historic Spectacle Island and many other waterfront landmarks. Members: adult $50, child $35, family* $160; general: adult $65, child $45, family* $195. Includes morning tea

04 Port Botany container terminal.

Image courtesy NSW Ports

*Family is 2 adults, 2 children

05 One of the Rosman Ferries fleet.

Image courtesy Rosman Ferries

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

Annual event

Battle of the Coral Sea commemorative lunch 11.30 am–3.00 pm Saturday 5 May

This annual lunch commemorates the 76th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea between Allied and Japanese forces in the Pacific in 1942. Museum Members are invited to remember those who fought and died during this pivotal battle of World War II. A service will precede the two-course lunch. Price and other details are currently being confirmed; please check our website for updates

The Maritime Series

AHS Centaur 2–4 pm Thursday 10 May

Centaur, an Australian Hospital Ship protected by international law, was torpedoed and sunk east of Brisbane by a Japanese submarine on 14 May 1943. It was a war crime committed on our doorstep that killed 268 of the 332 personnel on board – all non-combatants. The ship’s exact location was a mystery until late 2009, when a search led by David Mearns discovered where Centaur rests. Richard Jones’ presentation will describe how the search was organised and funded, its progress, and the profound effect the discovery had on families and friends of those on Centaur.

Members $20, general $35. Includes afternoon tea

Book launch and talk

Tobruk and Beyond. War Notes from the Mediterranean Station 1941–1943 6–8 pm Thursday 10 May

Vice Admiral Sir Albert Poland coordinated the Tobruk campaign to keep up the supply of munitions and provisions, and later commanded a destroyer flotilla, in actions commended personally by Winston Churchill. This book is a compilation of his journal entries, writings on war, correspondence and personal photographs, put together by his son Peter Poland. Free for Members. Bookings essential. Includes light refreshments

06 AHS Centaur. Image National Archives

of Australia NAA: MP742/1, 336/1/1506 07 Peter Poland will launch this book, which

details his father’s service in World War II.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

Exclusive tour

Welcome to new Members 10–11 am Wednesday 16 May or Sunday 20 May

This tour is specially designed to welcome new Members (with a membership of six months or less, or upon request) to the museum. A representative of the membership team will guide you through the museum and point out areas of interest, including the galleries, kiosk and Yots cafe. At the end of the tour, enjoy morning tea in the Members Lounge and take the chance to ask any questions. Free 08

On the water

Vivid harbour cruise and Taronga Zoo visit 6.30–10.30 pm Thursday 31 May

Join our exclusive cruise to see a wonderland of light art sculptures as part of Vivid Sydney. This year we are privileged to visit Taronga Zoo’s first fully interactive and immersive Vivid Sydney event, Lights for the Wild. No other Vivid cruise is offering this unique experience. With a relaxing atmosphere and delicious catering aboard Aussie Magic, this is the easiest and most stress-free way to see this annual festival of light, sound and ideas. Please book early to secure your spot. Includes canapés (cash bar available) and entry to Vivid at Taronga Zoo. Members: adult $125, child $105, family* $414; general: adult $149, child $129, family* $489

Under 5s activities

Mini mariners 10–10.45 am or 11–11.45 am

Every Tuesday during term time and one Saturday each month Explore the galleries, 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 + carers. March – Pirates Ahoy!

April – Terrific Transport May – Alphabet Animals Child $10, adult $8, Members free (includes Activities Ticket). Booked playgroups welcome. Online bookings essential at anmm.gov. au/whats-onBook a six-class pack and save 20%!

08 Tours for new Members will help you get

the most out of your museum membership. ANMM image 09 Vivid 2017 light installations at Taronga Zoo.

Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM 10 Activities for pre-schoolers in Mini Mariners.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

For carers with children 0–18 months

Seaside Strollers tours and play Enjoy an educator-led tour, adult-friendly conversations in new exhibitions, catered treats in Yots Café, and baby play time in a sensory space. Strollers, front packs, baby-slings and breastfeeding welcome. 12.30 pm Tuesday 20 March – tour: Gapu-Mon _ uk Saltwater: Journey to Sea Country; play: under the sea theme 10.30 am or 12.30 pm Monday 9 April – tour: Wildlife Photographer of the Year; play: wildlife theme 11

12.30 pm Tuesday 15 May – tour: Waves and Water: Australian beach photographs; play: sensory beach theme $15 member adult, $20 general adult. Babies free. Includes light refreshments and Exhibitions Ticket

For primary school-aged children

Kids on Deck Sundays 11 am–3 pm every Sunday during school term

Play, create and discover at Kids on Deck with art-making, interactive games and dress-ups for primary school–aged children and their carers. Sundays in Term 1 – Polar Palooza

Sundays in Term 2 – Coolest Creatures Included in any paid admission. Members free

Explore our exhibitions

Activity trails Available every day

Explore our exhibitions Container: The box that changed the world or Gapu-Mon _ uk Saltwater: Journey to Sea Country with creative kids activity trails. Free with any entry

Baby play time during our Seaside Strollers tours.

12 Kids on Deck activities have a polar theme

this season. All images Annalice Creighton

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

Special programs

Family events 4 March – Paws and Claws Sunday 14–15 April – Classic and Wooden Boat Festival: Kids’ Boatshed and Family Fun activities daily 10 am–4 pm Full program online at anmm.gov.au/familyfun or subscribe to our family e-newsletter to keep up to date on all the details. No bookings required

Autumn holidays

Kids on Deck

10 am–4 pm (hourly sessions) daily during school holidays

Play, create and discover at Kids on Deck with art-making, interactive games and dress-ups! Be inspired by the science of icy polar wilderness environments and the biology of the creatures who live there. Craft your own polar animal puppets, print a tote bag, play with science experiments or sculpt an intrepid explorer’s tool. Entry included in any paid admission. Members free

Performance program

The Stowaway Critters Science Circus 14

11.30 am, 12.30 pm and 2 pm daily (except Saturdays) 16–30 April

Enjoy spectacular science demonstrations and a cast of kooky characters in this lively and interactive circus show. Duration 25 minutes. Entry included in any paid admission. Members free. No bookings required

Family torchlight tour

Twilight on a tall ship 6–7.30 pm Thursday 26 April

Join your character guide for a dramatic after-dark tour through the HMB Endeavour replica. Enjoy creative capers, light refreshments and exclusive after-hours access to the vessel. For ages 4–12 and adults. Participants must be at least 90 cm tall.

Members $18 child, $10 adult; general $22 child, $18 adult. Bookings essential at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays 13 Our Paws and Claws Sunday will include

a chance to meet the museum’s dog, Bailey. 14 Polar based dress-ups in the Easter holidays.

Image Annalice Creighton/ANMM 15 Explore Endeavour by torchlight.

Image McDougall Photography

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Members events AUTUMN 2018

Cabinet of Curiosities touch trolley

Weird Science 11 am–12 noon and 2–3 pm daily 16–30 April

Explore wonderful and curious scientific objects and specimens in this hands-on discovery device in our galleries. FREE with any entry

Two-day youth workshop

Rock the Boat – music videos 10 am–4 pm Monday 23 to Tuesday 24 April

Create and star in your own imaginative music video inspired by our vessels and exhibitions. Learn clever techniques in music production, directing and choreography. Have your finished work featured in a special screening for family and friends. For ages 8–14.

Members and earlybird special (to 18 April) $150; general $170. Bookings essential at anmm.gov.au/schoolholidays

Youth workshop

Wildlife Wanderer – photography 9.30 am–5 pm Wednesday 18 April

Take a ferry out to spectacular North Head for an adventurous photography workshop amid diverse wildlife and flora, military relics and stunning views. Build skills in using digital SLR cameras and learn photo-editing techniques. Have your photos printed and displayed in a special exhibition at the museum. Course held in partnership with Spitting Image Photography and Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. For ages 8–14. Suitable for all levels of experience. Members $75, general $85. Bookings essential at anmm.gov.au

16 North Head, site of our photography

workshop. Image courtesy Sydney Harbour Federation Trust

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

Maritime history buffs MEMBER PROFILE LESLEY AND GERRY SMOLDERS

When and why did you become Members? We became Members in 1997 as we had friends in The Netherlands who sent us regular updates on the building of the replica ship Batavia, which we had heard might be visiting Australia for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. If it was going to come to Sydney, then it would naturally go to the Australian National Maritime Museum, so we joined the museum three years before its visit. Batavia did arrive in spectacular style, sailing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was berthed at the museum throughout the 2000 Olympics. Do you have a nautical background? Neither of us does, really, but we both have a strong interest in the history of the early seafarers and explorers and particularly Dutch explorers and the VOC (Dutch East India Company). Gerry is a member of the VOC Historical Society in Perth, WA, and we receive a monthly newsletter which is always interesting reading. We both also love cruising and particularly like â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sea daysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; when on a cruise.

17 Lesley and Gerry in May 2015 in Sevenum,

The Netherlands, the town where Gerry was born. Image courtesy Lesley and Gerry Smolders

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > AUTUMN EVENTS

What’s your favourite aspect of museum membership? The friendships we have made over the years, not only with other Members but also with the staff of the museum. We have made many close friends and even socialise outside of museum functions. We have also spent many happy hours in the Members’ Lounge, which contributes to our enjoyment. Membership makes one feel that one belongs to a unique group. What sort of museum events or programs do you tend to participate in? Top of the list would have to be events on the water, such as Australia Day, Boxing Day, Vivid and numerous harbour cruises for special events, such as welcoming the Cunard liners and other visiting vessels – and then there are the special ‘welcome home’ tributes to sailors like Jessica Watson. Over the years we have attended many lectures on a variety of subjects, some maritime based and some not. Now that we are both retired we always try to attend the Maritime Series held on a weekday afternoon, and we never miss the Members’ annual lunch, having just attended our 20th lunch in 2017. Another must is the Coral Sea lunch with all the pomp and ceremony of the navy. What have been some of your favourite exhibitions or events here at the museum? There have been so many, but some outstanding exhibitions have been the French ship figureheads, Les Génies de la Mer; Vikings (two exhibitions); On their Own: Britain’s child migrants; Shackleton: Escape from Antarctica; Scott’s Last expedition and Escape from Pompeii – the untold Roman rescue. Events such as visits to all of the islands in Sydney Harbour, including Spectacle Island and Cockatoo Island before its transformation, were always enjoyable. If you had to sum up the museum in three words, what would they be? Innovative, educational, exciting. What else would you like to see the museum doing in the future? The brilliant new Action Stations focuses on wartime Australia, but there was so much early Australian shipping history when Australia was so isolated from the rest of the world and only accessible by the oceans. I remember my mother telling me that as a child her whole family had to travel from Byron Bay to Sydney by ship along the coastline. Each state in Australia has countless stories. Western Australia is a treasure trove of early Dutch exploration.

