Signals 149 by Australian National Maritime Museum

Tasmanian Hydrowood

Operation

Bearings

From the Director

WELCOME TO THE SUMMER EDITION of Signals, a summer celebrating exploration.

It’s been an exciting few months, with the return of James Cameron – Challenging the Deep delighting guests of all ages, the launch of our brand-new Chains of Empire and Inundated exhibitions, the unveiling of a new panel on the National Monument to Migration, and the longawaited launch of our revamped museum website.

We are thrilled to once again host the Ocean Photographer of the Year exhibition, showcasing over 100 exquisite images taken by some of the world’s leading professional and amateur ocean photographers. The winning image pictured above, taken by Rafael Fernández Caballero, is just a taste of the spectacular images on display in this stunning exhibition.

A highlight for summer is our brand-new exhibition Ultimate Depth: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea, which explores the five zones of ocean. The show will feature James Cameron’s incredible DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, a remarkable piece of submersible technology tested in Australian waters and used by Cameron to navigate to the deepest place on earth, the Mariana Trench. This is a not-to-be-missed exhibition, so we look forward to welcoming all to immerse themselves in this exploration of all that lies beyond the ocean’s surface.

We are also excited to be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse, which coincides with its 30th anniversary here at the museum. We look forward to properly honouring this milestone now that the renovations to our boardwalk are complete and access to the lighthouse is no longer restricted.

The opening of our freshly renovated harbour boardwalk has brought new life to the museum, providing patrons with greater accessibility, a greener environment and a beautiful space to soak up the summer sun while exploring our harbourfront. We appreciate your patience while the renovations were ongoing, and hope that this new space can be enjoyed by all.

As always, I would be delighted to hear from the museum family about what matters to you, so please, if you have any ideas, drop me a line to thedirector@sea.museum

I may not be able to respond directly to every person, but please be assured, different voices are both welcome and encouraged.

Daryl Karp AM Director and CEO

Rafael Fernández Caballero was chosen as Ocean Photographer of the Year 2023 for this image of a Bryde’s whale attacking a bait ball of sardines off Baja California Sur, Mexico.

© Rafael Fernández Caballero

Summer 2024–25

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.

The museum is proud to fly the Australian flag alongside the flags of our Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Australian South Sea Islander communities.

Cover Merche Llobera was Highly Commended in the Ocean Wildlife category of Ocean Photographer of the Year with this image taken at Baja California Sur, Mexico. In a dual view of a frenzied hunt, pelicans dive from the sky, while under the water, mahi-mahi chase sardines. See more on page 66. Image © Merche Llobera

2 Tasmanian Hydrowood

An entrepreneurial harvest from drowned forests

12 Calling for entries for $10,000 maritime history prizes

Nominations are now open

14 Operation Navy Help Darwin Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy

22 100 years of Halvorsens in Australia

A personal view of a Norwegian–Australian family of boatbuilders

30 Black reefs: friend or foe?

Underwater cultural heritage and marine ecosystems

38 A lifesaving sentinel

The Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse turns 150

46 Preserving our maritime culture

The latest grants and training courses from MMAPSS

52 Feline seafarers

A history of Australian ships’ cats

58 Foundation news

Supporting sensory-friendly sessions for people with hidden disabilities

60 Our summer program

A preview of events and activations over summer

64 Members news and events

Talks, tours and more

66 Exhibitions

What’s on show this season

70 A new muse

Into the abyss with James Cameron and DEEPSEA CHALLENGER

72 Settlement Services International Unlocking the ‘billion dollar benefit’ of skilled migrants

74 Viewings

Seavoice website: exploring the collision of culture and climate

76 Readings

Maritime periodicals; Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy

82 Currents

Vale Graeme Andrews; Bass Strait Maritime Centre’s new exhibition

Tasmanian Hydrowood

New life for drowned forests

When remote Tasmanian river valleys were flooded half a century ago to create the state’s hydro-electricity scheme, countless trees were drowned. An innovative Tasmanian forestry company is now harvesting these beautiful and sometimes rare timbers and giving them new purpose, writes Claire Bennett .

The cold, dark environment of the lake prevents degradation and keeps the timber perfectly preserved

Construction on the Pieman River Power Development began in 1974 and was completed in 1987. Lake Pieman, formed when the river was dammed, is the centre of Hydrowood’s harvesting operation. Image Adam Gibson

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT BOATING PURSUITS, forestry is probably far from your mind. And you would largely be right. But in Tasmania, an island famous for its maritime activities, an innovative company is using boats and barges to salvage timber from forests submerged beneath the surface of the state’s hydro lakes. Aptly, the company is called Hydrowood, and it’s making waves.

