Spring 2020 Number 132 September to November sea.museum $9.95
Lessons from Japan
Museums for Generation Z
The story of Spitfire
Our first homegrown warship
Mapping the ocean New and old technology
Bearings From the Director The ghost net sculptures in our foyer were cleaned and had their hanging systems checked during the museum’s recent closure. Image Andrew Frolows/ ANMM
2020 CERTAINLY HAS TURNED INTO AN UNEXPECTED YEAR for us all. As we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, we find our resilience and our flexibility constantly stretched. The museum’s unexpected 14-week public closure placed significant financial constraints upon it. Over many years, we have diligently worked to generate considerable income from our operations. Ticket sales and corporate events provide valuable income, and sadly these were the first to suffer from the closure. The museum receives much tourism traffic, both domestic and international, so we will continue to face challenges in these areas as the pandemic continues. The closure did, however, provide an unexpected windfall, enabling our teams to undertake during business hours a great deal of work that would normally be done at night. Exhibition spaces were refreshed and conservation staff were able to focus on many of the objects on display. Ghost Nets in the foyer is a great example, as staff had daytime access to carefully clean and check the hanging systems. The work of these skilled teams always continues regardless of what is occurring. Since we reopened on June 22, our focus has been on keeping the museum open and ensuring the safety of our staff, volunteers and visitors. At the time of writing, I am, like you, watching and waiting – we have the museum well prepared for whatever happens, and our staff have been extraordinary in adapting to changing circumstances. Many of our wonderful museum volunteers fall into the ‘at risk’ category, and even though they want to continue volunteering their time and expertise, we have to protect them – so the museum staff are now taking over many of the duties on the floor of the museum. I am so proud to see how they have stepped in while they juggle their usual workload and provide welcoming, smiling faces to the museum patrons. School holidays remain an important time, especially for those families who have been locked down. We had a better-thanexpected July school holidays and it was wonderful to again see the galleries filled with folk enjoying the exhibitions.
Upon reopening, we revealed a beautiful new gallery, Under Southern Skies, filled with more than 500 objects from the National Maritime Collection, several on display for the first time. I am really proud of this space, which brings our navigational history to life in a rich, immersive fashion. From the importance of the night sky in Torres Strait Islander navigation to Polynesian stick star charts, and from Cook’s observation of the transit of Venus to Flinders’ circumnavigation of the continent, the planets and stars of the southern skies unite the long history of all navigators around Australia. We are very proud to display an important recent acquisition, a previously unknown log of HMS Sirius, written by First Lieutenant William Bradley, covering the period from the departure of the First Fleet from Portsmouth, UK, in May 1787 to the return of the ship’s crew to England in April 1792 aboard the Dutch vessel Waakzaamheydt. This extraordinary gift to the nation was donated by UK resident Mr Anthony Gannon. This is, without doubt, the most significant early colonial acquisition made in my time, and probably one of the most significant documents ever donated to an Australian cultural institution. We are indeed privileged to be entrusted with this national treasure. While COVID-19 has forced us to revisit our plans for coming exhibitions, we are busy putting together an exciting program for the coming months and we look forward to seeing you at the museum when you are able to visit. Until then, stay safe.
Kevin Sumption psm Director and CEO
Contents Spring 2020 Number 132 September to November sea.museum $9.95
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 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 Islander people now deceased. The museum advises there may be historical language and images that are considered inappropriate today and confronting to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
2 A revealing conservation project
A century-old artwork gets a makeover
8 The difference you make
Thanking our generous donors for their support
11 Changes to membership
Thanking our generous donors for their support
12 Lessons from Japan
Digital borderless artworks reflect a new museology
16 Long way from the river
Canoes and crocodiles in the culture of Papua New Guinea
20 Refurbished venues opening soon
Previewing the Sydney Harbour Gallery and Ben Lexcen Terrace
22 A humble but historic craft
The story of Spitfire, Australia’s first homegrown warship
28 Big shoes to fill
A tribute to David Payne, Curator of Historic Vessels, on his retirement
32 Flags and funnels
The livery of shipping lines
36 Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad
Documenting the last days of Arab merchant sailing ships
40 Museum events
Your calendar of online talks and family activities
42 Exhibitions
Mariw Minaral, Paradise Lost, Defying Empire and more
46 Maritime Heritage Around Australia Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation
52 Mapping the ocean
The history of seafloor exploration and mapping
58 Collections
New acquisitions to the immigration collection
62 Australian Register of Historic Vessels
Craft from the Northern Rivers of New South Wales
66 Tales from the Welcome Wall Cover teamLab’s Digital Art Museum, Tokyo. Image Karsten Gohm/Unsplash. See article on page 12.
Remembering the ‘Dunera boys’
70 Currents
Vale RADM Andrew Robertson, Gina Sinozich and VADM Ian MacDougall
A revealing conservation project Fixing the Frederick Elliott watercolours
Each year the museum sends items from the National Maritime Collection to other institutions. Before each item leaves the museum, it is prepared by our Conservation Department to make sure it is safe for travel and display. This can take anything from a few hours to hundreds of hours. Conservator Lucilla Ronai details what was involved in preparing one object for loan.
Conservator Lucilla Ronai uses a hand-held microscope with an LED light to closely examine the watercolours. Image Kate Pentecost/ANMM
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Our motto is ‘less is more’, so it is rare that we do a major treatment in preparation for a loan
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Removing the 27 backings revealed interesting things on the reverse of the watercolours – ink and pencil drawings, inscriptions and more watercolours
01 Examination with transmitted light revealed watermarks. 02 Artworks and inscriptions on the backs of the watercolours.
03 Frederick James Elliott (1864–1949) was born in 1864 in Devon, UK, and migrated to Australia in 1876 with his father. Elliott worked as a lithographic artist for the Queensland Government Printing Office between 1896 and about 1903 and it is likely that this work was done during this period. He specialised in marine watercolour studies, travelling up and down the coast by ship and sketching scenes that he later turned into paintings. Images Lucilla Ronai/ANMM
Treatment
While Snapshots on the Coast of Queensland (‘Snapshots’) is technically one object, it comprises 27 individual watercolours mounted together in one window mount (little windows cut out of a board to reveal the images beneath).
IN 2019, THE MUSEUM SENT 54 ITEMS for loan to regional galleries and international museums. Among these, eight paper items were sent to the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery for display in its exhibition Sublime Sea: Rapture and Reality. Analysis
The work was showing every one of its 100 years of life. There was severe discolouration from the materials themselves and from contact with wood (you could see wood knots and grain). This wood could have been part of a previous frame which has since been lost. Additionally, there was surface dirt and fading of the watercolour media, the watercolour images were falling off their window mounts, and a look at the back revealed large amounts of tape.
When an item comes to the Conservation Laboratory, we assess its condition and ask various questions to determine whether it is safe to go on loan. Is the object physically damaged, unstable or fragile? What materials is it made of? If it’s paper, are there tears, stains or folds? Is it changing on a chemical level?
There was no way that ‘Snapshots’ could travel or be displayed safely in its current condition, so the aim of the treatment was to:
To find the answers we use magnification, photography and different light sources to look closely at the item. We capture this information and document the item’s current condition.
• remove acidic and non-original components
We determine if we could improve the condition of the object through treatment, then consider packing requirements and display supports. Often we only approve for loan items that are largely stable so that they do not need treatment. We aim to prevent damage rather than rectify it. Our motto is ‘less is more’, so it is rare that we do a major treatment in preparation for a loan. Some very beautiful works were included in the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery loan. All eight required photography and documentation, but most needed little or no treatment. One, however – a series of watercolours by Frederick Elliott – required major conservation treatment. 4 Signals 132 Spring 2020
• remove all tape and adhesive • clean off the dirt
• reattach the watercolours to the window mount safely • frame the whole work for safe display. Step 1 – separating the watercolours
The watercolours were carefully separated from the window mount. This revealed more of the watercolours, inscriptions and extensive adhesive. It seems that whoever assembled all the watercolours with the mount in the past used liberal amounts of animal glue, which had yellowed and become brittle over the past 100 years. The backing boards were found to be slightly larger than the watercolours they were attached to. We inferred that this was probably not done by the artist. This was particularly apparent on the large circular central watercolour, where much more of the artwork was revealed.
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01 The large, central circular watercolour ‘Off Cape Moreton’ before separation from the mount. 02 During treatment: separation from the mount revealed a huge backing board, more of the watercolour and much yellowed animal glue. 03 After removal of the adhesive and backing. 03 6 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Images Lucilla Ronai/ANMM
The conservation treatment occurred gradually over several months and took more than 100 hours
Step 2 – testing
We tested all the watercolour media, inks and graphite for solubility to see if they would change or be damaged if we introduced moisture during the treatment. We found the blue watercolour paints – which were on every artwork – were water soluble. Therefore, any treatment using moisture had to be very controlled. Step 3 – dry cleaning
Any loose dirt was carefully brushed away with a soft brush. We then attempted to remove the ingrained dirt with a special conservation sponge. Some of it did not budge, and this is now forever part of the object’s history. Step 4 – removing adhesive
The discoloured animal glue was brittle and starting to crack, disfiguring the watercolour paints and damaging the paper underneath. It was important to remove this to prevent further deterioration and make it easier to reassemble the work. With slow, gentle humidification, moisture was gradually introduced. The adhesive was then scraped off with cotton swabs and a metal spatula. Step 5 – removing backings
In consultation with the curatorial team, we decided to remove each of the highly acidic backing boards. These were unlikely to have been applied by the artist and showed extensive damage. Each watercolour was slowly humidified using a Gore-Tex sandwich over a few hours. (Gore-TexTM was originally created as a raincoat material by DuPont, but we use it for conservation. We borrow a lot of materials, tools and technology from other industries.) The backings were gradually thinned with scalpels and spatulas. The final layer was humidified with a thick jelly-like substance called methylcellulose, which holds moisture to the back surface so as not to affect the watercolour paints. Removing the 27 backings revealed interesting things on the reverse of the watercolours – ink and pencil drawings, inscriptions and more watercolours. I might have been the first person in 100 years to see them. Whether these were practice sketches done by the artist, or early artworks that he started then discarded, it was a wonderful and surprising insight into the artist’s process.
After treatment, we re-examined the works to see what else we could discover. We shone light through the paper from below (known as transmitted light) and discovered parts of watermarks. When all put together, ‘J WHATMAN 1886’ was revealed. The watercolour paper had been made by this UKbased paper mill in 1886, then found its way to Australia to be painted by the Australian artist Frederick Elliott in about 1900. Step 6 – snapping ‘Snapshots’
Before ‘Snapshots’ was reassembled, we had a great opportunity for the entire work to be digitised – including the previously hidden watercolours and drawings on the back as well as the front watercolour image. Each of the watercolours was scanned at extremely high resolution and can now be viewed on the museum’s collection website (see link at end of article). Step 7 – reassembling and mounting
Once they were digitised, it was time to reunite the 27 watercolours with their window mount and attach them to a new conservation-grade backing board. They were secured using reversible Japanese tissue paper hinges and wheat starch paste – the basic materials of the paper conservator. Both are sympathetic materials that are removable should future treatments be needed, and which will not change over time or negatively affect the original artwork. Step 8 – final framing
In consultation with Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, we decided that ‘Snapshots’ would be displayed in a frame on the wall. Frames made from conservation-grade materials are very effective in protecting paper items from dust, insects and changes in temperature and relative humidity. They also prevent direct handling and provide another layer of protection against light damage, especially as the acrylic we used to glaze the work incorporates ultraviolet filters. ‘Snapshots’ was now ready to go. ‘Snapshots’ safe and sound
The conservation treatment occurred gradually over several months and took more than 100 hours. It was a complex and challenging process, which only made the final result more satisfying. Preparing ‘Snapshots’ for loan was a wonderful opportunity to find out more about this charming and unique work. It revealed new information and improved the item’s condition so that the watercolours will last for many years to come. We will continue our research into this wonderful collection item. Link to scans of the watercolours: bit.ly/collectionssnapshots Link to Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery Exhibition: mprg.mornpen.vic. gov.au/Exhibitions/Past-exhibitions/Sublime-Sea-Rapture-and-Reality Australian National Maritime Museum 7
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The difference you make Thanks to our generous donors
Our donors play a vitally important role in enabling the Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation to support the operations of the museum. During these difficult times the generous response of our supporters has been overwhelming, with more than $170,000 in cash raised in June alone.
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The museum is quickly building a reputation as the nation’s pre-eminent collection of contemporary art from the Torres Strait Islands 01 The acquisition of Alick Tipoti’s work Danagai Waar (Blind Turtle) was supported by museum Ambassador Ms Christine Sadler. The work will feature in the exhibition Mariw Minaral (Spiritual Patterns), a retrospective of Tipoti’s works. 02 Students will continue to learn about the heroic exploits carried out on board MV Krait thanks to a generous donation honouring Sgt Douglas Herps, Z Special Unit and Mrs Patricia Herps. Images Andrew Frolows/ANMM
Building our national collection
The museum is building the nation’s pre-eminent collection of contemporary art from the Torres Strait Islands. Museum Ambassador, Ms Christine Sadler, generously helped build upon this collection by supporting the acquisition of Alick Tipoti’s work Danagai Waar (Blind Turtle). Made of fibreglass, resin, ghost net, paint and trumpet shell, this beautiful piece will feature in the forthcoming exhibition Mariw Minaral (Spiritual Patterns), a retrospective of works by Alick Tipoti to be held at the museum from October 2020 to March 2022 (see page 42 for details). The Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation contributed the funds necessary to acquire a second major Tipoti work, Gul (Canoe), for the retrospective. Made of fibreglass, cassowary feathers, natural fibres and rope, this piece was a priority acquisition for the museum. Mr Tipoti has donated five works for the exhibition and the museum is also purchasing pieces to become part of our collection. Mr Tipoti used funds from the earlier sales to purchase a printing press for his community, helping them to earn money from their own artmaking. Educating the next generation
A generous donation honouring Sgt Douglas Herps, Z Special Unit and Mrs Patricia Herps ensures the astonishing historic events of MV Krait will be recounted to future generations. RECENT DONATIONS HAVE ENABLED US to continue work in three areas that are particularly important to us: migration, building the National Maritime Collection, and educating future generations about maritime history. Celebrating our migrant stories
Thank you to those who supported our fundraising campaign for A Mile in My Shoes. In recent months, more than $94,000 has been raised to support this important exhibition, including through the museum’s first ever crowd-funding campaign. To date, we have received individual donations totalling over $14,000. The City of Sydney, Settlement Services International and the Kytherian Association of Australia have also been generous supporters. Thanks to our donors, and with the support of the Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation, A Mile in My Shoes will be shown at the museum in January 2021. Following the social dislocation of COVID-19, the opportunity to share stories of the migrant experience that explore our shared humanity will be most welcome. Recently 300 organisations – including 199 community groups, 39 consulates and 17 Chambers of Commerce – were approached about this important initiative and there was a great deal of interest and excitement about its potential. We continue to look for ways to further support this project as we seek to raise an additional $50,000 over the next few months.
Berthed near destroyer HMAS Vampire and submarine HMAS Onslow, MV Krait looks like an unassuming Japanese fishing vessel – which it once was, and under which disguise it undertook daring undercover operations during World War II. Our education team is producing a student program detailing Krait’s involvement with Operation Jaywick and Z Special Unit. The Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation invested $135,000 in objects for the collection in 2019–20 and underwrote a further $205,000. Your support of the Foundation can make all the difference. Please donate now to support: • building upon our national collection • the Migration Heritage Fund – to continue showcasing the stories that have made Australia the rich multicultural society it is today • keeping our historic fleet ‘ship-shape’ to continue educating and inspiring our visitors. Donate now
Direct deposit BSB 062 000 Account 1616 9309 Please ensure your name is listed on the transaction. Alternatively, send a cheque made out to ANMM Foundation (a reply-paid envelope is included in this edition of Signals) or call Marisa Chilcott, Foundation Manager, on 02 9298 3619. Australian National Maritime Museum 9
We need your support more than ever
COVID-19 has triggered dramatic changes in the operations of the Australian National Maritime Museum and many longstanding plans have had to be adjusted or shelved. With the loss of up to $10M in self-generated revenue, roughly a third of our budget, the museum is looking to the Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation – and its donors – for assistance.
Conservator Sue Frost uses a miniature vacuum cleaner and screen to gently clean a woolwork picture made in the 19th century. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
A recent study found that most museum-goers are unaware that museums are facing challenges due to COVID-19.1 Yet, when asked how they felt the loss of museums would affect them, either through closures or dramatically reduced services, most said they would be devastated:
The Foundation is requesting donations to:
Our museums help keep our collective memory alive. If we lost even one of these important institutions, it would be like someone had blown out a candle or turned out the lights on a vital piece of our society.
• Assist the museum with strategic projects such as the search for Cook’s Endeavour.
A huge blow to children’s education. These trips help spark curiosity.
We are not alone and we know many other organisations are facing similar shortfalls and we greatly appreciate your support at this time.
Without these organisations telling the stories of marginalised communities, many of those stories won’t be widely shared at all.
• Support the Migration Heritage Fund • Acquire important objects for the National Maritime Collection • Support the conservation of precious objects
Your tax-deductible donation will help with the museum’s recovery from COVID-19.
For more information go to sea.museum/donate or contact Foundation Manager Marisa Chilcott on 02 9298 3619 or email marisa.chilcott@sea.museum
1 See wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories
The Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation
Enhanced membership offers access to exhibition previews, exclusive tours and special events, including the annual Members Lunch with special guests such as Valerie Taylor AM . Image MacDougall Photography
Changes to membership Better meeting your needs
Members are of vital importance to the success of the Australian National Maritime Museum and from our inception we have relied on our Members for both their moral and financial support. Two new types of affiliation are now being offered, tailored to the interests of different groups.