MEMBERS AUTUMN 2018

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > EXHIBITIONS > WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2018

Wildlife Photographer of theYear

13 April–14 October

Ethics, conservation and prestige are just a few of the many elements that define Wildlife Photographer of the Year, an annual showcase of the world’s best nature photography and wildlife photojournalism on one global platform. Seen by millions of people all over the globe, the awarded images shine a spotlight on nature photography as an art form, while challenging us to address the big questions facing our planet. The competition has seen many a transformation since its launch in 1965, when there were just three competition categories with about 500 entries. Even then, it was a leading event for nature photographers. It grew in stature over the years, and in 1984, the Natural History Museum, London, became involved to create the competition as it is today.

01 Giant gathering © Tony Wu/Wildlife

Photographer of the Year

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > EXHIBITIONS > WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

Now thousands of entries are received from almost 100 countries around the globe. Winning images appear in international publications and in the annual touring exhibition, which is now showing once again at the ANMM. The image above, Giant gathering by Tony Wu (USA), is the 2017 winner of the ‘Behaviour: Mammals’ category. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off the coast of Sri Lanka, stacked as far as Tony could see. Immediately, he realised that this was something special – like a gathering of clans, these whales were part of a multi-day congregation. For Tony, the sight filled him with hope that ‘the recovery of sperm whale populations may be going well’. The marble-like appearance of these whales is a sign of skinsloughing. Large aggregations like this one will rub and roll against one another to exfoliate their dead skin, helping them to maintain hydrodynamic performance. The tactile contact also helps to reinforce social bonds. Showing in conjunction with Wildlife Photographer of the Year is Oceans 3D: Our blue planet, a film by BBC Earth. From April 8 in our theatre; running time 45 minutes. See bbcearth.com/oceans

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2018

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2018

Gapu-Mon _uk Saltwater – Journey to Sea Country Currently showing

Gapu-Mon _ uk Saltwater Journey to Sea Country acknowledges the Yolŋu people of north-east Arnhem Land and their fight for recognition of Indigenous sea rights in the landmark Blue Mud Bay legal case. The Yirrkala Bark Paintings of Sea Country – also known as the Saltwater Collection – were created by 47 Yolŋu artists who petitioned for sea rights by painting their Sea Countries onto bark. The museum would like to advise visitors that this exhibition may contain the names and images of, and artwork by, deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people.

Arctic Voices Until 30 April

Despite its seemingly remote location, the Arctic is connected to all of us. Arctic Voices will take you on a journey to this fascinating and changing region. The Arctic is more than just snow: it is land, water, and ice. It is home to people and wildlife. It is a place of rapid change. Find out what affects the Arctic and in turn, how the Arctic has an impact on the whole planet. Arctic Voices is a co-production by the Canadian Museum of Nature and Science North.

Maritime moustaches Currently showing

The museum’s collection of photographs holds hundreds of maritime moustaches, from nice thick chevrons to the simple English style, the classic handlebar and even a few walruses and toothbrushes. Curator Dr Stephen Gapps, wielder of a reasonably large moustache himself, pulls out some of our more hirsute portraits from the collections.

Clash of the Carriers: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4–8 December 1942 Currently showing

Three navies, four aircraft carriers, 255 aircraft and 76 ships in a four-day battle that changed naval warfare forever. Eight ships sunk, 161 aircraft destroyed and 1,622 men killed in a battle that should never be forgotten. As part of our ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ program, the museum has launched a new documentary short film in the Action Stations cinema to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought by the US Navy and Royal Australian Navy against the Imperial Japanese Navy. Funded by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund

02 Nanydjaka, Miniyawany Yunupiŋu, 1998,

ANMM Collection 00033802

03 Unknown hirsute man. Samuel J Hood Studio

ANMM Collection

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2018

Container – the box that changed the world Currently showing

The museum’s first-ever outdoor exhibition is dedicated entirely to the history and impact of the humble shipping container. The exhibition goes beyond the corrugated steel to reveal the fascinating story of this revolutionary maritime invention. Housed entirely within specially modified 20-foot containers, the exhibition quite literally takes our visitors ‘inside the box’ to explore the economic, geographic, technical, environmental, social and cultural history and impact of containerisation. Container – the box that changed the world is open daily and is free. 04

Waves and Water – Australian beach photography Until 24 June

The beach is dominant in Australia’s national lexicon. It is a physical and cultural landscape, a place for a shared, universal experience. The work of nine important Australian photographers from the past 100 years reveals differing perspectives of the Australian beach and the swimmers and surfers who populate it. The photographic lens has been a tool for constructing ideas about the beach, stretching back to late-19th-century postcard images of an increasingly active pleasure-ground. In these works the beach is shown in various guises, made up of moments, theatrical tableaux and sweeping coastal landscapes.

Remembering Skaubryn: 60 years on 28 March–24 June

The Norwegian liner Skaubryn was the only vessel lost at sea during the era of post-war migration to Australia, when it caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in 1958. This small photographic display captures the dramatic fire and rescue on the 60th anniversary of the Skaubryn disaster. ANMM travelling exhibitions

War at Sea Queensland Maritime MuseumUntil 16 April

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 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 Container, a free outdoor exhibition at the

museum. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM 05 Passengers watch from the deck of City

of Sydney as Skaubryn burns in the Indian Ocean, 1958. ANMM Collection Gift from Barbara Alysen ANMS0214[006]. Reproduced courtesy International Organisation for Migration

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2018

Horrible Histories® Pirates – the Exhibition Western Australian Maritime Museum, Fremantle, WA 24 March–12 August

Get hands-on with pirate history at this 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, find your fate on the wheel of misfortune, discover the best loot to steal and splat rats in the quayside tavern. Author Terry Deary and illustrator Martin Brown’s unique approach to storytelling comes to life in this blockbuster family exhibition. 06

Undiscovered: Photographic works by Michael Cook Godyinmayin Yijard Rivers Art and Culture Centre, Katherine, NT 4 February–31 March Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT 19 May–24 June

A striking series of large-scale photographic works by celebrated Aboriginal artist Michael Cook, from the Bidjara people of south-west Queensland. Undiscovered provides a contemporary Indigenous perspective of European settlement in Australia, a land already populated by its original people. Cook’s artworks shift roles and perspectives around the notion of European ‘discovery’ of Australia, reflecting upon our habitual ways of thinking and seeing our history.

Guardians of Sunda Strait Western Australian Maritime Museum 22 February–8 April

Late on Saturday 28 February and into the early hours of Sunday 1 March 1942, the men of HMAS Perth and USS Houston fought for their lives in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. Against overwhelming odds – outnumbered and outgunned by a powerful advancing Japanese force – they fought bravely and defiantly, but lost. Both ships sank and many men died on that dreadful night in the Battle of Sunda Strait. For the survivors, this was only the beginning of their story. ANMM travelling exhibition part of ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund

06 Learn flabbergasting facts about dastardly

deeds in Horrible Histories® Pirates. ANMM image 07 Design by Virginia Buckingham.

Image © ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > EXHIBITIONS

Submerged Various dates and venues

The Australian Maritime Museums Council (AMMC) and the Australian National Maritime Museum partnered to develop the graphic panel display, Submerged: stories of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shipwrecks. Content for the display was developed by AMMC members at maritime heritage organisations across the country, and merged into a nationally touring display by the ANMM. Submerged highlights Australian shipwrecks of national, regional and local importance. There is no cost to host the graphic panel display and the ANMM will arrange and pay for transport costs. This display is supported by Visions of Australia. For bookings and enquiries, please contact touringex@ anmm.gov.au

EXHIBITIONS AUTUMN 2018

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122

Experience the polar opposite in summerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coolest family exhibition

NMM0459 Arctic Voices SignalsMag 280x207_FA_V3_OL.indd 1

4/12/2017 12:06 pm

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > COCKATOO ISLAND

MARITIME HERITAGE AROUND AUSTRALIA SYDNEY

Cockatoo Island

FROM PRISON TO DOCKYARD AND WORLD HERITAGE SITE

The largest island in Sydney Harbour, Cockatoo Island, is located at the junction of the Parramatta and Lane Cove Rivers. For many years off limits to the general public, this historic site is now managed by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and is open for visitors to discover the remarkable story of this island, which has a special place in the convict, maritime and industrial history of Australia. By John Jeremy.

COCKATOO ISLAND’S CONVICT ERA began in 1839 when the New South Wales Governor, Sir George Gipps, directed that convicts be sent there to relieve overcrowding on Norfolk Island, together with some who had been working on Sydney’s Goat Island. The convicts were set to work constructing their own barracks, a military guardhouse and residences for the prison staff. The stone for these buildings was quarried on the island and many of these convict-built buildings remain there today. The convicts also excavated 17 silos in the solid rock for the storage of grain in good seasons to provide a reserve supply for the colony in times of drought. The stored grain survived well until the colonial authorities in London ordered it sold to avoid interfering with the free market. Stone quarried by the convicts was also used for buildings in Sydney and the sea wall in Sydney Cove.

01 HMS Galatea in the Fitzroy Dock in October

1870. This was the second visit to Australia of the wooden steam frigate. The first was in 1868–67 when it was commanded by His Royal Highness Captain Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh. He was still in command during the second visit. To the right of the dock the large engineering workshop dominates the eastern shore of the island. It was built from the island’s stone by the convicts and, together with the dock and the prison facilities on the top of the island, it is now inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. J C Jeremy Collection. The original negative is held by the State Library of New South Wales.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > COCKATOO ISLAND

The prison on Cockatoo Island was soon overcrowded, with up to 500 men accommodated in the inadequate facilities

The prison on Cockatoo Island was soon overcrowded, with up to 500 men accommodated in the inadequate facilities. In 1869 the prisoners were transferred to Darlinghurst Gaol and in 1871 the prison became an industrial school for girls. Also that year the ship Vernon was anchored off the island as a training ship for homeless and orphaned boys and land on the island was provided for recreation and a small farm. Vernon was replaced in 1891 by the famous Sobraon which served until 1911, when it was purchased by the Commonwealth and converted by Mortâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dock into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) training ship HMAS Tingira (see Signals 116, pp 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;11). The girls were moved to Parramatta in 1888 and the penal buildings again became a gaol until it was closed in 1908 when Long Bay Gaol was opened. By the 1840s there was a clear need for a dock in Sydney to serve the ships of the Royal Navy. In October 1845 the Legislative Council proposed to Governor Gipps that a dock be constructed on Cockatoo Island and asked that approval for its construction be sought from the British authorities in London. The Admiralty supported the construction of the dock and initially declined to contribute to the cost, but after the Legislative Council provided funding in 1847 for the work to begin, the Admiralty finally agreed to bear part of the cost. Using convict labour the dock was excavated from the rock of the island using gunpowder fired by electricity, but construction proceeded slowly. The dock was finally completed in 1857 and the first ship to use the dock (apart from a punt of the steam dredger Hercules in September 1857) was the survey frigate HMS Herald on 1 December 1857. The dock was named the Fitzroy Dock after the former Governor, Sir Charles Fitz Roy.