Hydrowood’s world-first technology uses an excavator atop a barge to reach into the depths to harvest and bring to the surface ancient forest trees, including Huon pine that could be up to 3,000 years old. These dead trees were once part of a lush forest growing beside the Pieman River in a deep valley that was flooded to create Lake Pieman, a hydro-electric dam on Tasmania’s remote west coast. Hydroelectric dams make Tasmania’s energy 100 per cent renewable, and Hydrowood ensures that the forests sacrificed to allow this worthy achievement don’t go to waste.

How Hydrowood began – a flight of fancy Hydrowood co-founder Dave Wise, a pilot, was flying over Lake Pieman following a trip to British Columbia in 2011 when the idea for Hydrowood first sparked: In British Columbia, they float logs out of the forests down rivers. And sometimes, the logs sink. Later these logs can be salvaged, dried, cut and sold, even if they’ve been on the river floor for a very long time. It’s the coldness of the water that preserves the logs. With this knowledge fresh in my mind, I was flying over Lake Pieman looking at the tall treetops reaching out of the lake, and I wondered if they too would be salvageable.

Dave returned home and, over a beer with his friend and later co-founder Andrew Morgan, floated the idea. Andrew recalls:

I think I replied, ‘That’s a bloody stupid idea’ or something to that effect. But never one to shy away from a challenge, and being a few beers in, I soon said, ‘Let’s find out’ and like that, Hydrowood began.

The two entrepreneurs sent divers down to salvage some timber and then engaged the University of Tasmania’s specialist timber research team to see if the timber would be viable. And it was. The university ran many tests to determine the best way to dry the waterlogged timber, but essentially, due to the cold, dark environment of the lake, it was perfectly preserved, just like in British Columbia. ‘The bugger was right!’ says Andrew.

After logs are harvested from beneath the lake, they are transported back to a landing by a

Hydrowood’s specialised operators know both commercial maritime operations and forestry

tugboat.

Image Adam Gibson

Today Hydrowood has many investors and is looking to extend its operations into additional lakes in Tasmania and potentially nationally and internationally

Hydrowood was founded in 2012, and Andrew and David have spent over a decade testing the timber in a variety of projects and applications to ensure its quality and durability.

Driving the harvesting barge Hydrowood 1 requires a rare and specialised range of skills. Its skipper needs to hold a Master 5 qualification, which requires six months of sea time and AMSA-approved courses to obtain. Hydrowood 1 captains of recent times are also fishermen; when they’re not harvesting logs from under the water, they might be catching your dinner. It also helps to have experience in forestry because, apart from driving the barge, they need to manoeuvre the harvesting head on the barge-mounted excavator to remove the tree from the water.

Even driving the tugboat Snipe and the other smaller vessels on the operation requires a coxswain’s certificate (three months of sea time and a two-week AMSA course), so Hydrowood is glad to have some experienced personnel who know both commercial maritime operations and forestry.

A timber company with purpose

Today Hydrowood has many investors and is looking to extend its operations into additional lakes in Tasmania and potentially nationally and internationally. It has perfected the salvage and drying process, and the beautiful and sometimes rare timbers are featured in high-end architectural and furniture projects across the globe.

After the precious logs are gathered from beneath the surface, the daily ‘catch’ is towed back to a landing by a tugboat driven by a coxswain. The logs are stacked on the landing before being transferred to the green mill for processing into boards. The boards are then dried to remove the excess water from the timber, with regular monitoring of the timber’s moisture content.

The harvested logs start at around 50 per cent moisture content. They are sawn and racked for 12 months to air dry them, which brings the moisture content down to around 20 per cent. The wood is then placed in a kiln dryer for 6–72 hours to bring the final moisture content down to 8–10 per cent to meet Australian standards. The timber is then sorted and taken from the air-drying facility to the dry mill, or finishing facility, where it is dressed into the final product.

01 A barge with a specially adapted underwater harvester reaches far into the lake, where it cuts the tree at its base before lifting the trunk from the water. This method leaves the lake bed largely undisturbed. Image Adam Gibson

02 The company’s co-founders Dave Wise (left) and Andrew Morgan. Image ABC

London-based, Tasmanian-born designer Brodie Neill has used over three kilometres of Hydrowood to create ReCoil, an oval dining table. It features veneers of Huon pine, Tasmanian oak, celery top pine, sassafras, myrtle and blackwood, all native to the Pieman River valley. His method uses the smaller and forgotten pieces, such as those discarded from panel production and other processes. Image Mark Cocksedge

Hydrowood is on a mission to ensure that the forests submerged beneath the world’s lakes are brought to the surface and given new life in meaningful ways

The finished timber products perform the same as traditionally harvested timber of the same species

Perched on the side of a hill in the seaside town of Lewisham, Tasmania, this tiny house, showcased on Grand Designs Australia, features floor-to-ceiling Hydrowood Tasmanian oak and a custom-made Hydrowood Tasmanian oak veneer couch.

Image Adam Gibson

Even the smallest pieces of Hydrowood are not wasted, and are crafted into serving boards and small domestic items.