LAST YEAR, WE REVIEWED the museum’s membership program to ensure it was meeting the needs of Members and that we were delivering the best possible offer. It was clear from the start that there were two distinct types of Members with different reasons for joining the museum. The first is the family segment. Our family members value the opportunity to visit the museum with their children or grandchildren. They come many times a year and are often Members for a shorter period of time. The other segment – those we call ‘knowledge seekers’ – are deeply interested in the various facets of Australian maritime history, the National Maritime Collection and the museum’s priorities and achievements. They are generally Members over a long period of time.
With this information we recently introduced two levels of affiliation. The Family Pass gives our families everything they are looking for, including free entry, discounts on family programs and reciprocal entry to our partner museums. Some of the benefits that weren’t valued as highly – such as Signals and access to the Members’ lounge – were removed from this offer. For our knowledge seekers, our new enhanced membership adds additional benefits and products that we know they value, such as special previews of exhibitions, online access to museum talks and events, members-only tours each quarter and special access to the National Maritime Collection. While the price for the new memberships has increased, we will honour the existing price for a year and we will still, of course, offer concessions for those who are eligible. From our recent surveys and calls with Members we have been reflecting on how we can strengthen our relationship and work more closely with them. Knowledge-seeker Members have told us that they would like to engage more deeply with us and be informed of the work we are doing and what we have achieved. They wish to celebrate our successes, so we will involve our Members and communicate with them the business of the museum, including ensuring that those who generously donate to the Foundation have input into what should be added to the National Maritime Collection. Further exciting changes to the membership program will roll out over the coming months, and we look forward to communicating with all of our Members more regularly. Oliver Isaacs Manager Members Australian National Maritime Museum 11
To visit the Digital Art Museum is to bathe in the light and creativity of 50 borderless artworks that both mesmerise and delight
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This artwork is called Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather. When a visitor stands on the rock or touches the waterfall, they too become like a rock that changes the flow of water. The water’s flow continues to transform in real time due to the interaction of people. Image Kevin Sumption/ANMM
Lessons from Japan Transforming museums for Generation Z
Museums constantly strive to find innovative ways to engage audiences and to incorporate new technologies into visitor experiences. The museum’s CEO and Director, Kevin Sumption PSM, explored some of these earlier this year at Tokyo’s groundbreaking art technology co-operative teamLab.
IN MAY, SYDNEY’S ANNUAL VIVID FESTIVAL of light, music and ideas was supposed to enjoy a spectacular launch. The 2020 festival would have been the twelfth since Brian Eno first lit up the Sydney Opera House in 2009. Last year it attracted more than two million visitors and injected over $140 million into the New South Wales cultural economy. The Australian National Maritime Museum first participated in 2013, and every year since then our roof has featured a commissioned video projection. Both the Maritime Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) have been regular VIVID exhibitors and our participation has not only increased audiences for both institutions, but also significantly amplified our relevance and in turn our importance to the city’s cultural fabric.
The cancellation of this year’s VIVID Festival illustrates the enormous impact the pandemic has had on the city’s festival calendar, and also highlights the loss of public artwork opportunities, especially for digital artists. Each winter, Sydney’s skyline and streets have been transformed into bustling promenades by projections, interactive installations and multimedia events produced by both Australian and international digital artists. Not surprisingly, some of the most compelling works have come from East Asia and in particular Japan. Indeed, my favourite VIVID installation is Masakazu Shirane’s origami light kaleidoscope (2015). This Japanese influence is no accident; while VIVID is just over a decade old, its Japanese precursors go back hundreds of years. The very first light festivals appeared in the mid-14th century in Yamaguchi prefecture in southwestern Japan. Here lanterns (chochin) are still used to illuminate homes and streets in the summer celebration known as Obon, in which ancestral spirits are ceremonially welcomed home. Such festivals are still found across Japan, and this passion for light and ceremony has energised Japanese artists for generations. In February 2020 I visited Japan to see some of the most influential digital artists at the new Digital Art Museum (DAM) created by the ground-breaking art technology co-operative teamLab. For someone deeply interested in museums, the chance to visit teamLab’s Mori building, situated on its artificial island in the middle of Tokyo Bay, was irresistible. And here I was given a fascinating glimpse not only into the future of digital art, but also a possible future of museums. Founded in 2001, teamLab is an interdisciplinary creative group that brings together professionals from various fields, including artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects. Together they create unique artworks that strive to blend art, science and technology. Based in Tokyo, teamLab has exhibited major digital artworks in cities all around the world, including Singapore, Shanghai, Macau, Paris and Sydney, where their installation Flowers and People – Gold was exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2015. Australian National Maritime Museum 13
The future for museums is as experience emporiums, purposefully fusing the physical and virtual to create an enthralling mix of media, memory and multi-dimensionality
01 In the work Endless, the visitor’s presence in a darkened room triggers blossoms and petals to sweep over then settle on their torso. 02 In Forest of resonating lamps, myriad suspended cochin (lamps) react to the presence of visitors, emitting pulses of light that intensify then radiate out to surrounding cochin. Images Kevin Sumption/ANMM 01
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But teamLab’s most recent experiment, opened in 2018, is known as the Digital Art Museum, or DAM. With the support of a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I visited DAM just three weeks before it, too, was temporarily closed as Tokyo locked down. DAM is a 10,000-square-metre son et lumiere powered by more than 500 computers projecting floor-to-ceiling imagery via 470 high-definition projectors. To visit DAM is to bathe in the light and creativity of 50 borderless artworks that both mesmerise and delight. The teamLab collective of ultratechnologists has carefully curated this suite of artworks to meld one room into another, forming a blended set of experiences that bonds visitor, artwork and building into a seamless single journey. In one work, Endless, you enter a darkened room where your presence triggers a series of blossoms and petals to sweep over then settle on your torso. If you remain still, more flowers settle, before finally decaying and fading away. In another work, Forest of resonating lamps, a forest of suspended cochin react to your presence. When you enter the dimly lit, cavernous room and stand beneath one of these cochin, it begins to emit a pulse of light that intensifies the closer you get. Slowly this radiates out to surrounding cochin and a rhythmic pulse of light emanates from every visitor’s locale. For museums, the visitor-awareness technology of Forest opens up exciting possibilities of customisable galleries, with sound and lights able to sense and react to the presence and concentration of individuals and groups. If carefully choreographed, this technology could ultimately reward the curiosity and tenacity of visitors by unmasking little ‘Easter eggs’ of hidden artefacts and storylines.
Ultimately, this visit to DAM stood out from the countless museums and galleries I have enjoyed in my 25-year career, as it was a sneaky peak and, I have to admit, a rude awakening of what a new museology might look like for generation Z. Museology is the study of the way museums and their collections are organised and managed. Typically, these have been physical collections arranged by curators in specially designed galleries all focused to support the informal learning of visitors. What teamLab have achieved in their Mori building is to both further challenge the primacy of physical collections as well as the necessity for regimented and partitioned galleries and specialised architecture. I believe teamLab’s most salient artworks, however – those that pointed to a real revolution for museums – were those they had designed especially for young children. In the artwork Sketch Town, children were encouraged to use crayons to draw familiar objects from a city – cars, planes, homes, streets, pedestrians. With a scanner, children then set about digitising their drawings and releasing them into a digital cityscape. Within this cityscape children interacted with their own work via touch screens and motion sensors. Finally, when they grew bored of all this digital interaction, they were encouraged to print out their original sketches – but this time they emerged from the printer with instructions to transform their digitised 2D sketch into 3D sculptures. In Sketch Town we can see the future for museums as experience emporiums, purposefully fusing the physical and virtual to create an enthralling mix of media, memory and multi-dimensionality. In this way DAM is truly a borderless museum, as it challenges the primacy of three-dimensional objects. Ultimately, it is the first museum I have encountered that truly delivers on William Gibson’s promise to conjure for Generation Z a powerful and truly ‘consensual hallucination of Cyberspace.’ During this year’s cancelled VIVID Festival, the Maritime Museum was due to feature Ample Projects’ the strange big canoe to mark 250 years since James Cook’s charting of the east coast of Australia. This can now be viewed at sea.museum/whats-on/events/the-strange-big-canoe-rooftop-projection Australian National Maritime Museum 15
Long way from the river Telling the story of a Sepik River canoe
A 13-metre dugout canoe suspended from the ceiling is the centrepiece of the museum’s new gallery Under Southern Skies. The huge wooden craft with a carved crocodile-head prow is from the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. Helen Anu and Dr Stephen Gapps trace how it came to join the museum’s collection.
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AUSTRALIANS HAVE BEEN INTERESTED in cultural objects from Papua New Guinea (PNG) ever since early anthropologists began collecting material there in the late 19th century. Australian soldiers during World War I were infamous for almost wiping out species of the famous bird of paradise for souvenir feathers. By the late 1960s, there was still a strong interest in collecting ‘exotic’ artefacts from PNG, and at an annual ‘Papua New Guinea Week’ event in Sydney in 1969, a Sepik River canoe was paddled around Sydney Harbour as a highlight of the celebrations. After this event, it seems that many of the PNG objects were sold. The canoe, along with other items, was purchased for a ‘Pacific-themed’ restaurant in North Sydney. By the mid-1990s, new owners of the restaurant decided to offer the artefacts to the Queensland Museum, but the huge canoe remained. Despite some initial hesitation from curators about the canoe’s relevance to Australian history, the Maritime Museum was seen as a natural place for such a majestic watercraft.
From restaurant to museum
Since 1999, the canoe has been in the museum’s collection. For many years it remained in storage, cared for by conservators but neglected by curators. Visitors on behindthe-scenes tours would remark on it, but its stories of origin and cultural belonging went unheard. The canoe was collected at a time when cultural objects from places such as Papua New Guinea were considered as decorative curiosities rather than items that held historical and cultural import for the people who crafted them. In 2020, with the development of a new exhibition on voyaging and navigating in and around Australia’s oceans, it was finally considered for display. There were many logistical issues in moving, suspending and caring for the canoe on display. Importantly, the first hurdles were to understand the canoe’s history, meanings and current connections with the Sepik River communities where it originated.
Detail of the carved crocodile-head prow of the Sepik River dugout canoe in the exhibition Under Southern Skies. 00043515 ANMM Collection Gift from Wieland Consumables and Colman Chan. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM Australian National Maritime Museum 17
01 Sepik river canoe, 1952, from Percy Cochrane’s colour slides 158–184 on recording patrol in the Sepik District, Papua New Guinea. Image University of Wollongong Archives, collection D160/03/158 02 A framed copy of the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 September 1969 showing the canoe being paddled in Sydney Harbour. SMH image used with permission. ANMM Collection, image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
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Tracing connections through time
The Indigenous Programs staff and curators at the museum began to research the canoe’s history and to contact the communities of which these canoes were once a major cultural and economic part. The mighty Sepik River is one of the great rivers of the world, stretching 1,126 kilometres, and one of the largest and most intact freshwater basins in the Asia–Pacific region. It is generally divided into three areas – the Upper, Middle and Lower Sepik. Important waterbird and crocodile populations are supported by 1,500 lakes and other wetlands associated with the river basin. These diverse habitats are globally significant for their biodiversity. Local villagers have used the Sepik River since ancient times for water, fishing and transportation. These days, fibreglass dinghies equipped with 40-horsepower outboard motors are a common sight along the river, but dugout canoes are still being made and paddled where fuel supplies are scarce and engine maintenance unviable. Women travel in canoes with children and infants to sell fresh produce and woven baskets at markets, and skilled youngsters propel their own little dugouts while fishing along the river. Tourists from around the world seeking an ‘authentic Sepik adventure’ have also – perhaps ironically – contributed to the continued construction of dugouts. Dugout canoes are carved out of a single tree trunk using a stone adze. Large ones such as the museum’s example could be paddled by as many as 25 people. The hull would also be burned out with fire to seal it and to destroy any pests. The Sepik people are renowned for their carved wooden art, and this vessel was elaborately decorated with a prow in the shape of a crocodile’s head, in the tradition of the area. The Sepik people’s connection to the river is deeply spiritual and central to their lives. They share a totemic connection with crocodiles, which play an important role in the art and culture of Middle Sepik River communities and are carved on many of their canoes. Some of the stories of these people, who are often now called the latmul, describe how the world was once covered in a single ocean into which a crocodile dived and brought back mud from deep under the sea. This mud became the first land. The land slowly grew, resting on the back of the Ancestral Crocodile, who still sometimes moves, causing earthquakes. The ancestors of the Middle Sepik people embarked on a series of historic ocean migrations, naming all the trees, mountains, villages, winds and stars. A long history of trade
The Middle Sepik River is a long way from the ocean, but similar large dugout canoes from coastal areas of Papua New Guinea, often made into outriggers, were capable of ocean-going voyages. In this way, the people of PNG developed extensive relationships with those of the Torres Strait Islands to the south, and the Torres Strait Islanders embarked on diplomatic missions to PNG to acquire tree hulls for their water transport.
Historical and archaeological records document movement between the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea spanning generations. Items of exchange could range from cultural items for use in ceremony, such as bird plumage, kundu drums, snake skins and woven mats. Other items such as yams, spears and seafood were also exchanged, as they continue to be today. This resource bartering was a foundation of the Torres Strait Treaty, a unique international agreement between PNG and the Torres Strait Islands that allows free movement (without passports or visas) between Australia and PNG for traditional activities. It applies only to Torres Strait Islanders and coastal people from PNG who live in and keep the traditions of the region. Importantly, there is also continuous oral evidence of the longdistance exchange voyages and canoe trades between the Torres Strait and river estuaries of PNG. These oral traditions record the patterns of people’s journeys as both traders and migrants. They also document movement between Papua New Guinea and the Makassans of Indonesia before the London Missionary Society arrived in the Torres Strait in 1871, rupturing these exchange patterns. Islanders recount these histories through song and dance, with such items as large feathered headdresses and bows and arrows often used in storytelling. The story of the museum canoe’s life is also important. From the beginning the tree was identified for harvesting, and songs would be sung as it began its journey to the community for building. The canoe would then cross many hands to its new place in different waters – sometimes hundreds of kilometres away across the ocean. Islanders’ observances of the seasons – including their understanding of the turbulent current that flows throughout the Strait from the Coral Sea to the Timor and Arafura seas – would dictate when journeys would take place, and a naming ceremony and other protocols would occur before a vessel was launched. Under Southern Skies
These overseas connections with northern Australia are a focus in the museum’s new permanent exhibition Under Southern Skies. The oceans around Australia were a swirl of cultural contact long before the first Europeans arrived. From Torres Strait Islanders to Muslim Makassan traders, and from Polynesian sailors to Europeans observing the transit of Venus, ocean voyagers have been navigating the seas, islands and coasts around Australia for millennia. The Sepik River canoe, which once adorned a restaurant, now has a new life in a gallery that tells the stories of Indigenous and European navigators united by a common thread – the planets and stars of the southern skies. A symbol from the past, the canoe also brings us into the present, where steps are being taken to rebuild the integrity of its story. Importantly, the canoe draws Australian, Pacific and other First Peoples into conversations about their histories, stories and relations across the oceans. With thanks to Dr Michael Mel, Manager, Pacific Collections Australian Museum.
Helen Anu is the museum’s First Peoples Project Curator in Indigenous Programs. Dr Stephen Gapps is the acting Head of Research. Australian National Maritime Museum 19
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Refurbished venues opening soon The Sydney Harbour Gallery and Ben Lexcen Terrace
THE MUSEUM IS OPENING ITS WINDOWS to the world. For the first time ever, we have removed the covers from our harbour-facing windows, shining a light on our new Sydney Harbour Gallery exhibition space. An airlock links this gallery with the renovated Ben Lexcen Terrace. These two areas work together, forming a physical connection between the Darling Harbour waterscape and the museum. Outside on the terrace, visitors can relax, have lunch and take in the view of our fleet. Inside the gallery, they can immerse themselves in historical and contemporary stories of the environments above and below the waters of Sydney Harbour. 20 Signals 132 Spring 2020
01 Artist’s impression of the refurbished Ben Lexcen Terrace and, behind it, the new Sydney Harbour Gallery. Image Virtual Ideas/ANMM 02 This digital artwork in the Sydney Harbour Gallery traces the ebb and flow of Sydney Harbour traffic over a year. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
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The Sydney Harbour Gallery and Ben Lexcen Terrace work in partnership, forming a physical connection between the Darling Harbour waterscape and the museum
Named for one of Australia’s premier yachtsmen and marine architects, the Ben Lexcen Terrace has always been a star attraction of the Maritime Museum’s precinct, with an unbeatable view of the Sydney CBD and Darling Harbour. Right next to the Pyrmont Light Rail and Pyrmont ferry wharf, the Ben Lexcen Terrace is a premier location for your next event, offering a covered open-air venue with pull-down shades for inclement days. It can host 450 standing or 200 seated. In the gallery, visitors will understand the role of Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) as a modern working harbour through displays, videos and a large-scale digital artwork representing 365 days of marine traffic. Find out what the Sydney Institute of Marine Science is doing to restore vital habitats and protect biodiversity through artificial reef structures, projects to restore crayweed and oysters, and living seawalls. Understand your role in ensuring the ongoing health and safety of above- and belowwater harbour inhabitants, and be amazed by the Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver, a new acquisition to the museum, which performed the first-ever drone sea rescue in 2018.
The Sydney Harbour Gallery welcomes back the museum’s volunteer modelmakers in a newly designed desk at the entrance to the space, where visitors can learn from these highly skilled artisans and see museum collection models that highlight commercial, recreational and transport vessels past and present. The Sydney Harbour Gallery is sponsored by the Port Authority of NSW and delivered in collaboration with the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and The Little Ripper Group. The Sydney Harbour Gallery and Ben Lexcen Terrace are expected to open in October. Please check www.sea.museum for updates.