02 A very early photograph inside the convict-

built engineering workshop. Thought to date from about 1870, it shows the timber-built overhead hand-operated travelling crane that is still in the building today. J C Jeremy Collection

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > COCKATOO ISLAND

In addition to the construction of the dock, the convicts built a pump house and large engineering workshop out of the island’s stone. While the use of these fine buildings varied from time to time, like the Fitzroy Dock, both continued to be used for engineering work until the dockyard closed. The Fitzroy Dock was not the first graving dock completed in Sydney – that was Mort’s Dock in Waterview Bay, which was built in 12 months and opened a year earlier. By 1870 it was clear that a larger dock was needed as the ships visiting the colony increased in size. Extension of the Fitzroy Dock was considered but, finally, in 1880, it was decided to build another dock on Cockatoo Island capable of docking the largest ships then under construction. By this time the administration of the dockyard on the island had been taken over by the Harbours and Rivers Branch of the New South Wales (NSW) Public Works Department and that department was responsible for the construction of the new dock. After the excavation work had been completed, the major contract for its construction was won by a 23-year-old civil engineer, Louis Samuel. Sadly he died in November 1887 of acute peritonitis; the work was completed by his younger brother, Edward. The Sutherland Dock was completed in 1890 and it was, briefly, the largest single graving dock in the world. Around the turn of the century, the size of ships was growing rapidly. By the time the flagship of the new Royal Australian Navy, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, stemmed the dock for the first time in May 1914, the dock had had to be enlarged to accommodate it.

03 The German protected corvette Bismark

in the Fitzroy Dock in October 1879. Sydney Water Heritage Collection, XA8508028–4

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > COCKATOO ISLAND

Shipbuilding began on Cockatoo Island in 1870 after the Harbours and Rivers Branch took over the dockyard. Many dredgers, barges, tugs and service craft were built on the island until the end of the first decade of the 20th century, and these were used to keep the ports and harbours of New South Wales open. In 1909 the shape of the Australian Navy – which became the Royal Australian Navy in July 1911 – was decided. In addition to the new ships, which included Australia, three cruisers, six destroyers and two submarines, the navy needed a dockyard. After consideration of various site options, Cockatoo Island was transferred to the Commonwealth in January 1913 to become the first naval dockyard of the RAN – the Commonwealth Naval Dockyard, Cockatoo Island. While the decision to take over the island was not universally popular with the new navy’s leaders, the island soon made a major contribution to the development of the RAN and played a major role in maritime support during World War I.

Using convict labour the dock was excavated from the rock of the island using gunpowder fired by electricity

04 The flagship of the young Royal Australian

Navy, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, in the Sutherland Dock for the first time, May 1914. Print in J C Jeremy Collection. The original negative is in the State Library of NSW, Mitchell Library collection at ON 138, Pic Acc 5258

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > COCKATOO ISLAND

The Sutherland Dock was completed in 1890 and it was, briefly, the largest single graving dock in the world

Meanwhile, between 1904 and 1910 the NSW Government had completed a major expansion of the shipbuilding and engineering facilities on the island, and the dockyard was ready to begin reassembly of the torpedo boat destroyer HMAS Warrego for the RAN. Warrego had been built in Britain and shipped to Australia for completion. It was launched on 4 April 1911 and completed the following year. Shortly before the Commonwealth took over the dockyard, orders had been placed for the construction of the cruiser HMAS Brisbane and the destroyers HMA Ships Derwent (renamed Huon), Torrens and Swan. The island’s new role and the outbreak of World War I prompted a period of rapid and extensive development of the dockyard’s facilities, all completed while the demands of the war were met by a rapidly expanding workforce. The period was not without its strains and controversies, but the dockyard completed a very large range of work, including shipbuilding (another cruiser, Adelaide, was ordered in 1915), conversion of merchant ships into transports and reconversion of transports for commercial service after the war, docking and repair of naval and commercial ships, and extensive engineering and other work ranging from the manufacture of ships’ turbines and boilers to the construction of boats, life rafts and other craft for the navy and other customers. By the end of 1919 employment at the dockyard had grown to 4,085, its highest level ever. In 1921, after a Royal Commission had considered the administration and management of the dockyard, the dockyard was transferred to the Ship Construction Branch of the Prime Minister’s Department. The Commonwealth had begun a program of merchant ship construction during the war,

05 Cockatoo Island from the north-west in

February 1944. Clockwise from the left, TSS Niarana lies at the Plate Wharf; HMAS Hobart is at the Cruiser Wharf; Bataan is being fitted out at the Bolt Shop Wharf; HMAS Arunta is at the Destroyer Wharf during refit; USS Gilmer is in the Fitzroy Dock; HMAS Barcoo is under construction on No 3 slipway; the floating crane Titan lies at the Fitzroy Wharf; LST 471 is at the Sutherland Wharf; HMAS Australia is in the Sutherland Dock; and the cargo ship River Hunter is on No 1 Slipway. J C Jeremy Collection

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > COCKATOO ISLAND

and Cockatoo built four vessels as part of this: Eudunda, Dundula, Fordsdale and Ferndale. The last two, completed in 1924, were refrigerated cargo steamers and the largest ships built in Australia at that time. The dockyard’s workload declined considerably during the 1920s. Shipbuilding orders were few, and attempts to gain commercial work – namely the construction of turbo-alternator sets for the Bunnerong Power Station – were thwarted by the High Court. Shipbreaking helped fill some of the void, and even an aircraft department was established on the island. A shipbuilding highlight was the completion in 1928 of HMAS Albatross, the RAN’s first aircraft carrier. Attempts were made to sell the island but, finally, in 1933 it was leased to a private company set up for the purpose, Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Company Limited. The 21-year lease was underpinned by a guarantee of some naval work, but the dockyard was now free to undertake any commercial work and, as the decade passed, the dockyard became ready for the challenges of the Second World War. The lessee company, despite some changes of ownership and name, continued to operate the dockyard under a series of leases and trading agreements until it closed in the 1990s.

As World War II approached, Cockatoo was completing modernisation refits of the cruisers HMAS Australia and HMAS Adelaide and building the sloops Parramatta and Warrego. Construction of the Tribal-class destroyers Arunta and Warramunga began in late 1939 (a third ship, Bataan, was ordered a couple of months later), as did that of the lead ship of a class of Australian-designed local defence vessels (later classified as minesweepers), HMAS Bathurst. Construction of the latter class of 60 ships, of which Cockatoo built eight, helped re-establish the Australian shipbuilding industry, which had declined to almost nothing during the 1930s. In addition to the shipbuilding work, Cockatoo was soon busy with the conversion of the great ocean liners into troop transports, including Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Mauretania and Aquitania. In 1942, Cockatoo was the main ship repair facility in the south-west Pacific and the period from late 1942 to mid-1943 was particularly busy with the repair of the US cruisers New Orleans, Portland, Chicago and Chester, all of which had suffered torpedo damage. The Australian cruiser HMAS Hobart was to follow after being struck near the stern by a Japanese torpedo on 20 July 1943. Its repair and modernisation were not completed until 4 February 1945. 06 The turbine shop during a busy period in the

1980s. J C Jeremy Collection

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During World War II Cockatoo Dockyard completed 20 major conversions, undertook major repairs to 31 warships and three merchant ships, fitted defence equipment to 42 ships and completed extensive alterations or repairs to large passenger liners on 45 occasions. The docks were particularly busy, with 355 naval and 395 merchant ship dockings during the war. World War II was the second period of major expansion of the dockyardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facilities, mainly justified by the merchant shipbuilding program administered by the Australian Shipbuilding Board, which had been created in 1941. The new facilities were intended to enable Cockatoo to build machinery for new ships under construction throughout Australia. In addition to assisting the board with the design of five classes of standard merchant ship, Cockatoo built two of the A-class, River Clarence and River Hunter. After the war the workload continued, with reconversion for merchant service of the passenger liners Manoora and Kanimbla, modernisation of HMAS Arunta and the conversion of the Q-class destroyers Queenborough and Quiberon (the latter completed at Garden Island) into anti-submarine frigates, and the construction of the destroyer HMAS Tobruk. In 1946 four Daring-class destroyers were ordered from Cockatoo and the Naval Dockyard at Williamstown in Victoria. The construction of these ships was, in part, intended to establish a continuous program of warship construction to avoid the loss of skills that had occurred before World War II. Cockatoo completed HMAS Voyager in 1957 and HMAS Vampire in 1959. Later ships included HMA ships Parramatta, Stuart, Stalwart and Torrens, and the passenger/vehicle ship Empress of Australia. The last ship built at Cockatoo was the fleet underway replenishment ship HMAS Success. Completed in April 1986, it was the largest naval ship yet built in Australia and the largest ship ever built in the Port of Sydney.

07 HMAS Onslow being removed from the

Sutherland Dock embarked on the Slave Dock SD3201 during its 1975â&#x20AC;&#x201C;77 refit. The slave dock was a pontoon designed specifically to accommodate the Oberon-class submarines during their refits to reduce the demands on the two graving docks. J C Jeremy Collection

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General engineering work was also a major part of the dockyard’s work, including the repair of steam turbines for users throughout Australia and the region, and the manufacture of parts and equipment for Australian infrastructure projects. Submarines first came to Cockatoo Dockyard in June 1914, when AE1 and AE2 were docked after arrival from Britain. Both were lost, in 1914 and 1915 respectively, and were finally replaced by six J-class submarines given to Australia by Britain in 1919. They were also supported by Cockatoo Dockyard. Submarine work continued intermittently – HMAS Oxley and HMAS Otway briefly in 1929 to 1931, a Dutch submarine during World War II, and the British submarines attached to the 4th Submarine Division in Sydney after the war. Following the decision in 1960 to obtain a squadron of Oberon-class submarines for the RAN, Cockatoo Dockyard was designated as the refitting yard. In preparation, Cockatoo completed five refits of HM submarines Tabard, Trump and Taciturn, and extensive refitting facilities for the new submarines were completed on the island by 1971. The support of the RAN’s Oberon-class submarines became the main task of Cockatoo Dockyard and, by the time it closed, 14 major refits (including a world-leading modernisation), 15 mid-cycle survey dockings, 39 intermediate dockings and 14 unprogrammed dockings of HMA submarines Oxley, Otway, Ovens, Onslow, Orion and Otama had all been completed. In April 1987, following a Defence review of the future needs for the Commonwealth-owned dockyards, the government announced that the lease of Cockatoo Dockyard would not

In 2010, parts of Cockatoo Island were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List

08 Cockatoo Island in early 1984. HMAS

Success is shortly to be launched from No 1 slipway. Titan is at the Cruiser Wharf, the submarine HMAS Otama is on the slave dock at the Bolt Shop Wharf and HMAS Onslow is at the Destroyer Wharf. J C Jeremy Collection

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be renewed on its expiry at the end of 1992 and that the island would be sold. Inevitably, perhaps, there followed some difficult industrial disputes that marred the performance of the dockyard in its final years and the last submarine refit, that of HMAS Orion, was completed on 4 June 1991. The island was returned to the Department of Defence on 31 December 1992, ending 134 years of service to the maritime industry of Australia and the navy. The biggest loss was the loss of so much knowledge and experience as the people of Cockatoo Dockyard were dispersed and the apprentice training for which the dockyard was well known drew to a close. Plans to sell the island for redevelopment fortunately came to nothing and Cockatoo Island was saved for the people of Australia. It is now managed by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, a self-funding agency created by the Australian Government that is responsible for the planning and management of Sydney Harbour sites, including Cockatoo Island and Snapper Island in Sydney Harbour, Woolwich Dock and Parklands in Woolwich, HMAS Platypus in Neutral Bay, Georges Heights, Middle Head and Chowder Bay in Mosman, North Head Sanctuary in Manly, the Marine Biological Station in Watsons Bay and the Macquarie Lighthouse in Vaucluse. The Harbour Trustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role is to cultivate a long-term vision and plan for these sites to ensure that they are integrated into the life of Sydney and create a lasting legacy for the people of Sydney and Australia. In 2010, parts of Cockatoo Island were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with ten other historic sites which, together, form the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage Property. The sites are recognised as collectively representing the best surviving evidence of the large-scale convict transportation and forced labour used to support European colonial expansion. On Cockatoo Island the listing includes, in addition to surviving penal-era buildings, the Fitzroy Dock and the engineering workshop built next to it by the convicts. Over the years the Harbour Trust has worked to conserve the convict-built structures on the island to preserve them for future generations. Recently a major conservation program was completed on the engineering workshop complex, known prosaically as Buildings 138 and 143. The original engineering workshop overhead travelling crane has also been restored by the Trustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s team of volunteers and remains in its originally intended place, giving visitors a glimpse of the early engineering history of the dockyard. John Jeremy is a graduate in naval architecture from the University of New South Wales. He spent most of his career at Cockatoo Dockyard, and has written three books on its history. He is an Honorary Life Member of the ANMM.