Image Alice Bennett

National and global projects

Hydrowood has achieved significant recognition in Australian projects such as Macquarie House in Launceston, TAS; Limestone House, Toorak, VIC (John Wardle Architects); The Seed House, Castlecrag, NSW (Fitzpatrick + Partners); Lewisham House, Lewisham, TAS (featured in Grand Designs Australia), and Tasmania’s Parliament Square Buildings. In addition, brand partnerships with Snøhetta, Brodie Neill, Jon Goulder, The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) and a collaboration between Levi Jeans and David Jones have seen the timber brand achieve international recognition. Andrew explains:

The finished timber products perform the same as traditionally harvested timber of the same species. The cold, dark environment of the lake prevents degradation and keeps the timber perfectly preserved. There is no rot or damage of any kind. Andrew notes:

In some cases, the colours are a bit richer from the tannins in the lake, but otherwise, there is no visible trace that the timber has been submerged for decades. With timber in such high demand globally due to its environmental credentials, it would be tragic to let such large volumes of timber go to waste.

Hydrowood is on a mission to ensure that the forests submerged beneath the world’s lakes are brought to the surface and given new life in meaningful ways. It is estimated that up to 300,000 cubic metres of wood may be submerged in lakes Gordon, Mackintosh, Pieman and Murchison on Tasmania’s west coast. The company hopes to work with Hydro Tasmania to ensure the trees under these lakes can also be reclaimed and utilised. And beyond Tasmania, Andrew notes, ‘there are an estimated 300 million submerged trees worldwide, with an estimated value of $50 billion.’

Not only is the timber beautiful, but we’re pulling up species that aren’t readily available from other sources, like Huon pine, blackheart sassafras and celery top pine, which is sought after for its boatbuilding qualities. Plus, people just love the story.

Tasmanian special species timbers are now mostly secured in the state’s vast national park reserves where forestry is prohibited. The most prominent species that Hydrowood harvests are Tasmanian oak and myrtle. With terrestrial forestry operations now only occurring in a small area of younger regenerated forests, supported by plantation-grown eucalypts, the slowergrowing special species timbers are rarely produced.

According to Andrew:

Provenance is such a big part of brands, giving the product meaning that customers can relate to. People are drawn to Hydrowood. They love the idea of sitting around a dinner table talking to friends about where their table’s timber came from and the new life they have given it.

For more information and to find out where to purchase Hydrowood, visit hydrowood.com.au

Claire Bennett is Managing Director and CMO of The Claire Bennett Agency, a multi-award-winning marketing agency based in Tasmania.

$10,000 maritime history prizes

Calling for nominations for biennial awards

Writers, publishers and readers of maritime history are invited to nominate works for maritime history awards totalling $10,000, sponsored jointly by the Australian Association for Maritime History and the Australian National Maritime Museum. Nominations for the next round close on 31 March 2025.

The 2025 Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize of $8,000

EVERY TWO YEARS, the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Australian Association for Maritime History sponsor two prizes: the Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize and the Australian Community Maritime History Prize. Both prizes reflect the wish of the sponsoring organisations to promote a broad view of maritime history that demonstrates how the sea and maritime influences have been more central in shaping Australia, its people and its culture than has commonly been believed.

The major prize is named in honour of the late Professor Frank Broeze (1945–2001) of the University of Western Australia, who has been called the pre-eminent maritime historian of his generation.

This will be the 13th joint prize for a maritime history book awarded by the two organisations, and the seventh community maritime history prize.

To be awarded for a non-fiction book treating any aspect of maritime history relating to or affecting Australia, written or co-authored by an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024. The book should be published in Australia, although titles written by Australian authors but published overseas may be considered at the discretion of the judges. The prize is open to Australian authors or co-authors of a book-length monograph or compilation of their own works.

Fictional works, edited collections of essays by multiple contributors, second or subsequent editions and translations of another writer’s work are not eligible.

The 2025 Australian Community Maritime History Prize of $2,000

To be awarded to a regional or local museum or historical society for a publication (book, booklet, educational resource kit, DVD, film or other print or digital media, including websites, databases and oral histories) relating to an aspect of maritime history of that region or community, and published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2024. The winner will also receive a year’s subscription to the Australian Association for Maritime History and a year’s subscription to the Australian National Maritime Museum’s quarterly magazine Signals

Publications by state-run organisations, physical exhibitions and periodicals such as journals are not eligible.

How to nominate

To nominate for the Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize, complete the form at www.sea.museum/history-prizes and provide THREE photocopies or PDFs of the following:

• dust jacket or cover

• blurb

• title page

• imprint page

• contents page

• the page showing the ISBN

• one or two representative chapters of the publication (up to 10 per cent of the contents), including examples of illustrative materials.

A copy of the book may also be included, but may not substitute for these materials. Books will not be returned. Copies of any published reviews may also be included.