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Pilot transfer New South Wales
John Cuthbert’s shipyard, Darling Harbour, c 1850s, artist unknown. The sailing vessel in the lower left foreground is believed to be Spitfire. Image courtesy Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, File Number FL1150905
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Spitfire was well built and exhibited superb sailing qualities
A humble but historic craft The long, strange journey of Spitfire, Australia’s first homegrown warship
Colonial New South Wales had long relied on Britain for its defence, but in the mid19th century, the spectre of foreign invasion prompted the construction of local defence vessels, of which Spitfire was the first. A humble craft by naval standards of the day, Spitfire would serve in a military capacity for only two years. The quality of the vessel’s design and construction, however, ensured its survival and continued use for nearly half a century, during which it contributed to the maritime development of colonial Queensland. Dr James Hunter traces its history.
AT HALF PAST 10 ON THE MORNING of 4 April 1855, Susan Cuthbert raised a bottle of wine and broke it against the bow of a small timber vessel lying on the stocks in the shipyard owned by her husband, Sydney shipbuilder John Cuthbert. Moments later, the dog shores holding the craft in place were knocked away, and it slid into Darling Harbour to the ‘loud and enthusiastic cheers’ of those observing from shore.1 This auspicious moment marked the launch of the gunboat Spitfire, Australia’s first domestically built warship and the first naval vessel ordered by an Australian colonial government for defence purposes. Australian National Maritime Museum 23
‘She will prove a swift sailer’
Spitfire was ordered by the New South Wales colonial government in response to fears of foreign naval assault. In the wake of the Australian gold rushes of the early 1850s, Victoria moved to acquire a British-built ‘war steamer’ for its naval defence, and likely influenced colonial administrators in New South Wales also concerned about protecting their share of the continent’s newfound mineral wealth. At the same time, the Crimean War (1853–56), which pitted Great Britain against Imperial Russia, had been raging for two years and raised the spectre of seaborne invasion by Russia’s Pacific fleet. A more immediate worry, however, was New Caledonia, which was annexed by France in 1853, putting a foreign military right on Australia’s doorstep. By the time Spitfire slid down the ways, the continent’s protection relied almost entirely on periodic visits by Royal Navy ships and residual garrisons of the British Army that together proved wholly inadequate as a permanent defence force. In Sydney, for example, the harbour’s primary naval asset was HMS Acheron, a 17-year-old paddle sloop of obsolete design that only mounted three guns to repel an enemy attack. Although a sail-powered gunboat was exceptionally rare in the Royal Navy by the 1850s – at minimum, most British warships featured auxiliary steam propulsion – Spitfire’s acquisition was a quick and practical solution to the shortfalls in New South Wales’ maritime defence. John Cuthbert’s shipyard was contracted to build the vessel, which took only two months to complete. Although the speed with which Spitfire was assembled was credited to Cuthbert’s ‘usual alacrity’, the more likely reason is that it was adapted from a small schooner already under construction at the time the contract commenced.2 This is supported by contemporary accounts that the gunboat handled well and was comfortable in heavy weather, ‘despite the keel having been reduced at the time of building’.3 Members of the colony’s Legislative Council also noted, with dissatisfaction, that Spitfire was not fit for use as a gunboat, as it had ‘been partly built already in Cuthbert’s yard … but not for this purpose’.4 Whether or not Spitfire was adapted from an existing vessel already under construction, there is little doubt it was well built and exhibited superb sailing qualities. A diminutive craft, it registered 65 tons burthen when launched, with a length between perpendiculars of 62 feet (18.9 metres), a beam of 16 feet 6 inches (5.1 metres) and a depth of 5 feet 6 inches (1.7 metres). The keel was hewn from ironbark (possibly Eucalyptus siderophloia) and the frames from blackbutt (E pilularis). Kauri (Agathis sp) was used for the gunboat’s ceiling (interior) and hull (exterior) planking, the latter of which was covered in a protective layer of 22-ounce copper sheathing below the waterline. Diagonal braces hewn from ‘2½ inch hardwood’ and deck knees designed ‘on the most improved principle’ (that is, manufactured from iron) were installed within the hull to strengthen it and accommodate the weight of Spitfire’s proposed armament – a single 32-pounder smoothbore cannon mounted on a traversing carriage situated between the fore and main masts.5 Copper fastenings were used to assemble most, if not all, of the gunboat’s many architectural elements. 24 Signals 132 Spring 2020
At the time of its launch, Spitfire was outfitted with a ketch rig and running bowsprit. Only a year later, it was described as a schooner, but this is probably a generic, rather than accurate, label for its rig, as the terms ‘ketch’ and ‘schooner’ alternately appear in association with the vessel over the course of its life. Spitfire’s low hull featured a raked stem and square counter stern and is described as a ‘clipper ketch’ in at least one archival source, which suggests a sharp bow and streamlined shape built for speed. The gunboat’s bulwarks could be rapidly lowered to permit a clear field of fire for its traversing gun, and the weather deck was roomy enough to allow space for a large mooring buoy and at least one whaleboat. A small cabin located aft included berths for four officers, while accommodation for the ratings was located in the main hold. In terms of seaworthiness and handling qualities, Spitfire was highly regarded, described as a ‘swift sailer’ that made ‘nine knots on a bowline during a fresh breeze’, and proved ‘very weatherly’ during a heavy southerly gale it encountered on its first bluewater sea trial between Sydney and Victoria’s Gabo Island in September 1855.6 From gunboat to ‘buoy-boat’
By the end of 1855, the Crimean War was entering its final phase: Sebastopol had fallen on 9 August, and Russia’s Pacific Fleet – the much-feared bogeyman that prompted Spitfire’s construction – had been discovered in May hidden in the Amur River. Having effectively retreated to safety, it was no longer a threat to British interests in the Asia–Pacific region. With the cessation of hostilities in February 1856, the New South Wales government was no longer on a war footing and had already begun disposing of naval assets in Sydney Harbour. Acheron was sold at Sydney in September 1855, and HMS Torch, another Royal Navy paddle steamer that conducted hydrographic survey work in Australian waters, was also sold there in May 1856. Spitfire was a relatively new vessel – and the only military craft owned outright by the New South Wales government – so it was redirected to other tasks rather than sold. By December 1856, the Legislative Council reported it was ‘employed chiefly in conveying stores and provisions to … lighthouses on the coast’ and, revealingly, that it ‘had not been armed’.7 In fact, there is little evidence to suggest Spitfire was ever outfitted with its primary armament, as all the 32-pounder cannon then in use in Sydney’s defensive network were distributed among coastal fortifications and visiting British warships.
Spitfire at Cooktown during its final years as a bêche-de-mer fishing vessel, c 1890s. Image courtesy Royal Australian Navy
Spitfire was ordered by the New South Wales colonial government in response to fears of foreign naval assault
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Northern Queensland’s labyrinthine coral reefs and strong trade winds proved challenging to Spitfire’s diminished sailing qualities
The lack of an actual gun aboard the colony’s remaining gunboat may very well have prompted the government to put it up for sale in March 1857. According to an auction notice in the Sydney Morning Herald, Spitfire was going under the hammer ‘only … in consequence of [its] services not being required as anticipated’.8 Interestingly, the same notice also states the vessel was sheathed in Muntz metal (a specific form of copper-alloy hull sheathing different from the ‘22-ounce’ variety that would have been manufactured largely from copper), although it is unclear whether this means the hull was sheathed in Muntz metal when built, or re-clad in it before being put up for sale. Despite exhibiting ‘workmanship and material [equal] to any vessel built in her Majesty’s service’, Spitfire did not find a buyer; however, it caught the attention of the police magistrate for Moreton Bay, Captain John Clements Wickham, who petitioned the New South Wales government to supply a replacement for the pilot vessel and buoy tender Pearl.9 The request was ultimately approved, and a five-man crew sailed Spitfire to Moreton Bay to embark upon its new career as a ‘buoy-boat’ in July 1857. Queensland service
Queensland was granted status as a separate Australian colony in June 1859, and ownership of Spitfire was transferred to the new government in December. As one of the best vessels then at the colony’s disposal, its duties soon grew to include piloting, as well as exploration and survey of inshore coastal waters north of Moreton Bay. In late August 1860, Spitfire departed Brisbane with an expedition – which included explorer George Dalrymple – intent on locating the mouth of the Burdekin River. 26 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Woodcut engraving of the gunboat Spitfire as originally built and rigged, c 1855. Image courtesy Royal Australian Navy
Along the way, it successfully navigated the Fitzroy River from its mouth to the frontier settlement at Rockhampton, and narrowly avoided grounding on a coral pinnacle in the Whitsundays that now bears the name ‘Spitfire Rock’. On 28 September, the expedition found the entrance to the Burdekin River, but noted it was unnavigable to large ships and entirely unsuited to the establishment of a port. With the exception of a 10-day voyage in April 1861 to survey rivers north of Brisbane, Spitfire spent the rest of the decade serving as the pilot vessel and buoy tender for the northern reaches of Moreton Bay. It was dismasted and nearly lost during a severe south-easterly gale in 1873, and reportedly in such a state of disrepair by 1875 that its crew could not ‘get a dry place to rest’ in ‘boisterous and rainy weather’, and were drenched by ‘either rain or sea-water … during meal time at the cabin table’.10 According to a former Moreton Bay Pilot Service employee, Spitfire was a ‘strong and … good sea boat’, but exhibited an inability to beat to windward that made it ‘very ill-adapted’ for the pilot service.11 It is perhaps something of a surprise, then, that following the arrival of the new pilot schooner Governor Cairns at Brisbane in 1879, Spitfire was sent north to serve as a pilot vessel and buoy tender for the fledgling gold rush settlement at Cooktown. Northern Queensland’s labyrinthine coral reefs and strong trade winds proved challenging to Spitfire’s diminished sailing qualities, and it spent most of the first three years of the 1880s confined to Cooktown’s immediate inshore waters. Two notable exceptions included an unsuccessful expedition to Cape Sidmouth to investigate reports of a European woman living
In 1860, Spitfire narrowly avoided grounding on a coral pinnacle in the Whitsundays that now bears the name ‘Spitfire Rock’
among Aboriginal people, and the recovery of the remains of Mary Watson, her infant son and a Chinese labourer named Ah Sam. The three died of exposure on Island Number Five of the Howick Group in October 1881 after fleeing an attack on the bêche-de-mer (sea slug) processing station at Lizard Island owned by Watson’s husband. Spitfire was also involved in the rescue of crewmen from the German steamer Freya, which wrecked at Osprey Reef in October 1882. Final years
Given its sailing deficiencies, Spitfire’s days as a pilot vessel were numbered, and in 1883 it was replaced by the schooner Ethel (which, ironically, was reported by Cooktown’s mayor to be ‘no improvement’ on its predecessor).12 Spitfire was surveyed two years later, declared unworthy of repair and sold for £300 to Messrs Power and Thomas Madden, who converted it for use as a bêche-de-mer fishing vessel. It continued in this capacity through the next decade and was rebuilt extensively for civilian employment. Incredibly, the vessel survived Cyclone Sigma while moored off Hinchinbrook Island on 26 January 1896, but was heavily damaged and sold shortly after arriving in Cairns under jury rig. Its new owners, Andrew Allison and Edward Donegan, immediately put it back into service in the bêche-de-mer fishery, but 43 years of continual service had clearly taken their toll. On 21 September 1898, Spitfire developed a leak while moored in Temple Bay in far north Queensland and foundered near the Piper Island Lightship. The crew survived and were later rescued by the Japanese steamship Omi Maru. The wreck site has never been located.
References 1. ‘Launch of the first Australian gun-boat’, [Sydney] Empire, 5 April 1855, p 4. 2. Ibid. 3. R Hobbs, A Shipwright in the Colonies: John Cuthbert, 1815–1874, Nautical Association of Australia, Melbourne, 2017, p 20. 4. Ibid. 5. ‘Sales by auction: The fine colonial-built Government Ketch Spitfire’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1857, p 7. 6. [Sydney] Empire, 5 April 1855, p. 4; ‘Sydney shipping’, Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 3 October 1855, p 2. 7. ‘Proceedings of the Executive Council with respect to the defences of Port Jackson’, [Sydney] Empire, 23 December 1856, p 2. 8. ‘Sales by auction: The fine colonial-built Government Ketch Spitfire’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 March 1857, p 7. 9. Ibid. 10. ‘Moreton Bay Pilot Service’, [Brisbane] Telegraph, 11 May 1875, p 3. 11. Ibid. 12. Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 15 May 1885, p 3. Further reading [Adelaide] Chronicle, ‘A schooner founders’, 17 December 1898, p 24. Brisbane Courier, ‘Shipping items’, 26 October 1898, p 3. Collector of Customs (Brisbane), ‘Vessel Registry: Sailing Vessel Spitfire (No 2 of 1887)’, Register of British Ships: Registers of Transactions Subsequent to First Registry, Port of Sydney (1856–1949). National Archives of Australia, Canberra. Gillett, Ross, 1982, Australia’s Colonial Navies. Naval Historical Society of Australia, Garden Island (NSW). Jones, Colin, 1998, ‘The colonial gunboat Spitfire’, Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal, Vol 16 No 11, pp 477–485. Moreton Bay Courier, ‘Report of the Burdekin Expedition’, 1 November 1860. Straczek, Joseph, 1981, ‘Spitfire: The first Australian-built warship’, Naval Historical Review. Sydney Daily Telegraph, ‘The Lizard Island tragedy’, 27 January 1882, p 3. Australian National Maritime Museum 27
Big shoes to fill David Payne, Curator of Historic Vessels, retires
David Payne has contributed to some of the museum’s most significant projects over more than 30 years. Dr Nigel Erskine profiles the career of this modest quiet achiever whose skills and dedication have made an indelible contribution to the nation’s maritime heritage.
DAVID PAYNE IS RETIRING from the museum after 16 years as Curator of Historic Vessels – and leaving some very big shoes to fill. In fact, David’s association stretches back much further, to 1988 and the frenetic years prior to the museum’s opening, when he was contracted to produce detailed technical drawings of the small-boat fleet and the Cape Bowling Green lighthouse. It was a task for which he was admirably qualified, having cut his teeth in earlier years working in his uncle Alan Payne’s naval architecture studio. Alan Payne is possibly best remembered for his America’s Cup 12 Metres Gretel I and Gretel II, but the studio was also highly regarded in cruising circles for sturdy yachts such as the Koonya class and the beautiful Tasman Seabird designs, and Sydney’s beloved First Fleet class of catamaran ferries. But even more importantly, David brought a passion for boats – a result of his experience racing Lasers and 12-foot skiffs and making several bluewater passages on cruising yachts. The plans provided a record of each boat as it existed when acquired by the museum and were also important for understanding what modifications might have been made during its lifetime. They became the basis for making decisions on their conservation or potential restoration. A particularly good example of David’s work in this regard is the 2018 restoration of MV Krait to its configuration in 1943, when it famously carried commandos on two separate raids on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour. ‘Only Mostyn [Moss] Berryman remained of the team that took part in Jaywick,’ David recalls: His personal story made us all the more aware of how important this project was, and how lucky we were to be working on this restoration. Moss did recall a number of details that we were unsure of, and helped us figure out some other things as best we could. 28 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Bringing together information from Moss Berryman, studying old photos and closely examining the boat for evidence of where changes had been made, David and the museum’s shipwrights were able to faithfully restore Krait to its wartime state. Completed on the 75th anniversary of the Operation Jaywick raid, the restoration was praised as a tangible legacy of one of the most audacious operations of the War in the Pacific. David recalls: I know the Australian War Memorial and the various associations who are connected to Krait were really pleased to see how much detail we had gone to, and felt we had achieved a very credible restoration in the face of many unknowns in terms of the exact detail. Moss was also very appreciative whenever we spoke on the phone. David’s work in documenting the museum’s fleet and small-boat collection established an important management tool for the museum, but what about vessels around Australia, many of which had historic significance, but were in private hands? As the national maritime museum, the museum recognised it had a responsibility to encourage private boat owners and organisations to research, document and preserve their vessels, and it was in this context that it established the Australian Register of Historic Vessels (ARHV) in association with the Sydney Heritage Fleet. David was the successful applicant for a new curatorial position established in 2004 to set up and manage the ARHV, and since that time the register has grown to include more than 700 vessels from every state and territory in Australia, with a dedicated and searchable website recording the significant details of each vessel and its history. Indeed, acceptance onto the register has become a badge of honour for owners of historic boats, and the ARHV website, boat shows and other events provide opportunities for proud boat owners to get together and display their boats.
David Payne cut his teeth in earlier years working in his uncle Alan Payne’s naval architecture studio
01 David Payne’s plans of the Cape Bowling Green lighthouse, drawn in 2003. 02 David Payne and Hayden Charles building a nawi (tied-bark canoe) at the 2016 Classic & Wooden Boat festival at the museum. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
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David was part of the museum team that, in 2012, inaugurated the Nawi Indigenous Watercraft conference that brought together Indigenous people from across Australia
01 David at the tiller of It Happens, a wild-looking 12-metre-long racing yacht that he designed in 1988. Pictured in the Tamar River, Tasmania, in 25-knot winds, it is still racing and winning in 2020. Image David Payne 02 David on the museum’s SY Ena. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM 01
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The ARHV also includes a number of Indigenous canoes and David was part of the museum team that, in 2012, inaugurated the Nawi Indigenous Watercraft conference that brought together Indigenous people from across Australia to share their knowledge of the many and varied forms of these ancient craft. The conference proved a great success, reviving interest in traditional canoes and in canoe-building projects as a means of preserving and strengthening Indigenous culture. Nawi is the Gadigal word for canoe, and a spectacular highlight on the opening night of the conference was the launching of several torch-lit nawi on the waters of Darling Harbour – surely the first time that they had been seen on Sydney Harbour in 100 years. Since 2012, David, along with the museum’s Indigenous Programs Manager, has assisted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and community groups in several canoe-building projects. Such projects not only serve to revive traditional knowledge, through the process of gathering and preparing bark, shaping the canoe and finally paddling the finished product; they also go a long way to restoring pride among young Indigenous people and the broader communities they are part of. David says: We have provided positive support to communities engaging with their culture, helped many of the school kids involved develop greater self-esteem and confidence, and brought the story of Aboriginal canoes and watercraft to a much wider audience. In a further extension of his interest in traditional watercraft, in 2017, David joined British and Australian anthropologists working in southern Papua New Guinea researching cultural traditions along the south coast and offshore in the Louisiade Archipelago. His job was to document the wide variety of canoes, outriggers and associated equipment used in the area and to produce drawings of them for potential later publication. The resultant drawings are exquisite and a real testament to David’s technical and artistic skills.