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > SY ENA AND MV KRAIT

FOUNDATION AUTUMN 2018

SY Ena and MV Krait SEEKING YOUR SUPPORT FOR THESE IMPORTANT VESSELS

The Australian National Maritime Foundation has two major projects currently under way: the conservation and upkeep of the elegant Edwardian steam yacht SY Ena, and the restoration of World War II commando boat MV Krait to its 1943 configuration. The Foundation is seeking donations from the public to support these works. By Dr Kimberley Webber and David Payne.

01 01 SY Ena at the museum, 2014.

Image Zoe McMahon/ANMM

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A very stark and yet-to-be-restored James Craig caught their eye

The SY Ena Conservation Fund – an homage to boat building in Sydney Harbour The museum is seeking funds to support the Ena Conservation Fund and in 2017 received its first gift, a very generous donation of $50,000 from the David and Jennie Sutherland Foundation. This gift – and the fund – specifically aims to provide the resources to ensure that SY Ena remains a working vessel on Sydney Harbour. For much of their working lives Dr and Mrs Sutherland have run general practices in regional New South Wales – including for 17 years in Bourke – but they are passionate about Sydney’s maritime heritage. For Dr Sutherland this began in his childhood. Inspired by his mother and aunts who, he recalls, ‘would use any excuse really to get the Manly ferry into town’, ferries – and the working harbour – became an exciting part of his life. Many years later, and after having been involved in the restoration of a number of historic buildings in Bourke, the Sutherlands were driving past Blackwattle Bay. A very stark and yet-to-be-restored James Craig caught their eye, and before long they were part of the restoration crew and, when the ship was successfully relaunched, the sailing crew. In fact they were on James Craig for the vessel’s first voyage outside Sydney Heads to Eden in southern New South Wales. This experience, combined with their work in regional New South Wales, made them aware of the importance of ‘giving back’. As Dr Sutherland states, ‘it was a terrific inspiration of how much individuals coming together can do’.

02 David and Jennie Sutherland in their garden.

Image Kimberley Webber/ANMM

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When they saw an article in the Australian Financial Review in 2015 about the forthcoming auction of SY Ena – and aware of its long history on Sydney Harbour – they were determined that something should be done to ensure it remained a working vessel. When John Mullen purchased the vessel and, in June 2017, donated it to the ANMM, Dr and Mrs Sutherland approached the museum about establishing a conservation fund. Their gift, to which they propose to continue adding, was the first to be received. As the Sutherlands recently commented, ‘We see ourselves having a long-term involvement with the conservation of this lovely vessel, ensuring it remains on Sydney Harbour and raises awareness of the rich working life of the harbour and the city’. The Sutherlands also hope that it will inspire others to contribute to the fund, and to recognise the importance of philanthropy in Australian society generally. For them, this is an ethical issue of increasing importance, providing opportunities for us all to broaden our life experience and build connections. And, as Dr Sutherland has seen so often in his professional life as a rural GP, connected communities are strong communities. If you are able to contribute to the SY Ena Conservation Fund, please contact the Acting Head of the Foundation, Dr Kimberley Webber, on 02 8241 8324 or email kimberley.webber@anmm. gov.au. Dr Kimberley Webber

03 Ena’s splendidly appointed saloon.

Image Zoe McMahon/ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > SY ENA AND MV KRAIT

FOUNDATION AUTUMN 2018

MV Krait – conserving a wartime icon A key fundraising priority for the museum’s Foundation has been to seek support for the restoration of MV Krait to its 1943 configuration. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, and the support of the Australian War Memorial, this famous World War II commando vessel has been undergoing major conservation work. With major repairs now completed, the second stage of rebuilding the vessel in the original 1943 configuration is under way, and the Foundation invites the public’s support for this work to continue. Krait holds a special place in Australia’s wartime history through its involvement with Operation Jaywick and the Z Special Unit in World War II. The vessel belongs to the Australian War Memorial, but under an agreement it has been maintained by the ANMM and kept in operating condition at the museum. Krait was built in 1934 in Japan. It is now more than 80 years old and it was time for a major overhaul of its structure to prepare it for future display and interpretation plans. The initial work has been undertaken by shipwright Michael Bartley and his team at their shed in Woolwich, Sydney, on the Parramatta River. Once it was properly supported on the long cradle devised by Bartley, the rudder and shaft were removed and carefully repaired, while the planking was surveyed and,

04 Krait during World War II. Image Australian

War Memorial 300915

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Krait holds a special place in Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wartime history

where required, the original teak was replaced with new teak planking. At the same time repairs were made to frames and the stem, all the time keeping original material where it was practical to do so. The deck and hatches were in poor condition, but were not the original structure, so this section was replaced in its entirety along with the bulwarks that had been rebuilt in the 1980s. Kraitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wartime story is legendary. Departing in early September 1943 from Exmouth in Western Australia, it took a team of commandos through Japanese-held waters to an island close to Singapore Harbour. Using folding kayaks, three teams paddled to the harbour in darkness, attached limpet mines to seven large ships and escaped undetected. The mines detonated after they left, causing severe damage to the ships and demonstrating that the Japanese were not invincible. Krait returned to pick up the commandos and managed to escape back to Australia, surviving a hugely successful raid that was kept secret until the end of the war. Krait was originally a Japanese fishing boat working in Singaporean waters, giving it the ideal disguise it needed to travel unnoticed through the Indonesian territory that was then under Japanese control. This had earlier enabled it to carry out another heroic deed not well recognised. Early in 1942, Krait had been seized and lay idle in Singapore. As the Japanese forces moved down to take Singapore, it was offered to Australian miner and seaman Bill Reynolds as a means of escape. With a small team he took Krait and, as they

05 A group on board MV Krait en route

to Singapore during Operation Jaywick. Left to right: back row, Able Seaman Walter Falls; Acting Leading Seaman Kevin Cain; Major Ivan Lyon; Lieutenant Hubert Carse; Leading Stoker James McDowell. Front row, Andrew Huston; AB Mostyn Berryman; Leading Telegraphist Horace Young. Image AWM P00986.001

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The team is confident that the restoration will show as accurately as possible Krait as it was in September 1943

made their escape, they helped to pick up survivors stranded on islands also trying to escape. They were largely ignored by the Japanese patrols. This role is rarely mentioned, but in hindsight this was an Australian ‘Dunkirk event’, and it appears that Krait is the only surviving private craft of those that escaped in such perilous circumstances. It is important that Krait tells the story of how its Japanese appearance was used as a disguise for its clandestine activities in Japanese waters, and to do this, considerable work has been done to research and document on paper what it looked like in 1943 and how it was arranged and operated as a commando vessel. Former ANMM Fleet surveyor, shipwright Warwick Thomson, and ANMM curator David Payne have undertaken the research needed and worked in association with curators at the Australian War Memorial. David has drawn plans and Warwick has written the specifications for Krait to be rebuilt with the arrangement and fitout that it had when it undertook the operation in September 1943. The correct plan for the bulkheads, hatches, tanks, galley and storage has been determined, and the fitout for the radio room in Compartment 3 has been drawn out. Two books on the raid carried considerable descriptions of the craft’s layout; diary notes of some of the crew carried descriptions of detail; the Australian War Memorial had over a dozen images of it during the period; and there was evidence on the boat of where things had once been. This was combined into a large 1:24 scale drawing which was then reviewed with the sole surviving member of the raid, Mostyn Berryman. His recollections corrected some of the detail, and added considerably more as he began to remember more as we went over the drawing at his home in Adelaide.

06 Members of the public who have contributed

funds to Krait’s restoration inspect work in progress. Image David Payne/ANMM

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FOUNDATION AUTUMN 2018

This combination of sources has enabled the team to be confident that the restoration will show as accurately as possible Krait as it was in September 1943, allowing us to fully interpret its significant and heroic story for years to come. With the repairs now completed by Bartley, Krait will return to the ANMMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wharves, where the detail of the layout will be added and the Foundation will continue to support Stage 2 of the work. This is centred on creating the fitout of the radio compartment, galley and tanks, spars and rigging and many other details that were present in 1943. David Payne, Curator of Historic Vessels

07 Kraitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1943 configuration. David Payne/

ANMM

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > FORGING FRIENDSHIPS, PROMOTING PEACE

EDUCATION AUTUMN 2018

Forging friendships, promoting peace

STUDENT AMBASSADORS MEET IN HAWAII

One of the museum’s current learning programs centres around the 75th anniversary of the Pacific theatre of World War II. As the first stage of this program ends, three students – one each from Australia, Japan and the United States – were recently chosen to represent their countries at a week-long event in Hawaii. By ANMM Education Officers Anne Doran and Jeffrey Fletcher.

‘THERE ARE NO WINNERS IN CONFLICT. It affects all members of the community, adding to the importance for youth and the future to come together in friendship, for we are all one global community.’ These words, spoken by Millicent Sarginson aboard the Battleship Missouri Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 2017, capture the spirit of reconciliation, understanding and youth leadership that permeated our week in Hawaii. We were there with three youth ambassadors and their teachers from Japan, Australia and the USA as the

01 From left: Nanari Minegishi, Japanese

ambassador; Saki Yokoyama, Japanese delegate; Sara Cole, American ambassador; and Millicent Sarginson, Australian ambassador, during a visit to Aliamanu Middle School.

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EDUCATION AUTUMN 2018

culmination of our ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ education initiative. Educators spend a lot of time planning – usually some things go to plan and others don’t, but this week surpassed even our blue-sky dreams.