To nominate for the Community Maritime History Prize, complete the form at sea.museum/history-prizes and send to the address below, along with:

• For print publications or DVDs – include a physical copy.

• For digital publications such as websites, databases, online exhibitions or apps – include 250–300 words explaining the vision and objectives of the digital media, plus data indicating its success. For websites and databases, also provide the URL or download details.

• For an app or other digital media – submit it on a USB or via a file transfer system.

Copies of any published reviews may also be included.

Multiple nominations may be made, but each must be for one category only. Nominations for both prizes close on 31 March 2025. They should be posted to:

Janine Flew Publications officer

Australian National Maritime Museum Wharf 7, 58 Pirrama Road Pyrmont NSW 2009

Alternatively, email them to publications@sea.museum

Judging process

Following an initial assessment of nominations, shortlisted authors or publishers will be invited to submit three copies of their publication. These will be read by a committee of three prominent judges from the maritime history community.

The judges’ decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

The winners will be announced in the summer 2025 issue of Signals and via other channels in December 2025.

For more information, see www.sea.museum/history-prizes

The winners (left) and runners-up of the 2023 prizes.

Operation Navy Help Darwin

The biggest peacetime operation in RAN history

To mark the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy’s destruction of Darwin, Dr Peter Hobbins outlines the critical role played by the Royal Australian Navy in alleviating the chaos.

‘THIS IS THE NOISE OF THE CYCLONE’, remarked Bishop Ted Collins during an audio recording made on 25 December 1974. ‘It’s almost unbelievable’.1

Disbelief was universal across Australia that Christmas Day. News gradually filtered out of Darwin that a tropical cyclone named Tracy had obliterated the city. The thunderous roar recorded by Bishop Collins heralded winds reaching 300 km/h, with flying wreckage creating a veritable food processor that mashed anything in its path. By dawn, survivors found barely a building standing. Of Darwin’s total population of 47,000, nearly 90 percent became homeless, and three-quarters were evacuated to centres around Australia.

Among the 66 lives lost that night were two Royal Australian Navy (RAN) personnel from HMAS Arrow and three family members of another Arrow sailor. It was one of four Attack class patrol boats that attempted to ride out the storm in Darwin Harbour. When these vessels entered service in the late 1960s, naval architect John Follan advised that ‘their sea keeping qualities are quite good’. 2 Given that HMAS Assail rolled up to 80 degrees during Cyclone Tracy, its commanding officer, Lieutenant Chris Cleveland, likely agreed.

Through skilful seamanship and a little luck, Assail was the only patrol boat to escape with minor damage, by running into the wind and avoiding the many other vessels being blasted across the harbour. Under the command of aptly named Lieutenant Peter Breeze, HMAS Advance – now in the museum’s fleet – suffered gearbox damage and bent blades on its port propeller, while the deck awning was wrenched off. Negotiating the black night without a functioning gyro compass or radar, Lieutenant Paul de Graaf was attempting to avoid a prawn trawler when HMAS Attack went aground at Doctors Gully. All three crews survived, although Attack ’s executive officer broke his foot during the tumult. 3

Of Darwin’s total population of 47,000, nearly 90 per cent became homeless

N7-221

HMAS Arrow, sadly, bore the brunt. After breaking its mooring at 2.45 am, overheating engines left commanding officer Lieutenant Bob Dagworthy with few options. The radar aerial was torn away as he attempted to beach Arrow and the patrol boat slammed into Stokes Hill Wharf.4 With the superstructure crushed and his vessel sinking, Dagworthy ordered ‘abandon ship’. The crew leapt onto the wharf, many being lacerated by oyster shells and coral. For assisting five crewmates to safety, Able Seaman Robert McLeod earned the newly instigated Bravery Medal. Dagworthy himself took to a life raft and was only rescued on Christmas afternoon. Tragically, as author Gary McKay relates, ‘Petty Officer Les Catton was struck by flying cargo, knocked unconscious, and blown back into the water, where he drowned. Another sailor, John Rennie, suffered a similar fate’. 5 After making his way ashore, Arrow ’s Able Seaman Geoff Stephenson returned to the demolished married quarters at HMAS Coonawarra, where he found that his wife Cherry, stepson Kenneth and six-month-old daughter Kylie had been killed.6 Police officer Robin Bullock later recalled ‘the effect it had on him, he was just a shattered man’.7

Having recently taken up the role of Naval Officer Commanding Northern Australia, Captain Eric Johnston had to dig his way out of the rubble of Naval Headquarters. With the RAN transmitting station destroyed, along with most of Coonawarra, he found the navy’s northern bases had little intact infrastructure and no contact with the outside world.