Importantly, David’s work in Papua New Guinea has broader significance; recently, he was able to assist staff at the British Museum in interpreting canoe parts and models held in that institution’s Oceania collection. David has also helped our museum to acquire some important objects for the National Maritime Collection. In 2016, before the America’s Cup auction held in Fremantle, David went through hundreds of Ben Lexcen’s yacht plans to determine which were most important for the museum to bid on. As a result, the museum now holds not only the famous designer’s plans showing the evolution of the 12 Metre Australia II, but also a broader evolution of his work, starting with revolutionary 18-foot skiffs such as Venom and Taipan then moving on to famous ocean racers such as Apollo III, Ginkgo, Ballyhoo and Mercedes III. In the case of Taipan, David had already been instrumental in the restoration of the iconic skiff now displayed in the museum’s Wharf 7 Heritage Centre foyer, so acquiring the original plans was a great addition, extending our knowledge of Lexcen’s early design work and competition racing. In retirement, David and his wife Clare hope to spend more time at their eco-property north of Auckland, New Zealand, and to see more of their sons and their partners, who live away from Sydney. Those of us who have had the privilege of working with David will undoubtedly continue to think of him as a no-nonsense, practical and accomplished person, and continue to call on his body of work for many years to come. He has made an enormous contribution to the maritime heritage of Australia for which we should all be thankful, and we wish him and his family all the best for the future.
Dr Nigel Erskine was the museum’s Head of Research until his retirement last year.
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Funnel colours have become brighter and more varied since 1945
Flags and funnels
The red and white of the Turkish national flag are boldly represented on the funnels of the Kalkavan Group. Image Faraways/Shutterstock
The livery of shipping lines
Flags and funnel colours on merchant ships have long been employed to identify the shipowner or charterer concerned. Before public education became compulsory, few people could read or write, so flags often used colours or symbols to indicate ownership. The tradition now continues with the use of funnel colours, writes Robert Fildes.
IN THE DAYS OF SAIL, a shipping company’s houseflag was an important way of recognising its vessels, particularly when companies owned several ships and operated regular advertised services on particular routes. A fluttering houseflag, however, is not the easiest item to identify at any distance, and so flags came to be replaced by funnel colours. Rare hybrid examples – a fluttering flag painted on a funnel – can still be found today. Once steam-powered vessels came into use, most firms used basic colours – black, yellow (also called buff, which can cover any shade from cream to brown), or yellow with a black top. Black was a popular and practical choice, as it hid traces of smoke and soot. Diesel engines, widely used after 1914, emitted less smoke and soot, so from that date black funnels became less prevalent.
A minority of shipowners worldwide still use these basic colours, but they are poor identifiers of ownership. Australian firms that used plain black included J Fenwick (tugs) and Ritch & Smith (tugs). Plain yellow was favoured by H C Sleigh (cargo and passenger–cargo vessels), while yellow with a black top was adopted by the Adelaide SS Co (cargo and passenger– cargo vessels and ferries). Foreign-owned companies visiting Australian ports that used at least one of these three funnel colours included the China Navigation Co (Swire group), P&O, Orient Line, Bank Line and Norddeutscher Lloyd. A major change in funnel colours occurred when a few shipowners, mostly from Germany, realised that painting the houseflag on the funnel would make it much easier to identify their firm. This was a turning point. Many other shipowners adopted this idea, first in Germany, then in Europe generally, then worldwide. As a result, the importance of an actual houseflag hoisted on a halliard began to decline. Flags present problems; they can be torn, faded, soiled or (worst of all) wrapped around the halliard by the wind, making them impossible to decipher. Nowadays only a minority of ships worldwide actually fly a houseflag. This brings us squarely to the topic of funnel markings today and the impact of chartering. Australian National Maritime Museum 33
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Flags present problems; they can be torn, faded, soiled or wrapped around the halliard by the wind
04 In recent years, following its acquisition by the Carnival Group of the USA, P&O has adopted a blue funnel with logo for its Europeanbased vessels, which visit Australia regularly. Image StudioPortoSabbia/ Shutterstock 05 Disney USA runs passenger cruise ships that sport a Mickey Mouse silhouette on their funnels.
01 China Navigation Co (Swire Group) originally used a plain black funnel colour, but later adopted the idea of having the houseflag on the funnel. This photo shows how the funnel flag is much clearer than the actual flag being flown at top left. 02 Whitaker Tankers (UK) funnel with ‘fluttering’ houseflag, 2009 03 This ship has Hapag-Lloyd (Germany) funnel colours while operating on charter from the owners, Norddeutsche Reederei Schuldt (also of Germany). At the time, it also carried the Hapag-Lloyd hull colours and naming style.
06 Some Moby cruise ships sport Looney Tunes characters on their funnels. Pictured in the port of Genoa, Italy. Image Riccardo Arata/ Shutterstock 07 The Greek shipping line Ventouris uses the blue and white of the Greek national flag on its ships. 08 The funnels of Royal Australian Navy ships carry a red kangaroo. 09 Sydney Ferries employs an unusual style on vessels on its Manly route, which bear the ferry’s name on their funnels. All images by Robert Fildes unless otherwise stated
Funnel colours have become brighter and more varied since 1945. Disney USA runs passenger cruise ships that bear a silhouette of Mickey Mouse on their funnels. Moby Lines, an Italian-based firm founded in 1959, operates ferries in the Mediterranean. Some of its vessels carry the normal Moby symbol, while others venture into cartoon land, with both funnels and hulls painted with Looney Tunes characters. Shipowners in some overseas countries feature their national flag colours on the funnel. Among these is the Kalkavan Group of Turkey, which is noteworthy in two respects: it features the red and white national flag colours without any letter or logo, and it arranges the colours vertically, which is very unusual. Greek shipowners are prominent in international shipping circles, and many use the blue and white of the Greek flag as the basis of their funnel colours. Worldwide, most navies use shades of grey for funnel colours, sometimes with a black top. Three exceptions are Australia, Canada and New Zealand, all of which now have an identity symbol on the grey funnel. Australia uses a red kangaroo, Canada a red maple leaf and New Zealand a black kiwi. In Sydney, the government-owned Sydney Ferries uses the extremely unusual practice of putting the vessel name on the funnel of its current Manly ferries. Since these large ferries are approaching the end of their lives, it is unlikely that this funnel name style will be repeated. This style is very rare indeed. I have only ever seen it once elsewhere, employed by a towage firm in Stockholm, Sweden. References
Ships can be chartered (hired) for a single voyage between specified ports (a voyage charter) or for periods of time (a time charter) ranging up to 10 or more years. Chartered vessels may have the funnel colours, ship name and/or hull colours changed to suit the charterer. With this in mind, some (mostly German) shipowners painted their houseflag on the superstructure to indicate the actual owning company. Some companies change their funnel colours over time. The P&O passenger ships in the 1800s used plain black funnels, then changed to yellow in the 1900s. In recent years, following its acquisition by the Carnival Group of the USA, P&O has adopted a blue funnel with a gold logo for its European-based vessels (which visit Australia regularly) and a different livery for the cruise vessels operating around Australia and in the Pacific generally.
J L Loughran, A Survey of Mercantile Houseflags and Funnels 1979. Waine Research, Albrighton, UK. Brown’s Flags & Funnels 1995. Brown, Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, UK. Lloyd’s Register of Ships (annual): various years R Fildes, Ships Worldwide: What Ship is That? 2007. Ships Worldwide, Sydney, Australia. L A Sawyer and W H Mitchell, Tankers 1967. Macdonald & Co, London, UK.
Robert Fildes is a museum Member and holds a degree in transport economics from the University of Hull, Yorkshire, UK. He has written several books on shipping, including The Ships that Serve Australia and New Zealand (2 volumes; 2 editions) and was the editor of the quarterly magazine Australia’s Sea Heritage from 2001 to 2004. He is currently co-editor of the illustrated e-book Aus-Ships, which lists some 6,000 Australian merchant and military vessels, both past and present. Australian National Maritime Museum 35
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Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad An Australian in 1930s Kuwait
In the late 1930s, Australian-born Alan Villiers travelled to Arabia to document what he believed were the last days of merchant sailing ships. In December last year the museum made its first foray into the Middle East with the installation of an exhibition of Villiers’ photographs from his travels with Arab sailors. By Lindsey Shaw, an Honorary Research Associate of the museum.
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Villiers devoted his life to ships of sail, and his decision to record Arab dhows before they disappeared has left us with a striking photographic record
01 Alan Villiers with friends in Kuwait, 1939. The two-year-old in the centre of the photograph is now His Excellency Mr Abdlatif Yousef Al-Hamad, Director General of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development. He and his family kindly invited Kit Villiers, the Australian Ambassador Jonathan Gilbert and author Lindsey Shaw to lunch at his home after a private tour of the Arab Bank building and its treasures of Islamic art. Collection: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London 02 The Triumph of Righteousness lightly ballasted and high out of the water runs before a favourable breeze with mainsail and mizzen hoisted. Collection: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
ALAN VILLIERS & THE SONS OF SINDBAD was presented by the Australian National Maritime Museum in conjunction with the Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait’s National Council for Art, Culture and Letters, and the Australian Embassy (Kuwait). The exhibition coincided with Kuwait’s Annual Cultural Season and also its National Day, marking the day when Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah ascended to the throne in 1950. Supported by the Council for Australian Arab Relations, we produced the exhibition in association with the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. Fifty of Alan Villiers’ photographs (printed from the original negatives) were shown at the Amricani Cultural Centre and the National Assembly in Kuwait City from December 2019 to March 2020. They are silent points in time revealing the great skills and the hard life of the sailors, and old Kuwait City before the discovery of oil changed the face of the city and country forever.
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Melbourne-born Alan Villiers (1903–1982) was a noted maritime adventurer, journalist, novelist, sailor and photographer who devoted most of his life to the sea and the ships that harnessed the power of the winds. His passion for timber sailing ships took him to sea on the last of the square-riggers; he circumnavigated the world in his own three-masted tall ship, Joseph Conrad, in 1934–36. In the late 1930s Villiers began a survey to photograph, film and write about the Arabian sailing methods of various types of Arab dhow – baggala, boom, badan, belem, betil, bedeni, ghanjah, jalboot, sambuk and zarook – as they sailed on trading voyages through the Persian and Oman Gulfs, the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea as far south as Tanzania in East Africa. Villiers believed that he was seeing the last days of sail and wanted to record the vessels before they disappeared. He wrote: ‘Only the Arab remained making his voyages as he always had, in a wind-driven vessel sailing without benefit of engines’.1 In November 1938 Alan Villiers, with the help of Ali Abdul Latif Al-Hamad, the Aden representative of the Al-Hamad Kuwaiti merchant house, found passage aboard the Sheikh Mansur as a kind of trial voyage. The zarook voyaged for eight days from Aden, one of the busiest ports in the world, to bustling Jizan (Gizan) on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast. The zarook was a typical small double-ended cargo vessel loaded with Rangoon rice, Javanese sugar and bales of Japanese cottons, bound for remote Arabian bazaars. Life on board was hard for the crew of eight as the open, lateen-rigged sail boat had no shelter and little decking. As it was Ramadan, Villiers respectfully joined the crew in fasting. The Sheikh Mansur was about 15 metres long, with two short masts, and lay low in the water. Voyaging in this small craft revolved around the wind and currents, and Villiers remarked that he lost all sense of time as one day passed seamlessly into the next. Australian National Maritime Museum 37
Villiers’ photographs are silent points in time revealing the great skills and the hard life of the sailors, and old Kuwait City before the discovery of oil changed the face of the city and country
01 The Kuwaiti shoreline was one of Villiers’ favourite locations as he could observe the dhows being built, maintained and sailed. Today, the dhows have a similar shape but they are diesel powered rather than sailed. 02 The Amricani Cultural Centre, one of the venues for the exhibition. It was originally built in 1912 as the American Mission Hospital for women and men. Images by Lindsey Shaw 01
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Villiers’ second voyage was aboard a Kuwaiti boom named Bayan, translated by Villiers as Triumph of Righteousness. Fashioned by master builders, stately booms like Triumph were the typical cargo vessels of Kuwaiti seafarers. From December 1938 to June 1939, Villiers sailed the monsoon winds from Aden to the Swahili coast and then home to Kuwait. He described the Triumph of Righteousness as ‘massive, without being heavy; strong, with no hint of sluggishness; stout, though sweetly lined’. At more than 20 metres in length it was ‘an upstanding, handsome thoroughbred of a ship’. On the voyage south the boom carried a full cargo of salt, rice, sugar, canned milk and other staples, as well as passengers. The north-east monsoon winds carried the Triumph to Mombasa and Zanzibar, where the cargo was sold and the passengers disembarked. The boom was given a routine overhaul on Kwale Island off British Tanganyika (today’s Tanzania), before coasting south to the Rufiji Delta. There it collected a full cargo of mangrove poles to sell and sailed the south-west monsoon home to the Persian Gulf. Kuwait was the last port of call for Villiers’ six-month voyage on the Triumph of Righteousness. It was an important port on the dhow routes linking Arabia, Persia, India and East Africa. Every aspect of the social and economic life of Kuwait interested Alan Villiers. There he lived the life of a well-to-do Arab, meeting Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Ahmad bin Jabir Al-Sabah, and made a fascinating study of the city. ‘Ships, ships, ships, all along the sea. Sailors, quartermasters, carpenters, nakhodas, all along the shore road – what a place Kuwait was.’ Nakhodas were the masters of the dhows.
Villiers’ photographs, films and diaries capture life on the waterfront, the captains and sailors enjoying their break before the sailing season began again in October, while labourers and apprentices were repairing and building ships. Merchants and captains concluded business deals and socialised in cafes. Alan Villiers devoted his life to ships of sail, and his decision to record Arab dhows before they disappeared has left us with a striking photographic record of the men and the vessels as well as life on the waterfront. He donated his photographic and film archive to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, before his death in 1982, and his diaries are held by the National Library of Australia. Villiers was one of the leading Western writers on the Arabian world and he is, perhaps, more widely known in Kuwait than he is in Australia. The Australian Embassy (Kuwait) organised the opening night and invited two special guests – Christopher (Kit) Villiers, Alan’s son, and Dr Grace Pundyck, who was instrumental in bringing the collection to light when she was researching at Greenwich. Both spoke eloquently at the opening, as did our own Director Kevin Sumption PSM. The opening of the exhibition also brought together many relatives of those who had sailed with Villiers – children, grandchildren and cousins who were proud to see photographs of their relatives on show. The success and general interest generated by this exhibition in Kuwait has led to discussions with the Australian Embassy in Riyadh and it is planned to travel a modified version through Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman late in 2021. 1 All Villiers’ quotes in this article are from his book Sons of Sindbad (Sribner, New York, 1940). Australian National Maritime Museum 39
Museum events Spring 2020
October Virtual Ocean Talk
Exploring Australia’s deep sea with Schmidt Ocean Institute 7.30–8.30 pm Thursday 1 October An exploration of Australia’s deep-sea submarine canyons, seamounts and coral ecosystems
Access program
Sensory-friendly Sundays 8.30–11.30 am Sunday 11 October A modified environment for kids and adults with a variety of sensory differences
For babies 0–18 months and carers
Seaside Strollers tours and play 10.30 am or 12.30 pm Monday 19 October Tour: Indigenous Collection highlights; play: Colour and shape theme
November
Virtual Ocean Talk
Virtual Ocean Talk
Exploring Australia’s deep sea with Schmidt Ocean Institute
Defying Empire
7.30–8.30 pm Thursday 1 October
We defy: by existing; by determining our identity; By asserting our histories, our culture, our language; by telling our stories, our way; by being one of the oldest continuous living cultures in the world.
Australia is an island continent, surrounded by three oceans and multiple seas, which are home to some of the world’s most amazing organisms. Yet despite having so much water, ocean life and discovery potential, Australia has limited research opportunities. This year, Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor and its remotely operated vehicle SuBastian explored Australia’s deep-sea submarine canyons, seamount and coral ecosystems, bringing to light fascinating new species from coast to coast. Hear from Dr Carlie Wiener (Schmidt Ocean Institute), Dr Nerida Wilson (Western Australian Museum) and Dr Robert Beaman (James Cook University) as they share for the first time some of the amazing surprises and discoveries that have been made.
7.30– 8.30 pm Thursday 3 December
Defying Empire: Third National Indigenous Art Triennial brings the works of 30 contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across the country into the national spotlight at the museum. In this Ocean Talk, artist Tina Baum leads a panel discussion with five of the artists who created the exhibition. Free. Register your attendance online at sea.museum/ocean-talks The Hand You’re Dealt by Tony Albert, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf. Image Sam Noonan
Free. Register your attendance online at sea.museum/ocean-talks
For your diary
Large coral with associates. Image courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute
3–20 December – Members’ exclusive Christmas discounts at the Museum store 26 December – Boxing Day cruise
Access program
Sensory-friendly Sundays 8.30–11.30 am Sunday 8 November A modified environment for kids and adults with a variety of sensory differences
December Virtual Ocean Talk
Defying Empire 7.30– 8.30 pm Thursday 3 December Panel discussion with artists of Defying Empire: Third National Indigenous Art Triennial
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Kids activity sheets Bookings and enquiries Booking form on reverse of mailing address sheet. Please note that booking is essential unless otherwise stated. Book online at sea.museum/whats-on or phone 02 9298 3646 (unless otherwise indicated) or email members@sea.museum 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 advised to check our website for updated and new event information.