As education professionals, we were proud to be witnessing learning at its best, as it happened

In early 2017 we began the first in a series of international learning programs based around commemorating World War II in the Pacific. The plans engaged nine high schools across three countries in a project-based learning program to research and produce documentaries on significant battles in which their countries had been involved (see Signals 120). They were charged to produce original research and investigate different perspectives of these historical events. The results were outstanding and the project provided an enriching learning experience for both students and teachers. The ANMM War and Peace in the Pacific 75 program provides a meaningful way for students to engage in historical research and analysis of past events. The exchange also provides an avenue for students to build interpersonal communication skills, critical thinking, and cultural competence using technology, as components of 21st-century learning skills. Renee Day, teacher, Ramona High School, California, USA Participating students were invited to apply to represent their country in Hawaii around the time of the Pearl Harbor commemorations. Following a competitive selection process, one student from each of Japan, Australia and the USA was selected as a youth ambassador. The successful students were Nanari Minegishi (Sendai, Japan), Millicent Sarginson (Lake Macquarie, Australia) and Sara Cole (Santa Clarita, USA),

02 From left: Anne Doran, ANMM Education

Officer; Anna Parker, Japanese teacher/ chaperone; Saki Yokoyama; Nanari Minegishi; and Jeff Fletcher, ANMM Senior Education Officer, at the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Memorial. Images David Foley

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EDUCATION AUTUMN 2018

who were accompanied by teacher chaperones from their schools, the two education officers from ANMM and David Foley from the New South Wales Department of Education (DART Connections). Other students were able to attend as self-funded delegates and we were joined by Saki Yokoyama, also from Sendai. The group spent a week visiting key World War II sites, attending official ceremonies, working with local high school students, learning about Hawaiian culture and meeting American and Japanese survivors, servicemen and witnesses of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The concluding event, led by our three ambassadors, was a youth friendship ceremony aboard the Battleship Missouri Memorial, on the spot where the Instrument of Peace was signed in 1945. Through their moving, respectful and uplifting addresses, the ambassadors shared their insights into what they had learned through the project, their experiences together in Hawaii and their commitment to peace. Their poise, confidence, engagement and genuine belief in what they were saying shone on a still evening at sunset, 76 years to the day since the attack on Pearl Harbor. As education professionals, we were proud to be witnessing learning at its best, as it happened:

I expected Sara to get a lot out of the experience. I didn’t expect to come home feeling like that experience would be a hinge for my own life. I am now more certain than ever that real world learning experiences are a necessity, not a luxury for our students … The ceremony itself, at the end of a whirlwind of a week getting to know one another as we learned more about Pearl Harbor, the war, and its tragic ripple effects on all sides, wasn’t a contrived ceremony where the word ‘ friendship’ was symbolic. By Thursday evening, the friendship was real and it was the ceremony that was contrived for everyone else to see. Jessica Ruiz, teacher, Academy of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, California, USA By travelling to Hawaii, we were able to hear first-hand from those (both Japanese and American) who experienced, or were the descendants of those who survived, this troubling time in our histories. All students involved in the program came away with enriched perspectives of each other’s histories and even greater than that, a stronger sense of the importance of peace, a more informed vision of how it can be achieved, and the determination to do just that. Anna Parker, teacher, Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen High School, Sendai, Japan 03 Speakers at the Blackened Canteen Peace

Youth Summit: Mr Yosuke Matsuzaki, Colonel Charles E McGee, Dr Hiroya Sugano and Colonel Bud Anderson. Image David Foley

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‘I read the World War II surrender documents ten feet from where they were signed’

The week allowed for staff and students to be immersed in the environment of the historical events and their impact on local and global history. Students were fortunate to speak with real people who were involved in Pearl Harbour, from all sides of the conflict. The power of such an opportunity took learning beyond the textbook to allow students to interact with the real content. Brenden Maher, Principal, Lake Macquarie High School, Australia The panel of speakers also included Dan Parsons, Education Director at Battleship Missouri Memorial; Stacey Hayashi, a Japanese–American filmmaker; Lt Colonel Linda Meyer, Australian Defence Force Liaison Officer, Australian ConsulateGeneral, Honolulu; and Jeffrey Fletcher, Senior Education officer at ANMM. In the audience were 70 students from Aliamanu Middle School, Honolulu, who had participated in the research project and with whom we had the privilege of working during several events throughout the week. The ceremony was livestreamed through the support of Dart Connections, led by David Foley, who also conducted interviews and captured the students’ and teachers’ reflections over the week. At the end of the program the ambassadors were asked to reflect on their experiences and what this project meant to them: I really enjoyed all the activities during this week. Especially, the stories of veterans and people who experienced war made me think more about what does peace really mean? Each words of them were very strong and they hit my heart. Hearing those words, I could not stop crying because I was touched.

04 Ready for the friendship ceremony:

Sara Cole, Nanari Minegishi and Millicent Sarginson on board the Battleship Missouri Memorial. Image David Foley

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EDUCATION AUTUMN 2018

The one thing that shocked me was everyone I met in Hawaii understood our different perspectives of war and did not show negative feelings to us. When we visited Aliamanu Junior High School, most of them talked to me friendly so that I could communicate with them easily.

Through their moving, respectful and uplifting addresses, the ambassadors shared their insights of what they had learned through the project

When I go back to Japan, I will tell everybody in my school about my experiences during this week and I will show the example of actions to make a peaceful world. Nanari Minegishi, Sendai Shirayuri Gakuen High School, Sendai, Japan All week I have read the letters and the dairies and logbooks of the past where they remain plastered up on the museum walls or under two-inch glass on the Battleship Missouri memorial. I read the World War II surrender documents ten feet from where they were signed. I myself had the unique opportunity to speak on the history of my hometown of Newhall, California, in a ceremony which has been filmed for posterity. I will be on YouTube for as long as there is a YouTube. For all our lack of memory, humanity has gotten very good at preservation. We have the past covered. So whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. We keep on going and we keep on writing, but, hopefully, we also take a moment to remember our past and let it teach us what we must learn. We will surely make mistakes, but let the ones we make be new so our children may learn more than we can. Sara Cole, Academy of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, California, USA

05 Nanari Minegishi, Sara Cole, Jimmy Lee

(our guide, and a witness to the attack on Pearl Harbor) and Millicent Sarginson at the USS Arizona Memorial. Image Anne Doran/ANMM

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After spending only six days with the other ambassadors and delegates I feel as though our bonds between each other are stronger than people I’ve known for six years. No amount of preparation and study could have prepared me for the sensational experience the War and Peace in the Pacific program has divulged ... As we continue to remember all lives lost during World War II, this project will follow with its legacy – knowing that war and peace can be solved by developing stronger allies in the name of friendship and goodwill through today’s youth. Millicent Sarginson, Lake Macquarie High School, Australia The Pearl Harbor event was the logical and philosophical culmination of the research arm of the project and the embodiment of the entire learning initiative through respecting the past by looking to the future. However, it did more than that. It put us in touch with the humanity of the events of 76 years ago and immersed us in the reality of what happened, then brought us back to a genuine hope for a peaceful future. Take away the cultural differences and we are all the same: young women with the same hopes and dreams, concerns and worries. We all are thinking about our futures, school, exams, families and friends. Millicent Sarginson The project forged strong international partnerships for the ANMM and created life-changing friendship bonds and personal learning experiences for both participants and audiences, as well as a valuable ongoing educational resource. The project will continue over the next two years. The 2018 theme is Life on the Homefront, with a student visit to Australia, and in 2019 it will be Secrets of War, for which we plan to take students to Japan. Registrations for this year’s project are open until the end of Term 1: see our website. On the ANMM ‘War and Peace in the Pacific 75’ webpage the student documentaries, the friendship ceremony and the three ambassadors’ video entries and reflections from the week can be viewed along with a copy of the ambassadors’ friendship ceremony speeches. War and Peace in the Pacific 75 Years has been developed by the Australian National Maritime Museum and the New South Wales Department of Education – Learning Systems Directorate and is supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

EDUCATION AUTUMN 2018

COLLECTIONS AUTUMN 2018

SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > SPIRITUALITY AND THE SEA

01 Pulpit in the shape of a ship’s prow, known at

the Mission to Seafarers (Missions to Seamen) as the Lifeboat Pulpit, c1928. The original stand or stairs have been removed. ANMM Collection 00054931 Gift from Mission to Seafarers. Images Emma Bjorndahl/ANMM

Spirituality and the sea THE MISSION TO SEAFARERS COLLECTION

The museum has acquired an evocative collection of maritime heritage from the Mission to Seafarers, Sydney, which has a history dating back to the early port in 1822. We can now explore the stories of the early provision of welfare to sailors and the surprising role of charitable religious organisations in maritime history. By Dr Stephen Gapps.

BY THE 1820s, the Sydney waterfront was bustling with ships from around the world. Tens of thousands of sailors were temporary residents of the thriving maritime township. While the sailors thronged the many pubs and inns of The Rocks area, near the port, they were not known for their attendance at religious services. In 1822 the rector of St Philip’s Church of England, the Reverend William Cowper,

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COLLECTIONS AUTUMN 2018

instigated the establishment of an interdenominational society that could minister to sailors from different churches. Lacking a place of worship, Cowper and other volunteer clergymen conducted their early services on board the ships in port.

While sailors thronged the pubs and inns, they were not known for their attendance at religious services

For the next 20 years the Sydney Bethel Union Society led in tending to the spiritual needs of sailors in Sydney. Sometimes floating services were conducted on a barge donated to them for the purpose. By 1841, enough funds had been raised to build a dedicated Mariners’ Church, firstly at Erskine Street, near Darling Harbour, and then at a location more convenient to sailors, on the east side of Sydney Cove, not far from where the Opera House now stands. In 1856 a new building was taken up at 100 George Street, The Rocks. This provided what would become the cornerstone of the Seamen’s Mission – a space for ‘reading, refreshments and entertainment’. The role of the mission was to provide welfare assistance and social activities for sailors in foreign ports, as well as the opportunity to attend church services. Sailors flocked to the Mariners’ Church and by the 1880s the Church of England’s Seamen’s Mission had been established. The mission and the Bethel Union worked together and after various moves and amalgamations, in 1895 the Missions to Seamen took over the lease and running of the Mariners’ Church. In 1906 the tiny church was no longer adequate for the growing numbers of sailors in Sydney and the building was enlarged and remodelled. It then boasted accommodation, a hall for concerts and dining, smoking rooms, a library and a gymnasium. The original chapel was converted to a recreation hall. A former mariner himself, the then New South Wales Governor, Sir Harry Rawson, advocated the proposal and in 1909 laid the foundation stone for the extensions. The mission operated from the enlarged and remodelled building until the 1970s.

02 Foundation stone of the Sydney Bethel

Union’s Mariners’ Church. It was removed from the original Mariners’ Church in Erskine Street, East Darling Harbour, in 1844. The Sydney Bethel Union later merged with the Missions to Seamen. ANMM Collection 00054930 Gift from Mission to Seafarers

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COLLECTIONS AUTUMN 2018

During that decade, it was one of many sites saved by ‘green bans’ – campaigns to protect The Rocks from demolition – and which are now heritage listed. The mission building operates today as a function venue, with such rooms as The Chapel (which maintains the cathedral ceiling and some of the original stained-glass windows) and the Rawson Room. The name ‘The Rawson Institute for Seamen’ that once proudly graced the building’s front is still visible.