RAN Wessex

lands supplies at the old Darwin Oval, with HMAS Melbourne in the background. Image National Archives of Australia A6135, K17/1/75/50

Within hours, Operation Navy Help Darwin was under way, enlisting 13 warships, nine helicopters and 3,000 officers and sailors

‘No one knows better than sailors how to scrub out’

Word of the calamity was, however, relayed across Australia. Within hours, Operation Navy Help Darwin was under way, enlisting 13 warships, nine helicopters and 3,000 officers and sailors.

By Christmas afternoon, numerous units were being stood up and personnel recalled, including HMA Ships Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Vendetta, Stuart, Stalwart and Supply, plus 725, 817 and 851 Squadrons Fleet Air Arm. Within hours the Stores and Victualling branches were procuring fresh, preserved and frozen provisions, alongside bedding, clothing, building supplies and a Bailey bridge. Less than 24 hours after the alert, Melbourne, Brisbane and Stalwart got under way. 8

Yet the first outside naval personnel to arrive in Darwin were medical crews flown in from HMAS Albatross aboard RAN Hawker-Siddeley HS748s, delivering a blood bank on Boxing Day. Just hours behind them were Clearance Diving Team One, led by Lieutenant David Ramsden. His 12-man squad encountered appalling diving conditions: ‘debris of all kinds, combined with poor visibility and the fast flowing tidal streams would have deterred all but the most determined’. 9 They located wrecks, recovered bodies and ammunition, and commenced the salvage of HMAS Arrow. 10

The most urgent necessity was evacuating Darwin’s population. Most residents were airlifted out by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Lockheed C-130 Hercules and RAN HS748s, alongside commercial airliners.

From 27 December, several hundred evacuees, including naval dependants, were offered transit accommodation at HMA Stations Kuttabul, Watson and Penguin in Sydney. Many just needed a hot drink, a shower, clean clothes and rest. Even one day’s assistance made a big difference to the traumatised survivors, who were ably tended by Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service personnel, navy social workers and wives of Sydneybased sailors. The effectiveness of these measures was soon shown when children became bored and rapidly found ways to create mischief on naval premises.11

Back in Darwin, clearance divers located Arrow on 27 December, subsequently attaching pontoons to the battered hull so that the wreck could be towed to Frances Bay. A post-recovery survey led to the boat being written off and sold, later being scrapped by its overly ambitious civilian purchaser.12

On 30 December, as the first Navy Help Darwin vessels approached the devastated city, the Fleet Commander informed all personnel that the ‘Australian public has very few opportunities to see how their sailors can react in an emergency situation. We are now going to show them’. Specifically, stated Rear-Admiral David Wells, ‘there will be hard, hot and dirty work to be done … We are in Darwin to clear up and no one knows better than sailors how to scrub out’.13

A sailor from HMAS Vendetta cleans up a battered Darwin home. Image National Archives of Australia A6180 28/1/75/15

02 Officers and sailors from destroyer HMAS Vendetta plan the initial disaster recovery work. Image National Archives of Australia A6180 28/1/75/24 02

The most urgent necessity was evacuating Darwin’s population

The salvaged wreck of HMAS Arrow lying derelict after being sold off in 1975. Note the painted-out vessel number ‘88’ on the stern.

Image Library & Archives NT PH0091/0164

02 Albert Dixon took this photograph of HMAS Advance on Darwin’s cyclone-damaged slipway in January 1975.

Image Library & Archives NT PH0778/0005

Importantly, navy efforts were selfsustaining and did not draw upon fragmented local resources

First on the scene

Guided missile destroyer HMAS Brisbane was earliest on the scene and rapidly enhanced the communications net. The first ship to actually enter the disaster zone, on 31 December, was the recently commissioned hydrographic survey vessel HMAS Flinders, tasked with the essential role of establishing clear approaches and anchorages.14 Extreme caution was required, owing to floating trees, submerged wrecks and the possibility that sandbanks had shifted from previously charted positions.

Offshore, aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne carried seven Westland Wessex helicopters, with two more embarked aboard destroyer tender HMAS Stalwart The first task ashore was to establish a safe landing zone for the helicopters, followed by weatherproofing adjacent buildings to secure landed stores. A similar beachhead was also required for the heavy landing craft (LCH) Balikpapan, Betano, Brunei, Tarakan and Wewak, which transported large cargo items and provided general ferry services.

Both the LCH and Wessex crews worked doggedly. Over the following weeks, the helicopters conveyed 7,832 passengers and 90 tonnes of cargo.15 In addition to providing a welcome overhead presence for survivors, they also conducted searches. On 2 January, for instance, a Wessex crew reported a range of wrecked boats and dinghies that had been driven ashore, albeit with ‘No sign of life in vicinity’.16

Importantly, navy efforts were self-sustaining and did not draw upon fragmented local resources. As vessels anchored and landed sailors, clearance and reconstruction efforts were focused on designated areas to ensure maximum impact, particularly in the suburbs of Nightcliff, Rapid Creek and Casuarina. Working in parties of 15 sailors under a senior sailor or officer, specialist skills were put to work in restoring plumbing and electricity, and making dwellings weatherproof. These tasks occurred alongside general cleanup of debris and the nauseating task of burying rotting food.