The museum now has two levels of affiliation: membership, which includes Signals, and a Family Pass, which does not. As a result, the Kids Activities liftout will no longer be published with Signals, but dozens of past activity sheets (plus recipes, science experiments and other craft ideas) can be downloaded from sea.museum/ kidscraft and printed at home. For more information on the new membership levels, please see page 11.
Museum events
For carers with children 0–18 months
Access program
Under 5s activities
Seaside Strollers tours and play
Sensory-friendly Sundays
Mini Mariners
10.30 am or 12.30 pm Monday 19 October
8.30–11.30 am Sundays 11 October, 8 November
Join our tour for carers and babies through our new exhibitions. Enjoy refreshments from Yots cafe, adult-friendly conversations in the exhibition and baby play time in a sensory space. Strollers, front packs, baby-slings and breastfeeding welcome.
Enjoy a comfortable environment for kids and adults with a variety of sensory differences.
10.30–11.15 am and 11.30 am–12.15 pm selected Tuesdays during term time and one Saturday each month
To ensure safe distancing, our tours have been reduced to half the usual capacity, our play experiences have been modified and additional hygiene measures are in place. Tour: Indigenous Collection highlights Play: Colour and shape theme Adult $23, Member adult $15, babies free. Includes refreshments and admission to the exhibition. Bookings essential at sea.museum/strollers
On Sensory-friendly Sundays our new exhibitions and activity areas will be open extra early for a quieter experience and modified to suit people on the autism spectrum and with a range of differing abilities. Our trained staff and volunteers will be on hand to facilitate creative activities. Members and children under 4 and free, child 4+ or adult $12. Includes access to special exhibitions. Booking encouraged at sea.museum/whats-on/events
Enjoy creative free play, craft, games and story time in our themed activity area. For ages 2–5 + carers. To ensure safe distancing, our tours have been reduced to half the usual capacity and additional hygiene measures are in place. Members free, child $12 adult $8. Booked playgroups welcome. Bookings essential at sea.museum/under5s
Mariw Minaral (Spiritual Patterns) Opens November
Alick Tipoti is arguably the most important artist of his generation from Zendah Kes (the Torres Strait Islands), and for the first time we are presenting a retrospective of his works.
A CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ARTIST, Alick Tipoti is highly respected for his work in regenerating cultural knowledge and language. Guided by the traditional cultural practices of his people, Tipoti’s storytelling encompasses traditional cosmology, marine environments and ocean conservation – focusing on what it means to be a sea person. Tipoti is revered for his sophistication and ability to spread his concerns and messages through his art. Among the works on display will be the sculptures Kisay Dhangal (Moonlight Dugong), made from bronze and pearl shell, and Kaygasiw Usul – which means ‘the trail of dust underwater created by the shovel nose shark’ in the language of the Maluyligal People. Also on show will be some of Tipoti’s large-scale linocut prints, whose intricate detail highlights the artist’s skill. Many of these works will be on display for the first time; others have featured in previous exhibitions at the museum, such as Munuk Zugabal (Saltwater Songlines) in 2016. The exhibition comprises works from our own collection, many of which have been purchased through generous donations.
Kisay Dhangal (Moonlight Dugong), by Alick Tipoti. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
Exhibitions
Paradise Lost: Daniel Solander’s Legacy
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Opens early October
This world-renowned exhibition features 100 awe-inspiring images, from fascinating animal behaviour to breathtaking landscapes. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the most prestigious photographic event of its kind, providing a global platform that has showcased the natural world’s most astonishing and challenging sights for more than 50 years. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
This exhibition commemorates the legacy of the Endeavour botanist Daniel Solander and the first encounter between Sweden and the Pacific Region. It features fine art prints by ten leading contemporary New Zealand artists selected to bring a unique vision to this historical event and Solander’s legacy. It will also feature Australian Indigenous scientific knowledge as a framework to explore engravings of botanical specimens collected in Australia by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander from the National Maritime Collection.
Until late January 2021
sea.museum/wildlife
Solander and Banks bag fish and fowl by John McLean, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Solander Gallery
Ship and Shore – The history and legacy of Cook’s first voyage Now showing James Cook mapped the east coast of Australia aboard the Endeavour in 1770, and this year marks 250 years since that historic voyage. Through a series of curated panels in the Wharf 7 forecourt, this free outdoor exhibition examines this event and its legacy, incorporating perspectives of both those aboard the Endeavour and the Indigenous inhabitants watching it from the shore. It was a pivotal moment when two cultures – neither able to communicate or comprehend the other’s world – collided with near-fatal consequences for the Indigenous custodians of the land and their 60,000-year-old culture. sea.museum/ship-and-shore
Defying Empire Opens 25 November Defying Empire: Third National Indigenous Art Triennial brings the works of 30 contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from across the country into the national spotlight. The Third National Indigenous Art Triennial from the National Gallery of Australia commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum that recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as Australians for the first time. It explores the ongoing resilience of Australia’s Indigenous people since first contact, through to the historical fight for recognition and ongoing activism in the present day.
Sea Monsters – Prehistoric ocean predators Until 11 October An exhibition combining real fossils, gigantic replicas, multimedia and hands-on experiences to reveal ancient monsters of the deep. Find out how three main types of ancient reptiles – ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs – left the land to rule the seas. In the oceans, they developed into awesome, enormous predators that make today’s great white sharks seem almost friendly! sea.museum/sea-monsters
HERE: Kupe to Cook Until 25 November HERE: Kupe to Cook features artworks by 20 leading Aotearoa–New Zealand and Australian contemporary artists who investigate the long and varied histories of South Pacific voyaging – from celebrated Oceanic navigator Kupe to the arrival of James Cook in 1769. Produced by Pataka Art + Museum in association with the National Library of New Zealand sea.museum/kupe-to-cook Exhibition view of Kupe to Cook. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
Exhibitions
Under Southern Skies
Adrift
Travelling Exhibitions
Permanent exhibition now open
Opens late winter
From the Pacific to the Islands of Indonesia, ocean voyagers had been traversing and navigating around the coasts of Australia for centuries before Europeans arrived. The first navigators were Aboriginal people who crossed the seas to arrive in Australia more than 60,000 years ago – the oldest known ocean migration in the world.
Come along and see 2,000 virtual marine microbes as they drift in a simulated ocean environment!
Sea Monsters – Prehistoric ocean predators
Incredible feats of navigation were not the sole preserve of Europeans, but were part of a global current of trade, migration and voyaging – all made possible by skills and technologies that understood wind, water and stars. This new permanent gallery tells the stories of navigators under the southern skies using objects from the National Maritime Collection. These include bark paintings that depict Makassan fishermen trading with Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, and sextants, compasses and telescopes that show the technological advancement in navigational instruments. Also temporarily on display later this year, on loan from the National Library of Australia, are the ‘secret instructions’ that were issued to James Cook, outlining his mission aboard HMB Endeavour. sea.museum/under-southern-skies European navigational instruments on display in Under Southern Skies. Image Andrew Frolows/ ANMM
These trajectories, generated by a global community of citizen scientists, are helping researchers identify areas in the ocean where real-life microbes experience variability in their environment – an important step in considering the future of our oceans. Adrift is supported by the Inspiring Australia – Science Engagement Programme, an initiative by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation and Science & partners the Bureau of Meteorology and Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS).
Queensland Museum, Brisbane from 20 November An exhibition combining real fossils, gigantic replicas, multimedia and hands-on experiences to reveal ancient monsters of the deep. Find out how three main types of ancient reptiles – ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs – left the land to rule the seas. In the oceans, they developed into awesome, enormous predators that make today’s great white sharks seem almost friendly! sea.museum/sea-monsters
Outbreak: Epidemics in a connected world
Submerged: Stories of Australia’s Shipwrecks
Coming soon
At various venues – check www.sea.museum for details
The exhibition highlights how pathogens can spread to people from wildlife and livestock, why some outbreaks become epidemics and how human, animal and environmental health are connected. We’ve added additional banners about how epidemics of smallpox, measles and the Spanish flu arrived in Australia by sea. A USA Program supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund
The Australian Maritime Museums Council (AMMC) and the Australian National Maritime Museum partnered to develop the graphic panel display Submerged: Stories of Australia’s shipwrecks. Content was developed by AMMC members at maritime heritage organisations across the country, and merged into a nationally touring display by the museum. This display is supported by Visions of Australia
Cats & Dogs: All at Sea, Photographs by Samuel Hood Bass Strait Maritime Centre, Devonport, Tasmania, from 1 October Dates listed for on-site exhibitions are subject to COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines, and may change at short notice. Please check our website www.sea.museum for updates.
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Dogs, cats, monkeys and birds have been cherished on board ships for as long as people have made sea voyages. In a life from which children and families were usually missing, pets provided an important source of comfort and affection. Photographer Samuel Hood boarded hundreds of ships between the 1900s and 1950s that were moored in Sydney Harbour. He took thousands of photographs of crew members – and their pets – as a souvenir of their visit to send home to families and loved ones.
Australian National Maritime Museum 45
The success of its training programs has enabled the Tribal Warrior Corporation to extend its training with at-risk youth across Australia
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Maritime Heritage Around Australia
Tribal Warrior helps Aboriginal youth to learn traditional practices, such as building the nawi (tied-bark canoes) of the Sydney region. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation Supporting self-determination, shifting narratives
From humble beginnings in the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern, Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation has grown into Australia’s only maritime training organisation that is fully owned and run by Aboriginal people. It is dedicated to providing better opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth and educating the wider community about Australia’s First Peoples. By the museum’s Indigenous Programs Unit.
SYDNEY HARBOUR is one of the most recognisable harbours in the world, known for its vibrant blue waterways, beautiful beaches, iconic landmarks and strong boating culture. Thousands of boats ply the harbour: commuter ferries, historic sailing vessels, cruise ships, super yachts and everything in between, but two of these vessels stand out from the rest. Proudly flying large Aboriginal flags and covered in cultural designs, these special craft belong to the Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation (Tribal Warrior), Australia’s only maritime training organisation that is fully owned and run by Aboriginal people. Tribal Warrior also offers cultural tours for national and international visitors, providing a strong reminder of Sydney’s rich Aboriginal heritage and the ongoing connection that First People have to the waters and land around the harbour.
Opportunities and successes
Tribal Warrior had its unlikely beginnings in the inner-city suburb of Redfern, which was well known for its sizeable Aboriginal community; the area had been a cultural hub for Aboriginal people for more than 200 years. In 1998, with ongoing tensions increasing between youth living in the area and local police, a group of elders met with local resident Daniel Ariel. Daniel offered to donate a boat to the community and to provide maritime training for young people. Daniel soon became a founding member of the Aboriginal corporation that would eventually carry the name of the donated boat – Tribal Warrior. A gaff-rigged ketch (originally named Mina), Tribal Warrior was, and still is, the oldest surviving timber working boat in the country. Designed by Tsugitaro Furuta, it was built in 1899 in the Torres Strait Islands. The boat already had a strong connection for Australia’s First Peoples, as it came with a long history of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders working aboard it in the pearling grounds of Western Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. After its life as a pearling lugger, it was wrecked, rebuilt, refitted and then used by the United States Army in World War II before being adopted by the Ganabarr Morning Star Clan, the traditional people of the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. It passed to the Redfern community in the hope that it would be used to establish courses for young local men, providing them with maritime skills and enough training to enable them to find employment afterwards. Once the program had been developed, proved successful and shown ongoing benefits to the community, the Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation was formed. As a change-of-hands initiation, the corporation invited elders to perform the cultural practice of a smoking ceremony on the vessel to cleanse it and heal past memories. Australian National Maritime Museum 47
Maritime Heritage Around Australia
Tribal Warrior offers cultural tours for national and international visitors, providing a strong reminder of Sydney’s rich Aboriginal heritage
Shane Phillips is the CEO of Tribal Warrior, and has cultural connections to the Bundjalung, Wonnarua and Bidjigal peoples. Shane grew up in Redfern and was among the second group of boys that Tribal Warrior trained in maritime skills. Shane says, ‘These two old fellows turned up and fed us really cool stuff that made us start to think about things differently’. After completing the training program, Shane became involved in the operation of the company. He realised the opportunities that this program had given him and set out to help other people in the same position. The success of its training programs has enabled the Tribal Warrior Corporation to extend its training of at-risk youth across Australia, and many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander skippers have gained employment in the maritime industry both locally and nationally. These programs were developed, and still continue to run today, through self-generated funding. Tribal Warrior Corporation still uses the gaff-rigged ketch Tribal Warrior for its courses, and the vessel is currently berthed at the Australian National Maritime Museum. They now also own a retired ferry named Mari Nawi, which in the traditional language of the Sydney area means ‘big canoe’. Mari Nawi is very recognisable, with distinctive artwork of a whale on its bow. The whale has been a strong symbol of New South Wales east-coast Aboriginal peoples for many thousands of years, as their Saltwater Songlines attest. 48 Signals 132 Spring 2020
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Mari Nawi is used for cultural cruises and corporate charters on Sydney Harbour. Its crew comprises professionals, trainees and cultural educators and performers. The cultural cruises are part of the training program and are intended to teach and promote Aboriginal cultural practices and seamanship. They also aim to clarify common misconceptions about Aboriginal people and their history. These tours emphasise that many Aboriginal people are, and have always been, coastal people. A core component of them is to make visitors aware of Aboriginal people’s relationship to the land and sea and to pass on traditional names of places around the harbour. These cultural cruises attract tourists from all parts of the world. Sailing into history
In addition to its training and cultural programs, Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation has actively participated in numerous projects and events throughout Sydney and across Australia. One of the most notable of these came in August 2001, after the corporation had been operating for three years, when a crowd assembled at Cockle Bay Wharf in Sydney to see Tribal Warrior and its crew set off to circumnavigate Australia. Their aim was to encourage Aboriginal communities to become involved with the Tribal Warrior Association by engaging with those they visited and helping to establish a wider network of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander maritime training and tourism industries.
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Just under two years later, in 2003, Tribal Warrior and its crew arrived back in Sydney Harbour, having sailed more than 25,750 kilometres, becoming the first-ever all-Aboriginal crew to circumnavigate Australia. During the trip, the team visited 120 coastal communities. In each one, gifts were exchanged, and community members engraved words or a work of art significant to their area into the wooden structures of the Tribal Warrior. These engravings can still be seen on the boat today. The voyage sent a strong message promoting reconciliation, by reconnecting with saltwater traditions and establishing links with communities. For the crew and trainees, the trip was a momentous event and a significant step forward in Tribal Warrior’s maritime activities. Since the circumnavigation, Tribal Warrior has developed, growing and establishing itself in a number of diverse projects. Their recent participation in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race proved to be one of the most difficult challenges they have undertaken. In 2016 the Tribal Warrior team had attempted to make history by entering the famous bluewater event, but they were forced to withdraw just a week before the race when their boat was damaged. Three years later, the team had raised sufficient funds to take part in the 2019 Sydney to Hobart, aboard a leased racing yacht that was renamed Tribal Warrior for the event.
Mari Nawi is very recognisable, with distinctive artwork of a whale on its bow
01 Mari Nawi (‘big canoe’) at Pyrmont Bay Wharf near the museum. Mari Nawi is available for corporate charters and also offers popular cultural and harbour cruises that give local and international tourists an insight into Aboriginal culture and history. Image Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation 02 The museum has used Tribal Warrior’s harbour cruises as part of its cultural training program for staff. Pictured are employees and volunteers who cruised aboard Mari Nawi to Be-lang-le-wool (Clark Island) during Reconciliation Week 2019 to learn about Aboriginal culture and local place names. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM Australian National Maritime Museum 49
Maritime Heritage Around Australia
In the 2019 Sydney to Hobart, the Tribal Warrior team became the first Indigenous crew to compete and officially cross the finish line
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Tribal Warrior crew during the 2019 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Image courtesy Tribal Warrior
Maritime Heritage Around Australia
Maritime training programs Since its humble beginnings in 1998, Tribal Warrior has seen more than 5,000 people pass through its training programs. As the company has grown, so has the access to a wider range of courses. Currently Tribal Warrior offers the following maritime training programs, all of which are all TAFE accredited: • General Purpose Hand (GPH/Deckhand)
The Australian National Maritime Museum has proudly supported Tribal Warrior in a number of its events and programs
They became the first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander crew to participate and officially cross the finish line, in a highly significant moment for the team. Aboriginal crewmember Naomi Cain – the only woman in the team – said, ‘Mother Nature and our Ancestors threw everything possible at us, but we made it here’. The challenging but rewarding experience of participating in this notoriously difficult voyage fulfilled the crew’s aim of encouraging more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to become involved in sailing. For the crew of Tribal Warrior, completing the race was a cause for celebration that extended to the wider Tribal Warrior community. This history-making voyage was another positive step on the road towards reconciliation. It provided Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation with further exposure and enabled it to connect and share with other businesses and organisations from across Australia. These connections are essential for the continued operation of Tribal Warrior Corporation and its programs and services, which are largely funded by its cruises, charters and cultural performances, as well as from donations and support from companies, non-government organisations, governments and individuals. Collaborating for reconciliation
The Australian National Maritime Museum is one of the organisations that has proudly supported Tribal Warrior in a number of its events and programs. In 2012 and 2017, Tribal Warrior Corporation was heavily involved in the Nawi Conferences hosted by and held at the museum. These explored Australia’s First Peoples watercraft, bringing together traditional watercraft builders, community members, historians, students and others from around the country to study the role, history and importance of the nation’s many and varied traditional watercraft.