Lacking a place of worship, Cowper and other volunteer clergymen conducted their early services on board the ships in port

Over the years, as the nature of shipping changed, so too did the mission. But unlike many other 19th-century charitable religious organisations, the mission did not fade away. After relocating several times and finally becoming known as The Mission to Seafarers in 2000, in 2012 the mission once more sold its Sydney location – the wonderfully named Flying Angel House – that it had occupied since 1993. At the time of this move, the Mission to Seafarers decided to approach the Australian National Maritime Museum with an offer of some of an extensive collection of material it felt would be better preserved in a museum. The eclectic collection ranges from the 1844 foundation stone of the original Mariners’ Church, a series of brass memorial plaques to people who died at sea, a presentation trowel, a velvet-covered pocket bible and a booklet titled ‘Service for the Burial of the Dead at Sea to meet the need of Masters on merchant marine and maritime service vessels’, produced by the mission. Perhaps the most dramatic object of all is a large wooden ‘lifeboat pulpit’ in the shape of a ship’s prow.

03 Certificate of Competency as a Master issued

to James Kerr. ANMM Collection 00054910 Gift from Mission to Seafarers 04 Silver presentation trowel, presented to

Admiral Sir Harry Rawson GCB for use in laying the foundation stone of the Rawson Institute for Seamen, 18 March 1909. ANMM Collection 00054907 Gift from Mission to Seafarers

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The Mission to Seafarersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; collection will allow the museum to interpret the many evocative stories associated with the welfare of foreign and Australian sailors in the port of Sydney, and the often neglected, but once prominent, role of the mission here (and worldwide). It will complement the digitisation project being undertaken by the Mission to Seafarers Victoria (established in 1857; see Signals 110, March 2015), which is providing online access to the missionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extensive archive of documents and photographs: victoriancollections.net. au/organisations/mission-to-seafarers-victoria It will also provide a strong element for the new narratives and stories being developed by the museum for future exhibitions, reminding us of the once strong connections between sailors and spirituality engendered by the ever-present connection to the sea. You will shortly be able to view the Mission to Seafarers collection online at anmm.gov. au/collections

05 Commemorative plaque raised to Carl

Alexander Stacy, who died at sea. ANMM Collection 00054914 Gift from Mission to Seafarers

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WELCOME WALL AUTUMN 2018

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

Four ships and a lifeboat THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SKAUBRYN SINKING

The Norwegian liner Skaubryn was the only vessel lost at sea during the era of post-war migration, when it caught fire in 1958 with 1,288 people on board, including more than 200 children. Two of the survivors, who were both eight years old at the time of their ill-fated voyage, told their stories to curator Kim Tao. Their names have been unveiled on the Welcome Wall 60 years after Skaubryn’s final passage.

01 01 Skaubryn survivors are transferred to Aden in one of

Roma’s lifeboats, 1958. ANMM Collection Gift from Barbara Alysen ANMS0214[022]. Reproduced courtesy International Organisation for Migration

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Ute Mahoney (née Gabriel), Germany I was born in 1950, on Australia Day, in a little village in Niederbachem outside of Bonn in West Germany. I was born during a blizzard – the midwife couldn’t even get there and my father had to deliver me. We lived in an old farmhouse that had been converted into flats. We had an orchard beside us and the forest behind. We used to come down in the sled in winter and I would go to school sometimes on my sled. My father Kurt Gabriel (1927–2006) had been in the Second World War. He was only 16 and they just conscripted the kids in those days. My grandfather was a prisoner-of-war in Russia for four years, so he suffered greatly there. But everybody did. My parents had nothing after the war; all their possessions were gone. My mother Johanna Heinrich (1913–1977) didn’t have anything. Her first husband was killed in the war; he was blown up by a hand grenade. My half-sister Sieglinde Winkler was 10 years older than me. Life was pretty hard. Food wise, it was still very scarce. You just couldn’t go and buy a lot. A lot of farms had been bombed. We were lucky that we lived on a farm – at least we got some food there. But anything like meat was impossible. We migrated to Australia when I was eight. We had a visit from my father’s second cousin, who lived in Kingsford [in the eastern suburbs of Sydney]. My sister and mother went to work on my father to emigrate. It was either Australia or Canada. And so because a cousin was living here, we came here.

‘I didn’t even know where Australia was till we were shown on a map’

I didn’t even know where Australia was till we were shown on a map. There were application forms and medical tests. You couldn’t come into the country without a clean bill of health, X amount of dollars and my father had to have a trade. He was a bricklayer – they were needed in those days. We stayed with my grandparents, who lived in Essen, for a week before the Skaubryn took off. We sailed from Bremerhaven on 14 March 1958. I remember the old-fashioned streamers thrown from the deck of the ship down to the wharf. It was all a bit frightening going on the ship. I was so seasick, totally seasick. It was all just too much. If I hadn’t had my sister, I would’ve been dead. I just threw up all the time. We went through the Suez Canal, which was closed not long after, and that’s when the boat caught fire [a fire broke out in Skaubryn’s engine room on 31 March]. I was asleep, then all of a sudden the bells started to ring. My sister came racing in. We were separated from our parents – they were off dancing. And then they just gathered us all and put lifejackets on us. We had to stand in line waiting for the lifeboats, which was

02 Passengers watch from the deck of City

of Sydney as Skaubryn burns in the Indian Ocean, 1958. ANMM Collection Gift from Barbara Alysen ANMS0214[005]. Reproduced courtesy International Organisation for Migration

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terrifying. We had an emergency drill earlier that day but it doesn’t help because everyone panics, especially women with their kids. It was just panic time to get into a boat and climb down these terrible rope ladders, which as soon as someone was on them, they moved. It was really scary because I couldn’t swim. In those days, if you didn’t live near the water, you didn’t learn how to swim. I was so frightened of the water. I don’t know which is worse, fire or water. If you get caught in either of those, you’re helpless.

‘I couldn’t swim … I was so frightened of the water. I don’t know which is worse, fire or water. If you get caught in either of those, you’re helpless’

The [British cargo ship] City of Sydney came and picked us up. Everybody was on deck because there’s no cabins or anything there. They brought us into Aden [then a British port city, now part of Yemen] again on the Italian liner Roma. We lived there in a hospital that they’d just finished [the Queen Elizabeth Hospital] and they hadn’t put any patients in yet. We stayed there until they sent a Dutch ship, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, two weeks later to pick us up. We lost everything, all our bedding, all our china. I had a girl and a boy china doll. All gone, the whole lot. We weren’t insured – we weren’t encouraged to insure. I had a pair of pyjamas getting off the boat. And my parents were dancing so they had evening clothes on. The Red Cross put a few clothes together for us. We arrived in Sydney in May 1958. And it was lucky because, losing everything, my father’s cousin took us in for a few months [in Kingsford] until we could reorganise ourselves. We all lived in one room. My sister went off to nurse, so she didn’t have to live with us.

03 Temporary accommodation for Skaubryn

survivors on the deck of Roma, 1958. ANMM Collection Gift from Barbara Alysen ANMS0214[063]. Reproduced courtesy International Organisation for Migration 04 Survivors crowd into a lifeboat from

Skaubryn, 1958. ANMM Collection Gift from Barbara Alysen ANMS0214[015]. Reproduced courtesy International Organisation for Migration

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In those days it wasn’t very popular for German people to be in Australia. As soon as the neighbourhood kids knew that I was German, they weren’t allowed to play with me because of their parents. It was hard times. It was very lonely for the first few months, until we moved to Canley Vale [in southwestern Sydney] and there was a girl my age in my street. We’re still friends these days. If it hadn’t have been for her, I would have been very lonely. I went straight into school without any English, but I picked it up really quickly and I lost all my accent. My father worked for a German butcher (he rebuilt the shop) and I think he learnt English that way. I had to speak English at home so that my parents would learn the language. My parents kept in contact with people off the Skaubryn. They always had a social group going, living in the same sort of area. They played cards together, or would go and meet at the German Club in [the nearby suburb of] Cabramatta and have dinner together, or shooting competitions. My father was often a winner in the shooting club. He was a bricklayer all his life and moved down to Cooma [in southern New South Wales] when he retired. My mother died of cancer in 1977. I married and had three kids and now have four grandkids.

The Skaubryn is not far from my memory most of the time. I think about it an awful lot. Skaubryn didn’t sink there and then [in the Indian Ocean]; it didn’t sink until they were towing it to Aden [on 6 April 1958]. I don’t watch anything like the Titanic [film]. I’m not keen on watching anything with disasters on ships, I really just don’t like it. I registered for the Welcome Wall to commemorate the bravery of my parents. I thought it was important for me too and I want my kids and grandchildren to be able to look at it and realise just what we went through to come here. I don’t know if I’d ever have the guts to move to a different country, not speaking the language or having a job to go to. It’s pretty brave and especially in that context where we lost everything. Putting our names on the Welcome Wall was something I always wanted to do.

‘The Skaubryn is not far from my memory most of the time. I think about it an awful lot’ 05 Five-year-old Ute Gabriel on her first day

of school, West Germany, 1955. Ute carries a traditional German Schultüte (school cone), a gift from her parents containing pencils, notebooks, rulers and sweets. Reproduced courtesy Ute Mahoney 06 Ute’s mother Johanna Heinrich in Australia,

c 1965. Reproduced courtesy Ute Mahoney

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Joseph Cutajar, Malta On 22 March 1958, my mother Catherine Cutajar (née de Battista; born 1927), myself aged eight and my two younger brothers, Mario (five) and Frank (three), boarded the Skaubryn in Valletta, Malta. My father, Charles Cutajar (born 1928), was already in Australia – he came out a month earlier. He was a cook in the British Army. My parents were teenagers during World War II. Mum remembers the air raid shelters they had to go in as kids. She couldn’t stand it, because people were crying, and she’d rather take her chances outside. Dad was brought up in an orphanage because there were too many children in his family – seven boys and two girls. His father passed away early, in his 40s, with emphysema. Dad tells me stories of eating dried food for the rabbits when the war was happening. He also remembers horses being shot down and German planes coming down close to the ground. I was born in Pietà [on the outskirts of Valletta] in 1950. I remember my Holy Communion when I was about five or six, with lots of parties and being dressed up. Then all of a sudden we were moving to Australia. To me it was more of a holiday – I didn’t think it was forever. I remember my aunty Guza saying she was going to miss us, miss me, because I was fairly close to her. I’m still close to her today. All I remember is her saying, ‘We’ll see each other again.’ But I had no idea why we were going.