An under-appreciated service was rendered by Melbourne ’s darkroom, which rapidly processed photographs for daily assessments and briefings. The well-equipped workshop aboard Stalwart was singled out as a major asset for the rebuilding effort.17 Stalwart also provided secure storage for recovered valuables, while Petty Officer Christopher ‘Timber’ Mills filled in as a guest DJ once local radio station 8DN went back on the air.18

Given the damage to their Darwin base, the three surviving patrol boats could not be repaired locally. An RAAF aircraft delivered a new propeller for Advance, but on 14 January it was determined that ‘both Advance and Assail should be subjected to full hull and principal equipment survey’.19 They proceeded together to Cairns, with Advance utilising only its starboard engine. Attack followed under tow from the frigate HMAS Stuart Once Attack was overhauled, Advance was next on the slip for a total repair bill of $16,539.74. 20

HMAS Stalwart with Wessex N7-221 embarked. Image taken in 1987, during the operation to transport the Cape Bowling Green lighthouse from Queensland to the museum (see story on page 38).

Image Michael Pitcher

Operation Navy Help Darwin provided a welcome publicity boost for the RAN in the fractious years after the Vietnam War

A welcome publicity boost

Sailors put in two gruelling weeks ashore, amid the heat, humidity, disarray and stench. By mid-January it was time to pass the baton to the army, the newly formed National Disasters Organisation and civic authorities. HMAS Melbourne departed on 18 January. By local request, Stalwart – with two 725 Squadron Wessexes –remained the last RAN vessel on station, departing with Brisbane on 31 January.

Operation Navy Help Darwin provided a welcome publicity boost for the RAN in the fractious years after the Vietnam War. Flagship HMAS Melbourne ’s contribution was particularly appreciated, given the controversies surrounding its fatal collisions with HMAS Voyager in 1964 and USS Frank E Evans in 1969. 21 ‘Clearly relief operations of the magnitude required by the Darwin emergency could not be foreseen’, asserted Rear Admiral Neil McDonald in May 1975. Yet ‘the ad hoc organisation worked very well indeed, due in no small measure to the dedication of the personnel concerned’. 22

RAN sailors ‘were all part of a team that can only be described as magnificent’, declared Dr Rex Patterson, Minister for the Northern Territory. 23 ‘As the full horror of Tracy became known to Australia’, stated local MP Sam Calder, ‘Navy personnel, both men and women, mobilised to assist in the biggest peacetime operation of the Navy’s history’. 24 When the RAN departed, the Territory’s Administrator, Jock Nelson, wrote to Rear Admiral Wells that ‘the Navy had a tremendous influence on maintaining morale amongst the population and setting Darwin on the road to recovery’. His only complaint was that ‘the people wish the Navy had remained longer’. 25

One of them did. Acclaimed for his energy and integrity throughout the crisis, Captain (later Commodore) Eric Johnston returned to serve as Northern Territory Administrator from 1981 to 1989, and the demolished Naval Headquarters building was rebuilt as his Administrator’s Offices. 26

1 Ted Collins, Cyclone Tracy audiorecording, 25 December 1975. Vaughan Evans Library 363.3492 CYC.

2 JJ Follan, The design of patrol boats for the Royal Australian Navy Sydney: Royal Institute of Naval Architects, 1968, discussion p 5.

3 Tom Lewis, ‘Cyclone Tracy on the attack’, Signals 69, 2004, pp 25–6; Gary McKay, Tracy: The storm that wiped out Darwin on Christmas Day 1974. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2001, pp 64–7.

4 Jack Loney, The price of admiralty: Ships of the RAN lost, 1914–1974 Geelong: Marine History Publication, 1975, p 29; Allen Lyne, Lost: The stories of all ships lost by the Royal Australian Navy Moana Heights: Allen Lyne, 2013, p 294.

5 McKay, Tracy, p 68.

6 National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA) E794 LIST.

7 Sophie Cunningham, Warning: The story of Cyclone Tracy. Melbourne: Text Publishing Company, 2014, p 67.

8 NE McDonald, ‘Operation Navy Help Darwin’, 20 May 1975, p 3, NAA E499 2-2-4.

9 RS Blue, United and undaunted: The history of the Clearance Diving Branch of the RAN. Garden Island: Naval Historical Society of Australia, 1976, p 29.

10 ‘Clearance diver’s life is not all blowing bubbles’, Navy News , 28 February 1975, p 7.