• Coxswain • Marine Engine Driver (MED) 3 • Master Class 5 • Marine Engine Driver (MED) 2 • Master Class 4 • Marine Engine Driver (MED) 1
Other successful collaborations with Tribal Warrior have been harbour tours for museum visitors aboard Mari Nawi to mark NAIDOC Week, and Science Week tours about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ navigation by the stars. The museum has also been involved in numerous projects through Tribal Warrior’s mentor program, including building traditional bark canoes with the CEO Shane Phillips and some of the local youth. In 2019 Shane participated in a panel discussion as part of the museum’s Ocean Talks series. Speaking on Aboriginal perspectives of Sydney Harbour, he discussed the different ways in which Tribal Warrior interprets Sydney Harbour’s rich and diverse Aboriginal history, as well as the cultural connections still surviving and thriving today. Engaging with the Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation and working with it on projects and events are steps in the museum’s commitment to supporting Indigenous maritime communities nationally and internationally. Tribal Warrior’s many programs have opened the barriers of communication between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and non-Indigenous people across Sydney’s cultural divide. This modern corporation draws upon a traditional outlook and practice to deliver programs that draw on the strength of Aboriginal identity and relationship with the land and sea. Its iconic vessels, a permanent fixture on Sydney Harbour, express pride in Aboriginal culture. The Australian National Maritime Museum looks forward to future projects and partnerships with Tribal Warrior. Next time you are in Sydney, look out for Mari Nawi on the harbour, or come and visit the old pearling lugger Tribal Warrior at its mooring at the museum.
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By 2030, Australia commits to making accessible all existing seabed mapping data, and continuing to map its 8.2-millionsquare-kilometre marine jurisdiction
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Mapping the ocean From lead weights to remote sensing
For centuries, the stars, planets and landforms have served as markers for trade and migration routes. These celestial and terrestrial features are comparatively easy to see and record – but what of those under the water? Curator of Ocean Science and Technology Emily Jateff traces the history of seafloor exploration and mapping. 52 Signals 132 Spring 2020
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01 AusSeabed Bathymetry Coverage 2020. This dataset represents the current extent of bathymetry surveys held by AusSeabed as of March 2020. This dataset is live and will continue to be augmented as coverage is supplied from AusSeabed collaborators. Image courtesy Geoscience Australia, Canberra 02 French chart (c 1775) using the charts produced during James Cook’s Endeavour voyage from Point Hicks to Cape York, including the islands of the Torres Strait, in 1770. Copper engraving by Robert Bernard. ANMM Collection 00000860
UNDERSTANDING THE COMPOSITION OF THE SEAFLOOR is vital to safe and economically sustainable marine navigation. When Lieutenant James Cook charted the eastern coastline of Australia in 1770, his team of surveyors took ‘soundings’ at intervals to fairly accurately record coastal seabed depth. They accomplished this by throwing a lead weight attached to a rope over the side of the ship and measuring how much line paid out before the lead hit bottom. In 1874, the first recognised Western oceanographic expedition on board HMS Challenger reached the deepest point in the ocean, the 10,500-metreplus Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, using a winch and sounding line (this time made of stronger steel wire). Although a slow and arduous process, sounding leads and sextants were the go-to hydrographic tools until the 1920s and the invention of the single beam echosounder, or fathometer. This device ‘sees’ the seafloor in the same way bats visualise where they are going: by pinging sound waves off a point in the distance (in this case, the seafloor) and measuring how long it takes for that ping to return. Using technologies to detect and document our environment remotely is known as remote sensing, and it has changed the way we view our world.
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Today, ocean bathymetry (seafloor) data are often acquired from satellites. Airborne remote sensing – in particular systems such as laser airborne depth sounding (LADS) – is an excellent means of generating high-resolution bathymetric data for coastal shorelines up to the inner continental shelf, but airplanes can’t fly too far from land without refuelling. Recent innovations in specialised, far-reaching unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) can be used to map by remote command. However, collecting direct (that is, in-water) high-resolution bathymetry data still usually requires access to an ocean-going ship, a means of mapping and a person to process the data. Many research and commercial vessels are now fitted with hull-mounted sidescan and multibeam echosounders (MBES) that are used to conduct hydrographic surveys, either while the ship is under way, or as part of a targeted collection strategy. Once the data are collected, remote sensing specialists postprocess them for multiple uses including Digital Terrain Models and navigation charts. The data are thinned, errors corrected and alterations made to account for differences in wave, tide and temperature. Mounting an ocean-going expedition requires significant investments in time, money and resources. Governments, private industry and scientific bodies usually fund expeditions for specific purposes, including production of information related to chemical, geologic or biological composition of the ocean, or resource extraction. A few expeditions focus on seafloor mapping, but it is more often than not a secondary and opportunistic aspect of any seagoing voyage. Australian National Maritime Museum 53
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01 GEBCO Digital Atlas, courtesy British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), National Oceanography Centre (NOC). 02 On a large ocean-going research vessel, the action happens either at the stern (where most equipment is deployed) or in the Operations Room. This is the Operations Room on board Marine National Facility RV Investigator. Image courtesy CSIRO/Marine National Facility
How do we have a map of the ocean?
As the world globalised in the early 20th century, it became apparent that consistent naming and terms were required for bathymetric charts. The 1903 Commission on Sub-Oceanic Nomenclature determined the need for an internationally recognised general bathymetric chart. Championed by Prince Albert I of Monaco, responsibility for the chart’s production bounced back and forth through various agencies during subsequent years, its production affected by both World Wars and the Cold War. Eventually, oversight of the general bathymetric chart was handed to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, which in turn established The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) as a joint program of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The first General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans, at 1:10 million scale, was published in 1982. GEBCO produces a regularly updated global terrain model map derived from acquired bathymetric data sets. The GEBCO-2019 Grid includes 15 per cent of the ocean floor mapped in 15 arc-second intervals at high vertical (absolute depth) and horizontal (space between points) resolution. This varies significantly based on water depth, with 13.7 per cent of the 0–1500-metre depth interval mapped, but only 2.6 per cent of the world’s seabed mapped at depths exceeding 5750 metres. 54 Signals 132 Spring 2020
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Below 200 metres, approximately 80 per cent of the data are interpolated or extrapolated, meaning they are derived from statistics. This is what you have to do when you don’t have all the data you need to complete a map: use maths. To interpolate data is to estimate what lies between two known points. To extrapolate data is to extend from known observations to a point in the distance, while operating on the assumption that what lies between them is similar. Interpolated data are generally assumed to be more accurate than extrapolated data, as they are developed from two known points. Extrapolated data, by contrast, can become increasingly less accurate the further they move from the starting data set. One of GEBCO’s goals is to reduce the use of interpolated or extrapolated data and replace this with high-resolution direct bathymetry data. The UN Decade of Ocean Science
One of the drivers for the global push to map the oceans is the upcoming United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030. The decade’s vision is to ‘develop scientific knowledge, build infrastructure and foster relationships for a sustainable and healthy ocean’ in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water, which strives ‘to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development’, is the goal that connects science, policy, economics and growth in the ocean space.
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Global coverage of the seafloor has increased as much in the last two years as it had in the previous 115 years
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The Ocean Decade will be delivered through six research and development themes that cover everything from understanding biodiversity to marine hazards to pollution. One of these themes is ‘A Predicted Ocean’: ‘Whereby society has the capacity to understand current and future ocean conditions, forecast change and impact on wellbeing and livelihoods.’ This is perfect for our story, as you cannot accurately predict if you don’t have a map. Seabed 2030
At the UN Ocean Conference in 2017, Mr Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, declared that it would financially support a global mapping project in partnership with GEBCO. This collaborative international project aims to produce a complete map of the world’s ocean floor by 2050. Titled Seabed 2030, its target is to bring together all data currently available within the GEBCO grid, as well as other publicly and privately held data sets, to identify and support future mapping operations for previously unmapped areas. As part of this initiative, regional centres were established at the Alfred Wegner Institute in Germany (Southern Ocean), Stockholm University in Sweden (Arctic and North Pacific), Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in the United States (Atlantic and Indian Oceans) and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand (South and West Pacific Ocean). As a result, global coverage of the seafloor has increased as much in the last two years as it had in the previous 115 years.
Nations, private citizens and organisations have stepped up to the challenge, collaborating between government, research, exploration, recreation and industry to do their part to produce a comprehensive global map of the ocean. By 2030, Australia commits to making accessible all existing seabed mapping data and to continue mapping the gaps in its 8.2 millionsquare-kilometre marine jurisdiction. This mission, dubbed AusSeabed, is to ‘improve the quality of awareness, coverage, quality, discoverability and accessibility of seabed mapping data through coordination and collaboration in the Australian region’. AusSeabed is a multi-sector initiative headed by Geoscience Australia with the support of the Australian Hydrographic Office, the CSIRO and many other governmental, industry and research bodies. The CSIRO Marine National Facility research vessel Investigator conducts multibeam surveys on all voyages. All data are included within the publicly accessible AusSeabed Marine Discovery Portal. With more than 25 per cent of the Australian marine estate now mapped, we are well on our way – and Australia will soon gain another vessel capable of mapping our Southern Ocean estate, the ice-breaker Nuyina. In December, Schmidt Ocean Institute became the latest of more than 100 scientific research institutions to sign a memorandum of understanding with GEBCO. Its research vessel Falkor visited the museum in January and is currently completing a circumnavigation of Australia using its deepwater work-class remotely operated vehicle (ROV) SuBastian to visualise and sample deepwater canyons off our coasts (see Signals 130). Australian National Maritime Museum 55
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01 North-looking 3D view of Osprey Reef in Australia’s Coral Sea Marine Park. Airborne lidar data collected over the shallow reef and lagoon by the Australian Hydrographic Office, and multibeam sonar data collected around the deeper flanks by the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s RV Falkor. Image provided by Dr Robin Beaman, James Cook University under CC 4.0 licence 02 All crowdsourced vessel data recovered along a section of the Great Barrier Reef. Image courtesy Dr Rob Beaman, James Cook University.
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As the world globalised in the early 20th century, it became apparent that consistent naming and terms were required for bathymetric charts 56 Signals 132 Spring 2020
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Ocean Talk on Falkor’s findings The museum’s free Virtual Ocean Talk on Thursday 1 October will reveal some of the recent findings of the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor and its remotely operated vehicle (ROV) SuBastian as they explored Australia’s deep-sea submarine canyons, seamounts and coral ecosystems – bringing to light fascinating new species from coast to coast. Please see page 40 or go to www.sea.museum for further details.
The latest survey, ‘Visioning the Coral Sea’, was the first of a kind, with scientists operating from shore and public delivery of new seabed mapping data within days of returning to port. Schmidt Ocean Institute gives GEBCO open access to past data sets and provides information from mapping operations, including its ongoing ‘Mapping the Gaps’ program in the Pacific. The Nippon Foundation recently announced three new initiatives designed to make it easier for research organisations and private companies and individuals to participate in the Seabed 2030 program. These include providing vessels with data-gathering equipment; funding additional mapping days in remote areas and providing MBES operators where required; and ‘championing’ solutions for increased public participation. These steps have already borne fruit. The Five Deeps Expedition, led by explorer Victor Vescovo, conducted research via the single-crewed Deep Submergence Vehicle Limiting Factor at remote locations in the deepest parts of the five global oceans. The Nippon Foundation allocated additional funding to the project for extended mapping days, and provided access to an experienced MBES operator who monitored acquisition of bathymetric data. This allowed for sustained collection of data, including during transit, and transfer of comprehensive high-resolution bathymetry data into the Seabed 2030 global map of the ocean floor. Crowd-sourced citizen science
Crowd-sourced bathymetric data doesn’t just come from large organisations – even small recreational vessels can play a part. The ‘Crowd-sourced bathymetry (or depth) on the Great Barrier Reef’ project has been installing small data loggers about the size of a mobile phone on volunteer vessels to record depth and position data from their depth sounder and GPS navigation systems. Over the past year, 10 volunteer vessels – including luxury motor yachts, dive charters, crown-of-thorns starfish control vessels, government watercraft and smaller hire boats – have been automatically logging depth and position data to a USB stick inserted into their data loggers. These data are publicly accessible via the AusSeabed Marine Discovery Portal. Led by Dr Robin Beaman at James Cook University, the project uses innovative citizen science to collect new depth data from remote parts of the Great Barrier Reef where traditional hydrographic surveys may not have already visited, and that lack any modern digital depth data. The new soundings, combined with all other survey data, are used to generate detailed 3D depth models for the Great Barrier Reef. These detailed models reveal the deeper underwater landscape, such as ancient river channels, submerged (drowned) reefs and canyons.
Once it’s mapped, then what?
Imagine it is 2030, the drive to map the oceans has resulted in 100 per cent coverage at high resolution, and all data are stored in a publicly accessible archive (with limitations for public safety and national interest, of course). What does this mean for us? A global map has many positive outcomes. First, we’ll know what is down there. At present, Mars and the moon have been mapped at higher resolution than the ocean. Policymakers can use these data to inform future economic decision making for development of the global ‘Blue Economy’ – an emerging concept that encourages better stewardship of our ocean or ‘blue’ resources. Resource managers and scientists can utilise informed ocean circulation patterns data, which rely on the shape of the seabed, to predict weather and climate. Ocean and coastal modelling will assist with hazard awareness, resource management and protection. Data will enhance knowledge of how ecosystems interact and help calculate the locations of such features as deep-water corals, ocean rifts or hydrothermal vents. Finally, we’ll have an accurate and comprehensive bathymetric model, a key outcome of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030, and a major step forward in our quest to comprehend our ocean. The Australian National Maritime Museum is committed to supporting the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030 through programming, exhibitions and events over the next 10 years. This article is part of an ongoing series on key Decade initiatives. Content on crowd-sourced bathymetry data provided by Dr Robin Beaman of James Cook University and used with sincere appreciation and thanks. Further reading United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030: en.unesco.org/ocean-decade United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development: sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 AusSeabed Marine Data Portal: marine.ga.gov.au RV Investigator blog: blog.csiro.au/tag/rv-investigator/ Lucy Bellwood’s cartoons from her three-week stint as Artist in Residence aboard RV Falkor: medium.com/@lubellwoo/mappin-the-floor-81a3b0472ca4 Australian National Maritime Museum 57
Collections Monga Khan AUSSIE poster by Peter Drew, 2020. ANMM Collection, reproduced courtesy the artist
The art of making New immigration acquisitions
There are more than 10,000 objects in the museum’s collection relating to Australia’s rich immigration history. But the museum is also committed to contemporary collecting about immigration. Curator Kim Tao discusses three new acquisitions that explore the art of making through activism and sustainable socially engaged design.
AFFIXED TO A PILLAR beneath the Western Distributor freeway in the Sydney suburb of Pyrmont, just down the road from the museum, is a striking poster featuring the Indian-born hawker Monga Khan. It’s a poster I stare at every afternoon on the way home, while waiting for the traffic lights to change. Monga Khan is dressed in a suit and turban and gazes, rather defiantly, into the distance in his profile portrait, which has been superimposed with the word ‘AUSSIE’ by Adelaide artist Peter Drew. Since 2013, Peter Drew (born 1983) has been making his mark by installing hand-screenprinted posters in public spaces to raise awareness of contemporary issues such as immigration and Australian identity. His ‘Stop the boats’ and ‘Real Australians say welcome’ poster campaigns were a direct comment on the treatment of asylum seekers, but it is his iconic AUSSIE series that has captured the public imagination and provoked conversations about what epitomises a ‘real Australian’. To create the series, Drew mined the vast archive of Certificates of Exemption from the Dictation Test (CEDT) at the National Archives of Australia, which attests to the administration of the White Australia policy during the first half of the 20th century. After Federation in 1901, the new Commonwealth government passed three pieces of legislation – the Immigration Restriction Act, Pacific Island Labourers Act and Post and Telegraph Act – together known as the White Australia policy. The central tenet was a dictation test that required non-European immigrants to write out a passage of 50 words in any European language (and later, any prescribed language), as dictated by the immigration officer. Since the choice of language was at the discretion of the officer, undesirable immigrants – namely those from Asia and the Pacific Islands – were destined to fail the test. They could then be declared prohibited immigrants and deported. 58 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Non-European residents of Australia wishing to travel overseas temporarily could apply for a CEDT to re-enter the country without needing to sit the dictation test. These certificates of exemption, comprising biographical details and photographs, constitute an extraordinary body of records documenting the movements of thousands of Sikh hawkers, Chinese traders and Afghan cameleers, who were granted special permission to leave and re-enter Australia as their labour was regarded as essential to the nation’s growing economy. They are the faces of the White Australia policy. Monga Khan, born in India in 1870, was one such exemption. He immigrated to Victoria in 1895 and worked as a hawker around Melbourne, Ballarat, Beaufort and Ararat, as evidenced on his application for a CEDT in 1916. Gladys Sym Choon was another. She was the owner of the China Gift Store in Adelaide’s Rundle Street, which sold exotic oriental goods such as embroidery, lace, lingerie and ornamental china sourced during her regular visits to China and Hong Kong. Although Gladys was born in Adelaide in 1905, and her father was born in the British colony of Hong Kong, she was still required to apply for a CEDT to re-enter Australia in the 1920s. Drew uses the visually arresting medium of poster art to humanise these marginalised histories and complicate the traditional vision of national identity that dominates both media discourse and Australian folklore. His ‘AUSSIE’ posters restore agency to figures such as Monga Khan and Gladys Sym Choon as survivors of the White Australia policy. As part of the National Maritime Collection, they are an evocative example of poster art as protest art, and the emerging relationship between artists and activists responding to Australia’s changing immigration policies.