07 Brothers Joseph (left) and Mario (right)

in Malta, early 1950s. Reproduced courtesy Joseph Cutajar

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It was a £10 passage, like the British [Malta was a British colony until 1964]. We had to go and get checks for the Australian government to accept us. My youngest brother Frank had something wrong with his legs – they were in plaster, there were some issues maybe. They were so picky at that time. I remember the hullaballoo of all the people around the wharf area in Valletta. All these people everywhere. Skaubryn was a tourist-type ship with a mix of passengers, mostly German and Maltese. The first week was uneventful. Then on 31 March, Mum was at the movies with a friend and we had a babysitter. We boys were woken up by smoke filling our cabin. I think the babysitter went looking for Mum and they must have panicked. Mum grabbed my brothers, Mario and Frank; a man (a family friend) grabbed me. This guy just pulled me out of the bed basically. I was taken and put in a lifeboat, separated from my family. In the lifeboat people were screaming and vomiting. I was terrified. In my eyes, as a child, the lifeboat was overloaded. I could see sharks circling the lifeboat and the Skaubryn burning. It was a clear night with a calm sea. That’s what really stuck in my mind. It was like daylight – the moon was so bright, the ocean flat. If it was really rough, a lot of people would have drowned. One German man had a heart attack and died.* Some people had been dressed up for dinner and the movies, while others were in pyjamas. We had nothing except the underwear we had on. We lost everything basically until we got to Aden and they gave us money. People tried to take their bags onto the lifeboats, but the sailors were throwing them overboard into the water and saying, ‘The people before the bags.’ I remember some things floating around in the water. And I definitely remember looking back, seeing the Skaubryn alight. We were first picked up by an oil tanker. I can’t remember how I got up there – I remember feeling the rope but I don’t know whether I climbed or somebody pulled me up there. And then I didn’t see Mum until she found me. She was on another lifeboat, separate to me, with the other two boys. I was alone, I don’t know how long for, but it seemed like ages to me. Mum was terrified – she never left our sight again. On the oil tanker, they gave us food of some sort to eat and blankets to put around us, because we were in underpants and singlet tops. Later we were transferred to Aden on the Italian ship Roma. When we arrived in Aden, we were taken to the local hospital to wash us. The Australian government gave us some clothes and some money, about £50.

WELCOME WALL AUTUMN 2018

‘Some people had been dressed up for dinner and the movies, while others were in pyjamas. We had nothing except the underwear we had on’

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‘On another cruise I met a German fellow … He was also a passenger on Skaubryn and remembers the water in the swimming pool boiling from the heat of the fire’

They gave us food and documentation so we could continue our journey to Australia on the Orient liner Orsova. They had entertainment races and I won one of those pens with a ship in it – when you turned it the ship would float the other way. We arrived in Sydney in April 1958. It took four ships to get to Australia. Dad’s sister Nina and her husband Joe were living at La Perouse [in Sydney’s south-east], so we stayed with them until we got settled. They had three girls and five boys. And us three boys, so it was a bit crowded! We went to school in La Perouse. Then we shifted from there to Surry Hills and then Paddington [both in inner-city Sydney]. My aunty Carmen and her husband Edwin came out in 1959 and they lived with us in Paddington. They had two boys. My sister Margaret was born in Sydney in 1960. My cousin got Dad a job at the Bunnerong Power Station in Matraville [in Sydney’s south-east]. When they closed Bunnerong, Dad chose to be transferred to the Tallawarra Power Station [on the south coast of New South Wales] and we moved to Wollongong.

08 Catherine Cutajar with her sons Mario

(left) and Joseph (right) in Centennial Park, Sydney, 1958. Reproduced courtesy Joseph Cutajar

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WELCOME WALL AUTUMN 2018

After school I got a job at Port Kembla Hospital as a kitchen hand. My boss was a single man who left Germany on his own at 19. One day we were just talking about things in history, our backgrounds, and then we discovered we were on the same ship! After that I worked with Dad for 15 years in the power industry, then I went back to the area health service where I have been for 40-odd years. My youngest brother Frank worked in the steel industry and my middle brother Mario worked with the water board. My wife Susan is English. Her family also came out as £10 Poms and her father ended up working in the steel industry. We have two children, Michelle (born 1968) and Michael (born 1969), and four grandchildren. The Skaubryn fire has affected me somewhere along the line. Before I went on another ship in the 1980s, I kept avoiding it and thinking about it. The first ship I went back on was the older Fairstar. I got on and thought, ‘It can’t happen to me again.’ When I hear about other tragedies, I think about how lucky we were. We might not be here. On another cruise I met a German fellow and we started a conversation about the Costa Concordia [the Italian cruise ship that sank in 2012]. He was also a passenger on Skaubryn and remembers the water in the swimming pool boiling from the heat of the fire. The fact that that guy was on the same ship really concreted in my mind what I did see that night. It wasn’t a child thing that I thought of – it really did happen. When the Titanic exhibition was here [at the Australian National Maritime Museum], there was a display on boarding passes and our name was on there, in a section about ships that sank in the past. After seeing our names, I just kept thinking, ‘We’re in history.’ I decided to put our names down on the Welcome Wall as we’re part of history and it’s something for the grandkids to see when I’m gone. *The man who died of a heart attack was the only casualty of the Skaubryn disaster. An exhibition of photos of the Skaubryn fire and rescue is on display in the museum’s Tasman Light gallery from 28 March to 24 June. Entry is free.

The Welcome Wall It costs just $150 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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READINGS AUTUMN 2018

Fish and fortune A MASTER SHIPWRIGHT SURVEYS WESTERN AUSTRALIA’S WORKING WATERCRAFT

WILLIAM ‘BILL’ MCDONALD LEONARD’S retirement from the Western Australian Museum was marked by a personal and professional triumph in the publication of a beautifully illustrated large-format book in which the master shipwright captures the essence of the state’s historic working watercraft. Whenever I fetch up in the salty precincts of the port city of Fremantle, I ease sheets and steer an unerring course toward the old Fishing Boat Harbour, where one of my favourite haunts – the Western Australian Maritime Museum – sits at the water’s edge. There, in the cavernous gloom of the great exhibition halls, I stand quietly and pay my respects to the spirits of the long-departed fishermen and the humble working boats in which they left their enduring marks upon the cerulean waters of the Indian Ocean. These vessels are to me not merely inanimate objects but living entities, each imbued with its own unique dignity and integrity, the result of a lifetime of unrelenting hard work. Designed and built by hand and eye, they are alive with seafaring history and each retains something of the spine-tingling mystery, the magic, that once made them worthy of the sea. The Western Australian Museum’s Historic Watercraft collection is now recognised as one of the largest and most diverse in Australia. Bill Leonard, who has just retired as the museum’s Master Shipwright, undertook the enormous task of documenting 25 of these iconic vessels. He made more than 100 meticulous ink drawings, and many more in pencil, and at the same time he captured the wonderful human stories associated with their crews. It was a labour of love that took him 16 years to complete. Fifteen of those historic vessels appear in his book and I can say without equivocation that it certainly has been well worth the wait. This handsome volume is a fusion of art and erudition, of skilled craftsmanship and the kind of deep understanding that requires a lifetime of learning and patient practice. Bill Leonard modestly describes his book as ‘a shipwright’s tale of old men of the sea and their beloved boats’. This is precisely what makes it so special.

In Search of Fish and Fortune Along Australia’s West Coast By Bill Leonard, published by the Western Australian Museum, Welshpool, Western Australia, 2017. Hardcover, 304 pages, illustrations, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9781925040319. RRP $69.95, Members $62.95. Available at The Store or online at store.anmm.gov.au

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It is the voices of the fishermen that haunt me. On page after page I hear the language of the sea spoken in a dozen different dialects: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, Italian, Sicilian, Greek, Croatian and broad idiomatic Australian–English. Around the turn of the 20th century there were 246 licensed fishermen in Fremantle and over 50 per cent of them are said to have been Italians, economic migrants who brought with them centuries of accumulated knowledge and seafaring tradition. Bill Leonard has written eloquently about many of their vessels but I am going to focus on just one: the very special little boat that inspired this book. She is the lovely double-ended Doria. I confess that I cannot go anywhere near her without hearing snatches of the distinctive Apulian dialect spoken by her crew, the truly remarkable Minervini brothers, Domenico, Saverio and Raffaele, who lived on board the 30-foot gaff-cutter during the hand-to-mouth years of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Minervini brothers used Doria to make a hard living, handlining for whiting and dhufish in the waters between Fremantle and Rottnest Island. Theirs is but one of the utterly compelling stories that comes vividly to life through Bill Leonard’s book. Raffaele Minervini was born in Molfetta, on the Adriatic spur of Italy, in 1892 and was just 20 when he came to Western Australia in 1912. Just imagine the shock, the horror, the sheer bewilderment that must have accompanied his extraordinary voyage to the far side of the world. Raffaele’s home region of Puglia – with its magnificent baroque architecture, medieval fishing villages, fine sandy beaches and ancient olive groves – had seen successive waves of Greek, Roman and Norman conquerors come and go, leaving in their wake a vibrant Mediterranean culture. There was none of that in the wild-west frontier town that was turn-of-the-century ‘Freo’. And yet Raffaele somehow settled down there and through unrelenting toil with hand-lines and small gaff-rigged sailing

01 Doria’s lines plan, drawn by Bill Leonard. 02 Members of the Mouchmore family in their

fishing boat Wildflower, c 1930s.

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skiffs, he scrimped and saved and managed to send money home to his family. He prospered to the point where he was able to make several trips to Italy, on one of which, in 1922, he married his sweetheart, Angela Pisani. Raffaele’s brothers, Saverio, Ignazio and Domenico, and their brother-in-law Saverio Bufo, joined them in Fremantle.

Designed and built by hand and eye, these working vessels are alive with seafaring history

Raffaele Minervini continued to fish with a crew of three for a number of years. Towards the end of his working life as a fisherman, however, he fished alone, his only companion his dog, Kinney. He retired from fishing in 1979 at the age of 87 but each day he could still be found onboard his beloved Doria, and in his latter years was respected as the grandfather of the industry by a new generation of fishermen. He died at the age of 92 and Doria was acquired by the Western Australian Museum in March 1985. It was later restored by the museum’s volunteer shipwright, Jeff Beale. Raffaele’s son, John, reflected wryly on his father’s long relationship with Doria: The family often joked with my father that because he and his boat were so old, we would donate them both to the Museum. His boat from day one was his first love. His family came a bad second, until the advent of grandchildren – and then we were relegated to third position! Bruce Stannard

03 Doria restored and on display at the Western

Australian Maritime Museum.

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READINGS AUTUMN 2018

Intrigue, ego and controversy

THE AMERICA’S CUP: A TOUGH FIGHT BOTH ON AND OFF THE WATER

EXPOSED: The Dark side of the America’s Cup spills the guts from the underbelly of the world’s longest-running sports contest, yachting’s famed America’s Cup. The authors manage to plate up the entrails in an engaging manner, and they offer evidence of an equally long-running backdrop of sports intrigue, ego-driven decisions and bad manners – symptoms that were in the contest’s genes as it was being established. According to the cup’s legally enshrined Deed of Gift, it’s ‘a friendly competition between foreign countries’. Well, dream on. Throughout its history many of the yachts representing their country in the final match races carried in their wake controversy, recriminations, manipulations and unsportsmanlike behaviour on both sides. The authors of Exposed, Alan Sefton and Larry Keating, are both New Zealanders, and have been closely involved in the more recent America’s Cup events. Sefton was an executive director of the winning New Zealand challenge teams in 1995 and 2000, while Keating has covered the racing and become an authority on its history. They have experienced their fair share of it first hand, and New Zealand’s numerous issues in the post-1983 cup era rightly fill a significant part of the narrative, but the text is balanced with considerable revelations and background on other challenges, beginning at the contest’s creation in the early 1850s. The pair have carefully dissected the contest’s original Deed of Gift, with access to the many supporting documents written throughout the decades of the cup’s existence. They talked closely with others who have had to do the same, as they advised the syndicates and big names challenging for or defending the cup. The legal side of it was meant to be straightforward, judging by the terms of the original Deed of Gift, but failure to observe some of these terms or outright manipulation of the meanings to suit particular agendas has caused the cup to be as hard fought off the water as it often was on the race course. A yacht race between wealthy gentlemen was cover for a fight between egos, and it became quite ugly at times.