11 NE McDonald, ‘The Darwin emergency. Assistance provided by HMAS Kuttabul’, May 1975, p 3, NAA E499 2-2-4.

12 Lewis, ‘Cyclone Tracy on the attack’, p 28.

13 Teletext, 30 December 1974, NAA E499 2-2-4.

14 Teletext, 26 December 1974, p 1, NAA E499 2-2-4.

15 David Stevens, The Royal Australian Navy. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001, p 236.

16 Teletext, 2 January 1975, NAA E499 2-2-4.

17 Chiefs of Staff Committee, minutes of meeting held 15 January 1975, p 4, NAA E203 291/1/D2.

18 Peter Hobbins, ‘When the navy sailed to cyclone-ravaged Darwin’, National Archives of Australia, 14 January 2020, https://www.naa. gov.au/blog/when-navy-sailed-cyclone-ravaged-darwin

19 Teletext, 14 January 1975, NAA E499 2-2-21.

20 Equivalent to $142,300 in 2023. The repairs were fairly modest compared with the impact on HMA Ships Arrow and Assail

21 Timothy Hall, HMAS Melbourne. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1982, p 213.

22 NE McDonald, ‘Operation Navy Help Darwin’, 20 May 1975, p 6, NAA E499 2-2-4.

23 Teletext, 14 January 1975, p 1, NAA E203 291/1/D2.

24 ‘Navy thanked for Darwin effort’, Navy News , 28 March 1975, p 6.

25 JN Nelson to Rear-Admiral Wells, 31 January 1975, NAA E499 2-2-4.

26 Paul Rosenzweig, ‘The role of the RAN and Captain Eric Johnston in the recovery of Darwin, 1974–75’. Sabretache 27, no 4 (1986): 30–2.

Dr Peter Hobbins is the museum’s Head of Knowledge.

Was it due to nature or nurture that I feel tied to the sea, that being on the water brings me peace?

By the age of eight, I was up early to catch and clean fish for breakfast. My grandmother, Bergithe, joined us on our idyllic holidays on Halvorsen hire boats. All images Randi Svensen

The Halvorsens –100 years in Australia

A maritime dynasty

Lars Halvorsen arrived in Australia a century ago, establishing a dynasty of highly esteemed boatbuilders and champion sailors. His granddaughter Randi Svensen reflects on growing up in this Norwegian–Australian family.

AS 2023 CLICKED OVER TO 2024, the personal significance of the new year hit home for me. I am Lars and Bergithe Halvorsen’s grand-daughter and this year marks the centenary of the Halvorsens in Australia. It’s been a year of reflection for me. Where do I fit in? Was it due to nature or nurture that I feel tied to the sea, that being on the water brings me peace? Why do I dislike swimming in the ocean? A mantra repeats itself in my head: ‘We like to be on the water, not in it’. Where did that come from? Was I taught the mantra, or is it a remnant of my Viking ancestors’ fear of what may lurk beneath?

I am genetically 100 per cent Norwegian. My mother, Margit Elise Halvorsen, married Norwegian merchant seaman Arnold Svensen, who landed in Sydney during World War II and stayed ashore after an asthma attack. Papa went on to join the Norwegian foreign service and was posted to Australia for decades, so my childhood, and that of my siblings, was unusual. We were born in this country but because of Papa’s job, we were raised as Norwegians. Not fully assimilated, but likewise not living in the country we thought of as ‘home’.

My mother’s childhood had been more of the usual migrant one, of trying to fit in with other ‘new Australians’, but her marriage to my father required that she return to her Norwegian roots. We spoke Norwegian at home and sometimes, when Mama and I were in public, she would speak to me in Norwegian and I’d reply in English, attracting some very puzzled looks. Even our food was different. I was the only kid in my class who actually loved Brussels sprouts, and I still crave fish, as if it’s something my body must have.

The other anniversary of significance to me in 2024 is that it is 20 years since the release of my family history, Wooden Boats, Iron Men – the Halvorsen story, which was published with the support of the Australian National Maritime Museum. I wrote it with the permission and co-operation of my mother, uncles and aunt. When I began researching the story, in everyone’s eyes I was still ‘little Randi’, the youngest child of the baby of the family. But I knew it had to be done then, or the stories would be lost or, worse, bastardised. The result was intended only for family consumption, but I ran the manuscript by Jeffrey Mellefont, then-publications manager of the museum, and he thought the story had significance for Australia. He encouraged me to take it further.

What followed surprised me. The manuscript was published by Halstead Press and the first print-run sold out in weeks. Two more print-runs followed. I don’t claim credit for that: it was the Halvorsen name and legend that interested my readers – the romanticism, if you like, the derring-do. And, of course, the beautiful boats.

Lars’ pronouncements included, ‘If you can build a boat, you can build anything’

These photos show my great-grandfather, Karl Klemmetsen (Bergithe’s father), my great-great-grandfather, Hans Arentz Andersen, and my great-great-greatgrandfather, Johan Petter Juell, who were all sea captains. Bergithe is the older child in the lower middle photo, with her brother Magnus. The baby is Bergithe’s sister Karoline. Sadly, neither Magnus nor Karoline survived beyond infancy.