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01 Gladys Sym Choon AUSSIE poster by Peter Drew, 2020. ANMM Collection, reproduced courtesy the artist 02 mimycri backpack made from a rubber refugee boat collected on the Greek island of Chios, 2015–17. ANMM Collection. 03 ‘Fairfield’ print silk t-shirt from The Social Outfit’s Kinetic Bloom collection, 2019. ANMM Collection, reproduced courtesy The Social Outfit. Model Mia Honigstock; photographer Levon Baird; styling Peter Simon Phillips; hair and makeup Gavin Anesbury Beauty
Artist Peter Drew has installed handscreenprinted posters in public spaces to raise awareness of contemporary issues such as immigration and Australian identity
From boats to bags
Another recent acquisition, the mimycri rubber backpack, situates the themes of immigration and refugee policy and contemporary socially engaged design in a broader global context. The body of the black and red backpack is constructed from a 100 per cent rubber refugee boat collected on the Greek island of Chios, while the straps are made from car seatbelts. A close look at the material reveals the scars and scratches that bear witness to a compelling story of courage and hope. The backpack was produced by mimycri, a not-for-profit German organisation that fosters collaboration between designers and refugees to upcycle the scraps of history into handcrafted products embedded with meaning. The idea for mimycri was born in Chios, where the organisation’s Berlin-based co-founders Vera Günther and Nora Azzaoui volunteered during the refugee crisis of 2015–16, which saw more than one million people cross the Mediterranean into Europe, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Günther and Azzaoui’s first-hand experience of this humanitarian crisis motivated them to turn a global challenge into an opportunity to change public perceptions about refugees. As they say:
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We are convinced that social and economic participation are key to successful integration. Therefore we work in a diverse team, including newcomers from all around the globe. We also integrate meaningful products into our society and thereby create innovative ways to engage with the topic of migration. For the museum, luggage, trunks, suitcases and bags have always been defining symbols of the migrant experience. But the concept of a backpack stitched from a broken refugee boat adds a more complex layer to this universal narrative of migration, encompassing notions of baggage – both physical and emotional – carried by migrants and refugees. It also allows the museum to explore the subject of environmental sustainability and the way in which mimycri is helping to reduce waste by reclaiming and repurposing discarded material. The mimycri backpack represents a positive partnership between socially engaged designers and refugees, providing a personal perspective on the global refugee crisis and the power of making history tangible by working together.
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Sustainability and social fabric
The Social Outfit is the antithesis of fast fashion. All of their garments are ethically produced in small quantities and sewn onsite in a studio in Newtown, in Sydney’s inner west. The sewing technicians come from a range of cultural backgrounds, including Burmese, Afghan, Iranian and Syrian. For many, it is their first job in Australia. The majority of The Social Outfit’s products are made of deadstock fabric sourced from brands such as Seafolly, Cue, Ginger & Smart, Alice McCall and Carla Zampatti. This practice is key to ensuring a more sustainable and circular economy that prevents excess fabric from ending up in landfill.
This ethos is also embodied in a collection of sealife-print garments recently acquired from The Social Outfit, a Sydney-based ethical trading social enterprise that offers training and work in the fashion industry for those from newly arrived refugee and immigrant backgrounds. Launched in 2014, The Social Outfit aims to empower women and young people to develop skills in clothing production, retail, design and marketing, and to discover employment pathways, while also facilitating their settlement in Sydney through a sense of belonging and purpose. It’s a valid model, considering that many refugees and immigrants arrive in Australia with rich textile traditions, using their skills to make a living as seamstresses, pieceworkers or factory labourers. In recent years, mounting concerns about exploitation, fair wages and safe working conditions have placed a greater focus on ethical production methods. This matter gained notoriety in 2013, when more than 1,100 people died in the collapse of the Dhaka garment factory in Bangladesh, highlighting the detrimental impacts of the fast fashion industry on both producers and the environment.
Every year, The Social Outfit runs a digital print project to engage with young people from new refugee and immigrant communities in western Sydney. In 2019, they collaborated with 12 students from Fairfield High School Intensive English Centre to create artworks in painting, drawing, weaving and collage. The students’ work was then digitised to produce the sealifethemed ‘Fairfield’ print, which features fish, jellyfish and squid among a vivid backdrop of foliage and blossoms. The pattern appears throughout the Kinetic Bloom collection of women’s tops, dresses and scarves, locally printed on silk using low-impact water-based dyes. Now part of the National Maritime Collection, these eclectic pieces of social fabric reflect the intersection of maritime imagery and migrant enterprise, telling powerful human stories about new arrivals who have made Australia their home. Australian National Maritime Museum 61
Australian Register of Historic Vessels
PV Richmond served for almost five decades, becoming the last pilot vessel to be stationed at Ballina on the Richmond River
The river rolls on by PV Richmond, a duck punt and Duck Soup
The Australian Register of Historic Vessels continues to nominate interesting craft from around Australia and reveal their stories and significance to the country’s maritime heritage. In his last regular article before retiring, Curator of Historic Vessels David Payne profiles four work and leisure craft from the Clarence and Richmond rivers of New South Wales.
FOUR OF THE NEWEST LISTINGS on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels (ARHV) come from the same region in northern New South Wales. The Clarence and Richmond rivers are substantial waterways, and on the lower reaches they are navigable for miles. Both have classic bar crossings at their mouth. Their boats have a lot to say about life on the rivers, and the ARHV is keen to share their tales. In November 2019, I was there on a Maritime Museums of Australia Support Scheme (MMAPSS) grant to assist the Lawrence Historical Society near Maclean and the Ballina Naval and Maritime Museum with two vessel management plans (VMPs). At Lawrence, I was inspecting the flood boat May Queen, already listed on the ARHV, while in Ballina it was their pilot boat, PV Richmond. I came away with the VMP documents well in hand, plus a bonus – four more craft to consider for the register, all duly nominated in May 2020 along with eight other vessels. 62 Signals 132 Spring 2020
PV Richmond served the Richmond River for nearly 50 years and is now on display at the Ballina Naval and Maritime Museum. Image courtesy Ballina Naval and Maritime Museum
PV Richmond was an ideal vessel to be listed. Thanks to a life dedicated to serving the Richmond River as a pilot vessel, it has strong regional heritage significance, which was celebrated by its donation to the public and display at the local museum. It was a pleasure to be there in person to take the nomination, view the boat first hand and find out about its story. PV Richmond served for almost five decades, from 1932 until 1981, becoming the last pilot vessel to be stationed at Ballina on the Richmond River. The 10.4-metre craft was built by W Holmes of McMahons Point, Sydney, from professionally drawn plans by Robert Westhorpe, Chief Shipwright’s Surveyor of the New South Wales Government’s Navigation Department, in 1931. It is an English lifeboat style of hull. A key feature was its self-righting capacity, due to a tonne of lead as ballast on the keel, and the ability to close all compartments, including the central and open helm station, which had fold-down screens that secured the otherwise open well. It was called ‘Motor Boat for Bar Harbours’ on the plans drawn by Westhorpe, and that sounds gentle enough, but the many bar crossings up and down the coast are unsafe in a gale, treacherous in rough conditions, and still a challenge in good weather. It was not an easy life at all; the regular shipping in that period consistently required a safe passage, and there was no time off for Richmond. For Richmond, life began as it continued, with the headlines for the delivery voyage in May 1932 noting, ‘Pilot boat buffeted on Sydney–Ballina trip’:
After a severe buffeting by a heavy sea, the waves breaking over the decks, and being driven to shelter at Byron Bay by a gale, the 36ft motor lifeboat Richmond arrived from Sydney at 3.45 pm to-day with Captain Lyttle (pilot of Ballina) and Mr Jack Busch (boat-man). In PV Richmond’s first year in Ballina, 130 ships and boats visited the port. During its service the vessel was engaged with pilotage service duties, sounding the bar to check its depth and the location of the channel, and helping in marine rescue operations. The vessel served until its retirement on 11 December 1981 and was then donated by the department to the people of Ballina Shire at a ceremony on 23 March 1982. Lawrence, on the Clarence River, is inland from the entrance at Yamba and Iluka. It was a day of surprises there, starting with their wonderful museum based in the old ABC radio building, still with its tall radio aerial. Sharing the shed on the site with May Queen, which was being readied for the next stage of its restoration, were two small locally built craft – a duck punt and a corrugatediron canoe. They typified the small, perhaps insignificant little vessels that were once numerous, and which help us to interpret times long gone and past practices of the river and its people. The canoe was built in the 1930s by the Green family from Lower South Gate, opposite Woodford Island on the Clarence River, as a knockabout boat for the kids. It is an excellent original example of a typical sheet-metal canoe built from available materials without any plans, a type that was prolific around the country in the first half of the 20th century.
The canoe is about 2.75 metres long but only some 50 centimetres wide. The stem is built in the typical folded fashion, in which the ends of the rectangular sheet of light-gauge corrugated iron (usually used for tanks and panelling) are brought together with a crease in the middle. In this case, they are formed around a wooden stem frame of 2-inch by 1-inch (5 centimetre x 2.5 centimetre) timber, then riveted and filled with tar as a caulking compound. The stern is a sheet-metal transom formed around a wooden panel with a hand hold, and the main hull has been pushed into a rounded bottom and flat side cross-section. Rex Green was its maker and his son, Albert Edward Green, used the canoe. Its narrow width suited young children, and they probably paddled it around on local dams or lakes, and maybe in the more sheltered parts of the Clarence River too. It was given to the Lawrence Historical Society by Gwen Green. The wooden duck punt that now sits beside it was probably built in the late 1940s or early 1950s. In original condition, this plywood canoe-style hull is a rare example of a type that was once common in the period when duck shooting and associated hunting and fishing pursuits were popular along rivers and other waterways. The builder of this 2.4-metre punt is unknown. Its plywood construction, however, places it as probably built soon after World War II, when plywood became more readily available and replaced the typical planked construction such a craft would have had in the 1930s. The flat bottom and reasonable width would have provided a good stable platform for the hunter. Australian National Maritime Museum 63
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Australian Register of Historic Vessels Although well worn in patches, it still has the green paint used to camouflage it among the reeds and grasses of swamps. A single-blade paddle is also part of the canoe’s display.
Duck Soup is colloquially known as ‘Ted Want’s boat’, reflecting the esteem in which its owner was held by the local community
The May Queen has a great story too, and Bill Gleeson, the shipwright who will guide its restoration, was on hand the day I was there. He arrived by boat – not just any boat, though; one that belongs to the river and one of its past characters. This was Duck Soup, built by the late Yamba man Ted Want in 1935. The boat is colloquially known as ‘Ted Want’s boat’, reflecting the esteem in which its owner was held by the local community. The Clarence River was his home and workplace – he was a professional fisherman from the age of 15 and was still fishing in 1996, 66 years later, at 81 years of age. The design of the launch came from one published in the US Rudder magazine, which Ted adapted to suit his net fishing on the river. Built on the shores of Oyster Channel, it was one of a small number of craft he built for himself over the years as a self-taught tradesman. Ted Want came from a family of five children, and his uncle passed on some boatbuilding skills. As well as using his launch for fishing, Ted lived in it for a while when he was building a new house and used it to push barges with steel frames for the new Oyster Channel Bridge. Local reporter Dick Richards interviewed Ted in 1996: ‘In the very early days, it was a case of rowing around the river to find the fish, but in later years I had outboard motors and eventually a small diesel-power launch,’ Ted said.
He served as a sapper during World War II: When the boats in the area were being confiscated because of the scare of an invasion, I had a row with the inspector who was in charge of the taking of the boats. I kept my boat, but I was called up a short while later and I’m sure it was the inspector who brought this about. Duck Soup remains with the flow of the Clarence, running up and down the lower reaches as it always has. It is a reminder of Ted Want, a true character of the river, and of a style of vessel that was common at a time when fishing was both a profession and a lifestyle. The name Duck Soup was bestowed on it by Bill, as Ted Want always had a pot on hand if you ever dropped by.
This online, national heritage project, devised and coordinated by the Australian National Maritime Museum in association with Sydney Heritage Fleet, reaches across Australia to collect stories about the nation’s existing historic vessels and their designers and builders. Search the complete Australian Register of Historic Vessels at sea.museum/arhv Name
Type
Builder
Date
Number
01
Monty
Whaler
RAN Queensland
1953
HV000760
02
Steve Irwin
Ocean activists’ vessel
Hall, Russell & Co (Scotland)
1975
HV000789
03
Serifa
Yacht
Jack Savage
1961
HV000790
04
MB 172
Naval motor launch
RAN Naval Dockyard Garden Island
1937
HV000791
05
Amethyst AWB 420
Naval motor launch
Unknown
1943
HV000792
06
Anitra V
Yacht
Lars Halvorsen Sons
1956
HV000793
07
Duck Soup
Motor launch
Ted Want
1935
HV000794
08
Corrugated-iron canoe
Child’s canoe
Rex Green family
c 1930s
HV000795
09
Duck punt
Canoe
Unknown
c late 1940s HV000796
10
PV Richmond
Pilot vessel
W Holmes Boatbuilders
1932
HV000797
11
Stephen Davies
Mission launch
N R Wright and Sons
1950
HV000798
12
Don Fairbrother canoe
Canoe
Don Fairbrother
c 1960s
HV000799
Australian National Maritime Museum 65
On 27 August 1939, against a backdrop of escalating Nazi persecution, Henry said goodbye to his parents at Charlottenburg station in west Berlin
66 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Tales from the Welcome Wall
Henry Lippmann (second from left) on board the Dutch ferry Queen Emma, crossing from the Hook of Holland to Harwich, England, 1939. ANMM Collection ANMS0219[004], gift from Henry Lippmann
Behind barbed wire Remembering the Dunera boys
The late Henry Lippmann oam had a long association with this museum, as the driving force behind the Dunera boys’ annual reunions and as founding editor of the Dunera News. Today his legacy is documented across the museum, in our collections and archives and on the Welcome Wall. Curator Kim Tao relates his story on the 80th anniversary of the infamous voyage of HMT Dunera.
HEINZ (HENRY) LIPPMANN (1921–2004) was one of 100 Jewish schoolboys evacuated from Germany to England just days before the outbreak of World War II. The eldest of two sons born to Leo and Ruth Lippmann, 17-year-old Henry was studying electrical engineering at a Berlin technical school operated by the Jewish Organisation for Rehabilitation and Training (ORT). On 27 August 1939, against a backdrop of escalating Nazi persecution, Henry said goodbye to his parents at Charlottenburg station in west Berlin. They would never meet again.
On 10 July 1940, Henry was among 2,542 internees who embarked from Liverpool on the 12,615-ton Hired Military Transport (HMT) Dunera. Although most of the passengers were German or Austrian Jewish refugees, they were treated as prisoners. Also on board were nearly 500 German and Italian prisoners of war or Nazi sympathisers, some of whom were survivors from the transport ship Arandora Star, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 2 July, just hours after departing Liverpool.
In England, Henry continued his studies at an ORT school in the northern city of Leeds, while the war unfolded in Europe. In June 1940, as France fell to Nazi Germany and Allied soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk, the British government ordered the internment of all male ‘enemy aliens’ (unnaturalised people born in enemy countries) aged between 16 and 60. This included both long-term residents of Britain as well as more recent refugees fleeing Nazi oppression, all of whom were regarded as potential spies or Nazi sympathisers. The British government also sought to deport its enemy aliens overseas, to curtail their threat to the war effort and the nation’s security.
HMT Dunera became known as the ‘hell ship’. Before the ship had even left port, the internees were subjected to brutal treatment and humiliation by their poorly trained British military guards. Henry recalled being pushed around by the guards, who stole the internees’ precious possessions and dumped their luggage overboard. Two days into the nightmare voyage, Dunera sustained minor damage after it was struck by a German torpedo in the Irish Sea.
Henry and around 30 of his ORT classmates were classified as enemy aliens and interned, even though they had lost their German nationality and their sympathies were decidedly on the side of the Allies who had saved their lives. The internees were sent firstly to a small internment camp located in York, in England’s north-east. They were then transferred west to another camp on the Isle of Man, where they spent a few days before being taken to the port of Liverpool to be shipped to Canada.
Dunera was dangerously overcrowded and the internees were kept in quarters below deck, with limited access to fresh air or daylight. Conditions were unhygienic, with the putrid stench of vomit, urine and unwashed bodies. The internees suffered from poor rations, inadequate medical care and regular beatings from the British guards. Henry remembered that they were restricted to about 10 minutes of exercise per day, supervised by armed guards carrying bayonets. On one occasion, the guards forced the internees to run over broken glass in bare feet. Australian National Maritime Museum 67
Tales from the Welcome Wall Henry Lippmann (centre, with hand on chin) during a lesson at the Jewish ORT school in Berlin, Germany, c 1939. ANMM Collection ANMS0219[007], gift from Henry Lippmann
A Welcome Wall inscription is a great gift idea to honour your family’s journey to Australia. For more information go to sea.museum/welcomewall or call Marisa Chilcott on 02 298 3619
68 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Although most of Dunera’s passengers were German or Austrian Jewish refugees, they were treated as prisoners
Tales from the Welcome Wall The internees fostered a lively intellectual and cultural life through lectures, newspapers and a music and theatre group. One of their shows was titled Hay Days are Happy Days, in reference to an ironic song written about the austere conditions and extreme heat in Hay. In May 1941, the internees were transferred to the more temperate climate of Tatura in northern Victoria, following a visit by Major Julian Layton of the British Home Office to arrange for their repatriation. Henry recalled that Dunera changed course frequently, which made it difficult to determine if they were tracking north, south, east or west. As the weather became increasingly warmer, and the ship took on provisions on the Gold Coast in West Africa, it was clear that they were not headed for Canada. One of Henry’s most vivid memories was berthing in Cape Town, South Africa, where everyone received an ice-cold Granny Smith apple. Henry savoured the taste of the fruit; many years later he still regarded it as the best apple he had ever eaten in his life. As Dunera continued its passage across the Indian Ocean, it was apparent to Henry and his fellow internees that they were bound for Australia. On 27 August 1940, the ship docked in Fremantle, Western Australia, where the internees were fingerprinted and issued with identification cards. When Henry went to sign his card, he was surprised to be handed the German-made Montblanc fountain pen that was stolen from him by a guard at the start of the voyage. Sadly he was unable to retrieve the pen, a gift for his bar mitzvah when he turned 13. Dunera proceeded to Port Melbourne, where around 500 internees disembarked and were taken to the Tatura camp in the Goulburn Valley region of Victoria. After Dunera departed Melbourne, Henry was directed to a small enclosure on deck, behind barbed wire, from where he caught his first glimpse of Sydney Harbour. On 6 September 1940, Dunera docked at Wharf 21 Pyrmont following a gruelling 58-day journey from Liverpool. When Australian medical army officer Alan Frost boarded the ship and witnessed the appalling conditions, he wrote a damning report that sparked vigorous debate in Australia and Britain. The British government later expressed its regret over the Dunera incident and laid charges against a number of the ship’s guards, including the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel William Scott. After their arrival in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, the remaining 1,984 Dunera internees travelled by train to the Riverina town of Hay, in southwestern New South Wales. During the 19-hour journey, Henry remembered seeing kangaroos and bushfires, and being greeted by kind ladies who offered sandwiches and cups of tea as they passed through Mittagong and Goulburn. In Hay, the internees were assigned to two of the town’s three 1,000-man camps, which were surrounded by triple barbed wire. The camps had 36 wooden huts that could each accommodate 28 men. The Hay camp quickly developed into a model of organised society, with internees governing their own affairs through a parliament comprising elected hut leaders. Every man had a job to do; Henry was the boiler man, responsible for boiling the hot water used for showers and dishwashing.