Exposed: The dark side of the America’s Cup By Alan Sefton and Larry Keating, published by Adlard Coles Nautical/Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2017. Paperback, 298 pages, illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 9781472946621. RRP $25.00

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Exposed brings it all back, beginning the narrative with what many see as the cup’s most daring and controversial event, the 1983 regatta. The America’s Cup had become an ever-steepening mountain to climb. United States supremacy seemed to be unbreakable, no matter how close a challenge came to winning. In the end, it wasn’t about winning a yacht race, it was about proving that the impossible could be done, and that the might of America could be beaten. It was David and Goliath when the unthinkable happened with Australia II’s win in 1983, the US aura of invincibility shattered by the yacht and crew on the water in a regatta filled with thrills. For a while this put to bed the controversy that had already been ground out over months on land by the clubs, syndicates and their personalities in what the press called ‘Keelgate’. Was the design of Australia II and its winged keel legitimate according to the accepted interpretation of the phrase in the Deed of Gift, namely ‘constructed in the country to which the Challenging Club belongs’? This has simmered ever since, and Exposed clearly considered it unresolved, as once more it opens the chapter on the subject. The wounds are bleeding again as the authors attempt judgment on Ben Lexcen’s design process, which has left open just how much influence or input came from the non-Australian personnel at the Dutch test tank facility at which the New York Yacht Club gave permission for Lexcen to develop the yacht’s design, with its famous winged keel. Blurring judgment on this is the fact that the citizenship arguments about the design team that were advanced at the time are now no longer valid, but only courtesy of new protocol interpretations of citizenship in place since the 1990s – they have made legitimate what the US saw as illegitimate in 1983.

01 The schooner America, after which the

America’s Cup was named. Image Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton via Wikimedia Commons

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A yacht race between wealthy gentlemen was cover for a fight between egos, and it became quite ugly at times

It was seen as easier and fairer to shift the goal posts rather than seek to enforce the rule to the letter, an action that would have probably restricted many countries from ever being able to compete. It all casts a stain that even Lexcen’s early ideas in 1959 seem unable to remove. Back then on his amazing 18-foot skiff design Taipan (now rebuilt and on display in the museum’s Wharf 7 Foyer), the radical concept overall included winglets and endplates on the appendages, forerunners of the winged keel. The authors sum up their attempt to ‘close the book on Keelgate’ by quoting the losing skipper. More than 30 years on, Dennis Conner says quite simply, ‘It doesn’t really matter now, does it. The Aussies did what they did and won the Americas Cup’. The win also took away that unique element of the impossible challenge – Australia had removed the legendary sword from the stone, but putting it back into a new stone for another person to try is just not the same thing. In the subsequent challenges no one seemed to really notice this, and the fact that it could be done seemed to make people greedier than ever to show they could do it too, and then try to establish their own defence dynasty. Their methods are laid bare in the book. Exposed reminds the reader that the cup began accidentally, with an entertaining recount of events in 1851. The whole thing was brought about by the posturing of the New York–based syndicate with their schooner America. Trying to show off the might of their newly created nation and steal some of the English thunder from the Great Exhibition of London in 1851, they went across to the UK with the ‘piratical’ schooner America and a plan to win handsomely with wagers on the ensuing match races. But they showed their colours too soon in an impromptu stoush against the English yacht Lavrock

02 The 2010 clash between Ernesto Bertarelli’s

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The authors’ research provides some very poor character references for a number of people, past and present

as they arrived in UK waters. America beat Lavrock easily and it was noticed. After this, none of the English took the bait and, as the end of the summer approached, the American syndicate relented on only sailing a match race for a wager, and entered the 53-mile (98-kilometre) Around the Isle of Wight race. A new trophy made by Robert Garrard (jeweller to the British royal family) was announced for the race. It was to be known as the RYS (Royal Yacht Squadron) 100 Pound Cup, and the cash prize was £100 – but the pound sign also meant guineas back then, all leading to the myth that the cup cost 100 guineas. America won, and despite another myth that prevails, it did sail the proper course as per the sailing instructions that were given. The English were embarrassed in their home waters and the USA went home triumphant, but left the yacht behind – America was sold for £5,000 to an Englishman. With their new cup back in the US, syndicate member George Schuyler objected to its being melted down for commemorative medallions and instead encouraged the proposal that it be set up as a challenge cup for international competition – and by this time it was known as the America’s Cup. The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) accepted this proposal. Schuyler drafted a Deed of Gift and filed it in the Supreme Court of the State of New York before later amending it twice, and the final 1887 version is the one that is used to create all the fuss. The first of many unsuccessful English challenges was in 1870, demonstrating the disease or addiction that seems to affect many competitors – they can’t leave the cup alone and they come back series after series, to the point that some see it as their divine right to be there. Individuals, syndicates and even clubs could not shake the virus, infecting others on the way,

03 The 1989 Court of Appeals hearing in Albany,

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > INTRIGUE, EGO AND CONTROVERSY

and their righteous approach inflamed the symptoms and the tensions brought to the event. The authors’ research provides some very poor character references for a number of people, past and present. There is more: the fibreglass 12 Metre controversy called ‘Glassgate’; the NZ Big Boat challenge; the rise of the catamarans; wholesale purchase of the best crews, designers and builders; controversial choices of venues; along with the growing media influence – all are there in Exposed. A sailing event managed by sailors and reported by the media became a media-controlled event that used sailing, while still trying to trade on the invincible aura of the past. Exposed recounts it all with the proper understanding of the background as against the more subjective media-reported articles from when these events happened. Hindsight clarifies things and Exposed does this well, going right back to show that even the NYYC in the beginning was happy to misrepresent Schuyler’s intentions for a fair and even contest.

04 In 1988 a US judge ordered a controversial

‘match’ between Sail America’s catamaran (foreground) and Mercury Bay Yacht Club’s monohull, despite being advised by industry experts that such a contest was in fact a mismatch that favoured the intrinsically faster catamaran. © Nick Rains/PPL

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READINGS AUTUMN 2018

Out on the water, reliant on their own devices and subject to the weather conditions, the combination of boat and crew that handled it all the best found the fastest way to the finish, proving that – for just a brief period within each cycle of challenging – it actually was sport once two boats finally got onto the water.

A disease or addiction seems to affect many competitors – they can’t leave the cup alone and they come back series after series

Exposed exposes a neat little Australian connection that was not readily apparent in the last series in 2017 at Bermuda. Everyone was aware that the American defender was largely crewed by Australians, as had been the case in 2013. It was led by Australian skipper and helmsman Jimmy Spithall and his tactician Tom Slingsby. Sailing short races between TV commercial breaks they lost, but Australia still won in a way – the on-board skipper of the New Zealand boat was none other than Australian catamaran guru Glen Ashby, heading a team of Kiwis and ice-cool helmsman Peter Burling. Ashby was recognised for this role recently – he is the Australian Sailing male sailor of the year for 2017. The book ends by noting that the cup and its Deed of Gift have been through significantly changing times and backgrounds since 1851. It should not be surprising that those involved have brought different priorities and interpretations to the table. A protocol that ‘records the items of mutual consent under the America’s Cup Deed of Gift’ between the challenger and defender is one recent addition to the long-running story, and you can read the protocol for the XXXVI America’s Cup online, but some things don’t look promising at face value. A considerable part of the document relates to peripheral issues of marketing, branding, sponsorship and other commercially related aspects, while ‘built in the country’ only applies to the hull, and anyone from anywhere can work on it with material from any source. The nationality criterion for ‘the friendly competition between foreign countries’ is met if at least three of the potentially 15 crew on the new monohulls are citizens, or managed to be physically present in the country for half of two years starting 1 September 2018. And not wanting to get into those still-festering problems we are stuck with, it specifies that citizenship does not apply to designers (a retrospective clause would be helpful). As the NIMBYs in Auckland begin to put pressure on the organisers to move the event somewhere else, and the rules are revealed for the big, foiling monohull yachts that are to be used, one senses that the beginnings are in already in place for another chapter of Exposed. David Payne Reviewer David Payne is a yacht designer and the Museum’s Curator of Historic Vessels.

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Defence Minister announces discovery of AE1 In late December 2017, the museum was delighted to host a special media event at which Senator the Hon Marise Payne, Minister for Defence (pictured, second from right), announced that the World War I submarine HMAS AE1 had been found. Sharing in the good news were (from left) museum Chairman Peter Dexter AO and Director Kevin Sumption PSM; VADM Tim Barrett AO CSC RAN, Chief of Navy; and John Mullen, Director Silentworld Foundation and Chair of the museum’s Foundation. Minister Payne shared details of the expedition’s activities and its findings, which have helped to solve one of Australia’s greatest maritime mysteries. The search, led by Find the Men of AE1 Limited, was funded by the Commonwealth Government and the Silentworld Foundation, with assistance from the Submarine Institute of Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, Fugro Survey and the Papua New Guinea Government, and using Fugro Survey’s vessel and search technology. You can read an account of the discovery of AE1, by Dr Nigel Erskine, Head of Research, on page 2. Story Jude Timms; image Emma Bjorndahl/ANMM

Farewell to Dr Stavros Kyrimis, Consul General of Greece in Sydney In November 2017 the museum said a fond farewell to good friend Dr Stavros Kyrimis (pictured with ANMM Director and CEO Kevin Sumption PSM), Consul General of Greece in Sydney, who is taking up a new post in Iran. During his time in Sydney Dr Kyrimis established a strong connection between the museum and the Greek community. He was the catalyst for a number of important projects, including the Anzacs in Greece panel exhibition on the Action Stations rooftop, bringing the Greek trireme model to Sydney from the Hellenic Maritime Museum for the Escape from Pompeii exhibition, and engaging the Greek community with the Welcome Wall. The museum will continue to work with its counterparts in Greece to establish an open-air Anzac Museum on the island of Lemnos, as championed by Dr Kyrimis. Story Jude Timms; image Tina Koutsogiannis

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SIGNALS > NUMBER 122 > 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 Fellows RADM Andrew Robertson AO DSC RAN (Rtd)

John Mullen

Ambassador Christine Sadler Honorary Life Members Robert Albert AO RFD RD Bob Allan Vivian Balmer Vice Admiral Tim Barrett AO CSC

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