After the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Major Layton persuaded the Australian government to permit internees to join an employment company of the Australian Military Forces to contribute to the war effort. Around 900 Dunera boys, including Henry, chose to remain in Australia. In January 1942, Henry was released from the Tatura camp and he enlisted in the 8th Australian Employment Company to work in ordnance and supply. He was discharged in September 1946 and three months later became a naturalised British subject.1 Now 24 years old, Henry was eager to begin a new life free from persecution, internment and military service. He returned to Sydney and found a job as a travelling sales agent with John Lewinnek, a pre-war German refugee who worked in the clothing trade. In 1952 Henry married dressmaker Julie Wakil. The couple had two sons, Michael and Ed, and started their own clothing manufacturing business, Florida Fashions. In the 2004 Queen’s Birthday honours Henry was awarded the OAM for his contribution to Australia through his Dunera activities. When he registered for the 1999 launch of the Welcome Wall, Henry said that he never regretted being deported from England, having played his part as a proud citizen of Australia. Despite his wrongful internment as an enemy alien and his subsequent mistreatment on board Dunera, he always maintained his faith in British democracy and justice. While British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill described the Dunera scandal as ‘a deplorable and regrettable mistake’, Henry noted that Britain’s mistakes could never be compared to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps. For years, Henry believed that his parents and younger brother Kurt had died in the Warsaw Ghetto; only in the 1980s did he discover their ultimate fate at the Trawniki concentration camp in Poland. In an interview with museum curator Helen Trepa in 1995, Henry Lippmann said: There is tremendous pressure from not knowing, when actually you are alone and homesick. You left your place, you left your country, you left your people and you’re uncertain what happened to them. All that I had was my friends. And we [Dunera] boys, we stuck together, till now. That created a bond of very strong friendship, cause I’ve been together with these boys from Berlin till today. And we still stick together … if you keep on looking at the sad side, if you look only at documents, it’s very miserable. But if you look at what you can really do and how you can pull yourself out of misery, even at the worst possible moments, that is really something you can learn from. Something good can come out of it. 1 Australians held the status of British subjects until the creation of Australian citizenship through the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948. Australian National Maritime Museum 69
Currents
The museum mourns a generous supporter and friend Vale Rear Admiral Andrew Robertson AO DSC RN (rtd) 1925–2020
RADM ANDREW ROBERTSON, who died in July, had a long and distinguished career in the Royal Australian Navy. He joined the RAN in 1939, just before World War II began, and even as a cadet excelled in every aspect of training. He saw active service in World War II and afterwards was stationed in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. In the Korean War, Andrew Robertson was a gunnery officer aboard HMAS Anzac, and for his service was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He later held numerous senior appointments and initiated the establishment of the Australian Naval Aviation Museum, now the Fleet Air Arm Museum. He was appointed Officer in the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 1980 for service to the Royal Australian Navy and the defence force, and retired from the RAN in early 1982 after 43 years of service. RADM Andrew Robertson had profound input into the establishment and shaping of this museum. He was Deputy Convenor of the Advisory Committee for the Australian National Maritime Museum in 1985 and Deputy Chairman of the Interim Council from 1985–88. He drafted a proposed charter and influenced all aspects of the museum’s physical and museological planning. As well as being a generous donor, he remained a strong supporter. RADM Robertson was awarded an Honorary Life Membership of the museum in 1991 and appointed as the museum’s first Honorary Fellow (the museum’s highest level of recognition) in 2016. Kevin Sumption, Director and CEO, stated in the recommendation for this honour, ‘His impact on the founding of the museum was profound and is enduring.
70 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Over and above RADM Robertson’s contribution to the museum, he is a person of the highest distinction and the museum would be well served by association with him. His achievements in his naval career and his honorary work for the Navy League of Australia and the HMAS Sydney Association are strongly aligned with the mission of the Australian National Maritime Museum.’ Mr Sumption states, ‘The Council and staff of the museum are saddened by the loss of our great friend RADM Robertson. He was one of our earliest champions and we bear daily witness to his legacy in the work we do here. The Windjammers Sailors statue, in the museum’s forecourt, was donated by RADM Robertson and is much loved by our visitors. Andrew and I would have lunch regularly at the museum to discuss its future. Andrew’s passion and enthusiasm were electrifying and his greatest interest was always in ensuring that the next generation was better informed about our nation’s unique maritime history. Personally, Andrew was a wonderful inspiration to me. I feel blessed to have been considered a friend and will greatly miss his warmth, wit and incredible intellect. Our deepest condolences go to his family.’ RADM Robertson is survived by his wife Patricia (Pat) and children Angus, Jane, Julia and Bruce. Steve Riethoff
Currents
RADM Andrew Robertson had profound input into the establishment and shaping of this museum 01 Rear Admiral Andrew Robertson AO DSC RAN Rtd was co-patron of HMAS Sydney. He is pictured at the HMAS Sydney I commemorative 100-year memorial in Sydney, 16 June 2013. Image ABIS Nicolas Gonzalez/RAN 02 RADM Andrew Robertson provided the funds for the museum’s statue Windjammer Sailors to be realised. He is pictured at its official unveiling on 28 April 2016. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM
01
02
Australian National Maritime Museum 71
Currents
From Istria to Australia Vale Gina Sinozich 1930–2020
Croatian refugee artist Gina Sinozich with her painting Our Story, 2005. Image Elizabeth Maloney/ ANMM
Like so many refugees after World War II, Gina left her homeland for a country she knew little about
Behind them is Gina’s beloved Istria; before them is an uncertain future in Australia. It’s an eloquent metaphor for all those who had the courage to set sail from the known to the unknown. AS REFUGEE WEEK DREW TO A CLOSE in June, the museum was saddened to receive news of the passing of a dear friend and supporter, Croatian refugee artist Gina Sinozich. The museum extends its deepest condolences to Gina’s family – her four children, six grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren. She was 90 years old. Like so many refugees after World War II, Gina left her homeland for a country she knew little about. Gina and her husband, Eugen, and their two young children, Michael and Jenny, arrived in Australia from Istria, Croatia (in the former communist Yugoslavia), after seeking refuge in neighbouring Italy. In 1957 the family sailed from Genoa to Melbourne on the Lloyd Triestino liner SS Neptunia. They settled in Sydney, where they established a thriving market garden. 72 Signals 132 Spring 2020
In 2000, 70-year-old Gina turned to painting after Eugen was diagnosed with dementia and she recognised the urgent need to record her memories of their life together. Gina’s first painting was on a discarded council sign that she found on the side of the road. This modest beginning inspired a passionate and prolific output that now sees her work represented in major collecting institutions across Australia, New Zealand and Croatia. This includes a colourful series of 14 paintings commissioned by the museum in 2003, illustrating Gina’s journey from Istria to Australia. In one painting, the heartfelt Our Story (pictured), Gina depicts herself and her family at the bow of Neptunia. They are balanced over the edge of a waterfall, suspended at the point of no return.
Over a period of 20 years, with no formal training, Gina developed her own unique style – instinctive, honest and intensely personal. Evoking the strong tradition of naïve art in her homeland, her work gives compelling tangible form to firstgeneration narratives of migration, memory and displacement. When we spoke, Gina often referred to her work as ‘recycled memory’, as painting from memory the vivid pictures in her mind. Gina painted until the very end. Perhaps she saved her most poignant work, and words, for last. One of her final paintings is powerful in its simplicity. A single daisy, a white dove and three little words: ‘Forget me not’. Vale Gina Sinozich. Kim Tao Curator, post-Federation immigration
Currents
A distinguished career Vale Vice Admiral Ian MacDougall AC AFSM 1938–2020
VICE ADMIRAL IAN DONALD GEORGE MACDOUGALL, who died in Tasmania in July, was a distinguished naval officer who was at the forefront of Australia’s submarine fleet. He had career links with both HMAS Vampire and HMAS Onslow. MacDougall was born in Sydney on 23 February 1938 and joined the Royal Australian Naval College as a 15-year old cadet midshipman in January 1954. He graduated the following year, and in 1956 and 1957 he undertook professional training and study at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, where he was awarded the Queen’s Telescope for leadership. From 1958 to 1963 he served as a supply officer in several ships and establishments, including HMA Ships Anzac (II), Albatross, Swan (II), Vampire (II) and Melbourne (II). In 1960 he was promoted Lieutenant and subsequently, in 1963, transferred to the Submarine Arm as a Seaman Officer. He was promoted Lieutenant Commander in 1968 and appointed as Executive Officer of HMAS Oxley, then under construction in Scotland. From 1969 to 1971 he commanded HMS Otter while on exchange with the Royal Navy before returning to Australia and commanding HMAS Onslow from 1971 to 1973. The submarine conducted a Southeast Asian deployment during this time as part of the ANZUK Force based in Singapore. MacDougall was promoted Commander in 1973 and the following year was appointed Officer in Charge of the Submarine Command Team Trainer, based at HMAS Watson, where he remained until 1976. For 18 months during 1977 and 1978 he served in Canberra as Deputy Director of Naval Officers’ Postings.
In 1978 and 1979 he was Executive Officer and briefly Commanding Officer of the guided missile destroyer HMAS Hobart (II). He was promoted Captain in 1979, then from 1980 to 1982 MacDougall commanded the fleet replenishment ship HMAS Supply (I). A major activity for the ship was an Indian Ocean deployment in response to the Soviet Union’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. From 1982 to 1984 he served in Canberra as Director of Submarine Policy, during which time he was involved with the initial policy development for the Collins Class Submarine Project. In 1985 MacDougall commanded the Australian Submarine Squadron based at HMAS Platypus at Neutral Bay, Sydney. MacDougall was promoted Commodore in 1986 and appointed Director General Joint Operations and Plans for the Australian Defence Force. In early 1988 he conducted a review of the roles and functions of the Naval Support Command as part of the RAN’s devolution program. He was promoted Rear Admiral in January 1989 and appointed as Maritime Commander Australia. In July 1990 he took up the position of Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.
Vice Admiral Ian MacDougall. Image courtesy the MacDougall family
He is a graduate of the US Naval War College (1980). He was appointed an Officer in the Military Division of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Australia Day Honours List in 1991. Vice Admiral MacDougall was appointed Chief of Naval Staff on 8 March 1991. Vice Admiral Ian MacDougall was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 1993 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, before retiring from the Royal Australian Navy in March 1994. He died on 1 July 2020 in Tasmania, at the age of 82. He is survived by sons Hamish and Fergus and stepsons Gideon and Daniel.
Steve Riethoff This is an edited version of the Australian Navy’s biography, which can be found at navy.gov.au/biography/vice-admiral-iandonald-george-macdougall Australian National Maritime Museum 73
Acknowledgments 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 John Mullen AM Peter Dexter AM Ambassadors Christine Sadler David and Jennie Sutherland Major Donors – SY Ena Conservation Fund David and Jennie Sutherland Foundation
Honorary Life Members Yvonne Abadee Dr Kathy Abbass Robert Albert AO RFD RD Bob Allan Vivian Balmer Vice Admiral Tim Barrett AO CSC Maria Bentley Mark Bethwaite AM Paul Binsted Marcus Blackmore AM David Blackley John Blanchfield Alexander Books Ian Bowie Ron Brown OAM Paul Bruce Anthony Buckley Richard Bunting Capt Richard Burgess AM Kevin Byrne Sue Calwell RADM David Campbell AM Marion Carter Robert Clifford AO Helen Clift Hon Peter Collins AM QC John Coombs Kay Cottee AO Helen Coulson OAM Vice Admiral Russell Crane AO CSM John Cunneen Laurie Dilks Anthony Duignan Leonard Ely Dr Nigel Erskine John Farrell Kevin Fewster AM Bernard Flack Daina Fletcher Sally Fletcher Teresia Fors Derek Freeman CDR Geoff Geraghty AM Anthony Gibbs
Brian Gibson am RADM Stephen Gilmore AM CSC RAN Paul Gorrick Lee Graham Macklan Gridley Sir James Hardy KBE OBE RADM Simon Harrington AM Christopher Harry Gaye Hart AM Peter Harvie Janita Hercus Philip Hercus Robyn Holt William Hopkins Julia Horne RADM Tony Hunt AO Marilyn Jenner John Jeremy AM Vice Admiral Peter Jones AO DSC Michael Kailis Hon Dr Tricia Kavanagh John Keelty Helen Kenny Kris Klugman OAM Jean Lane Judy Lee David Leigh Keith Leleu OAM Andrew Lishmund James Litten Hugo Llorens Tim Lloyd Ian Mackinder Stuart Mayer Jack McBurney Bruce McDonald AM Lyn McHale Ronald McJannett Ron Miller Arthur Moss Patrick Moss Rob Mundle OAM Alwyn Murray Martin Nakata David O’Connor
Congratulations to Belinda Sheary, who won the Signals 131 caption competition with this entry: ‘Smokin’ hot in me new Jimmy Choos!’ 74 Signals 132 Spring 2020
Gary Paquet Prof John Penrose AM Neville Perry Hon Justice Anthe Philippides Peter Pigott AM Len Price Eda Ritchie AM John Rothwell AO Kay Saunders AM Kevin Scarce AC CSC RAN David Scott-Smith Sergio Sergi Mervyn Sheehan Ann Sherry AO Shane Simpson AM Peter John Sinclair AM CSC Peter R Sinclair AC KStJ (RADM) John Singleton AM Brian Skingsley Eva Skira Bruce Stannard AM J J Stephens OAM Michael Stevens Neville Stevens AO Frank Talbot AM Mitchell Turner Adam Watson Jeanette Wheildon Hon Margaret White ao Mary-Louise Williams AM Nerolie Withnall Cecilia Woolford (nee Caffrey) Honorary Research Associates Lindsey Shaw Jeffrey Mellefont Paul Hundley Rear Admiral Peter Briggs Dr Ian MacLeod Dr Nigel Erskine David Payne
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HM Bark Endeavour: updated edition
Face masks – Aboriginal design
Ray Parkin’s acclaimed and multi-awardwinning study of James Cook’s Endeavour is a unique account of Cook’s voyage up the east coast of Australia in 1770. $100 / Members $90
100% cotton face masks with a filter pocket on the inside, adjustable nose wire for a close fit and elastic ear loops. $18.95 / Members $17.05
3D model kit – HMB Endeavour
Children love these adorable printed face masks! Made from washable cotton fabric. They cover from nose to chin for a secure and comfortable fit. $5.00 / Members $4.50
Ahoy! This delightful miniature 3D model kit of James Cook’s HMB Endeavour has been created exclusively for the Australian National Maritime Museum. $19.95 / Members $17.95
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Desert Peach, Lilly Pilly & Desert Lime Hand Cream Gift Set Trio of Australian-made hand creams featuring Aboriginal artworks from Ampilatwaja in Central Australia. Made with nourishing goat’s milk, shea butter, argan oil, vitamin C and vitamin E. $39.95 / Members $35.95
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Plush sloth Ultra-realistic design of a three-toed sloth found in the rainforests of South America. Added bonus – its filling is made from 100% recycled water bottles. $29.95 / Members $26.95
Signals ISSN 1033-4688 Editor Janine Flew Assistant editor Laura Signorelli Staff photographer Andrew Frolows Design & production Austen Kaupe Printed in Australia by Pegasus Print Group Material from Signals may be reproduced, but only with the editor’s permission. Editorial and advertising enquiries signals@sea.museum – deadline midJanuary, April, July, October for issues March, June, September, December Signals is online Search all issues at sea.museum/signals Signals back issues Back issues $4 each or 10 for $30 Extra copies of current issue $4.95 Call The Store 02 9298 3698 Australian National Maritime Museum Regular opening hours 9.30 am to 5 pm (6 pm in January) 2 Murray Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia. Phone 02 9298 3777 The Australian National Maritime Museum is a statutory authority of the Australian Government
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ANMM Council Chairman Mr John Mullen AM Director and CEO Mr Kevin Sumption PSM Councillors Hon Ian Campbell Mr Stephen Coutts Hon Justice S C Derrington Mr John Longley AM Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead AM RAN Ms Alison Page Ms Arlene Tansey Dr Ian Watt AC Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation Board Chairman Mr Daniel Janes Mr Peter Dexter AM Ms Arlene Tansey Ex officio Chair Mr John Mullen AM Ex officio Director Mr Kevin Sumption PSM Mr David Blackley Mr David Mathlin Mr Tom O’Donnell Dr Jeanne-Claude Strong American Friends of the Australian National Maritime Museum Hon Peter Collins AM QC (Chairman) Mr Robert Moore II Mr John Mullen AM Mr Kevin Sumption PSM Ms Sharon Hudson-Dean
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