As part of my research, I had traced Bergithe’s line back 500 years. Learning more about my forebears has explained some of the mystery of where my uncles’ sailing ability came from. Bergithe’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were sea captains. I have a photograph of my great-great-great grandfather, Captain Johan Petter Juell, who was born in 1797 and who lived to 90, and a letter copy-book kept by my great-great-grandfather, Captain Hans Arentz Andersen, which dates from 1860 to 1864, his letters sent from far-flung ports. Captain Karl Klemmetsen, my greatgrandfather, was said to have made it as far as Australia, although sadly we have no proof of it.

On Lars’ side, the birth of Halvor Andersen’s tenth child, my grandfather Lars Gustav, was the catalyst for Halvor learning boatbuilding at the age of 58. At first it was to supplement his income from farming, but demand for his high-quality vessels soon saw him focusing on his new trade, one that Lars took up when he left school, ultimately setting up in competition with his father. From family lore and my reading of Lars’ extensive scrapbook, Lars was driven, dogged and strict, but also kind. He was passionate about polar exploration but also seemed to have a sense of humour, as shown in the clipping of a long alliterative piece, in Norwegian, about a seaman and his love. Lars’ pronouncements included, ‘A boat is only as good as its bilge pump’ and ‘If you can build a boat, you can build anything’, and they entered the family lexicon. His unexpected provision of sails and ropes on the first boat he built for Burns Philp created a family saying ‘sails and ropes’ to describe going the extra mile.

It’s important to remember why Lars and Bergithe left Norway. In 1919, anticipating a demand for ships after World War I, Lars built, on spec, the 350-ton wooden cargo vessel Nidelv. But the ship didn’t sell, so Lars partnered with a ship’s chandler to operate it with a paid crew. When Nidelv was stranded on a sandbank in Wales in 1921, the ship was wrecked, although the crew were able to simply walk ashore to safety. But due to a huge increase in insurance premiums as wooden ships were being abandoned in favour of steel, Nidelv was then uninsured and Lars lost everything, including the land that had come through Bergithe’s family and on which they had built a house and substantial boatbuilding yard. Lars owed money to the local community bank, and many of his friends and neighbours suffered after the loss of Nidelv. It must have been mortifying for both Lars and Bergithe, who had close ties to the community.

When Bergithe was pregnant with her seventh child, my mother, Lars travelled to Cape Town, tasking his wife with selling what she could and bringing the children (Margit then only two months old) to join him. Two years later, having heard great things about Sydney Harbour, Lars again upped sticks and travelled to Sydney, arriving in late 1924. The eldest son, Harold, then 14 and old enough to help his father, arrived shortly after. Bergithe and the other six children arrived in February 1925. The first substantial Australian-built Halvorsen boat, the 30-foot yacht Sirius, was launched in June 1925.

While I documented the story in Wooden Boats, Iron Men as well as I could with the information I had, one thing that has since come up changes some of the narrative. In the book, I described Lars’ death as being from osteomyelitis of the spine. That was the diagnosis in 1936, but my later research put the most likely culprit as Potts disease, a spinal infection caused by the tuberculosis (TB) bacterium. In his desire to help visiting Scandinavian seamen, a couple of years before he fell ill, Lars had brought home a young man who had advanced TB. TB bacteria can lie dormant before manifesting in the spine, and I now believe this was the most likely scenario.

As a child, I was close to ‘the uncles’, particularly Bjarne, Magnus and Trygve, and I still miss them – their counsel, their humour and their company. To be in their orbit was to feel safe and loved. While they are often referred to as ‘the Halvorsen boys’, they had very different personalities: Harold, Managing Director of Lars Halvorsen Sons because he was the eldest, always seemed to me to be just a little aloof. Carl was vibrant and outgoing. Elnor was serious but nurturing and kind. Bjarne was a personality writ large, with a wonderful belly laugh. In school holidays, I sometimes ‘helped’ in Bjarne’s boatbuilding yard office and, at age 12, was entrusted with counting and delivering cash wages to the workers. Bjarne gave me self-confidence and called me ‘little one’. Magnus gave me snippets of life advice and called me ‘cuz’. Trygve was cheeky and fun, but was always willing to teach me how to read the wind or judge the depth of the water. He showed me how a well-set sail should look and I remember my lessons in how to achieve a smooth finish with varnish. I was probably seven years old at the time. Uncle Trygve pronounced my name ‘Rundy’ in his guttural southern Norwegian accent.

My brother Paul, family friend Tom Jensen and I used to love sitting on the foredeck as we motored to our favourite destinations of Refuge Bay and Coasters Retreat. We always slept very well with the salt air and the sounds and smells that are unique to a timber vessel.

Co-skippers Magnus (standing) and Trygve departing for Hobart on Saga in 1946. This photo graced the bulkhead of my own classic yacht, also named Saga After my uncles’ deaths, the first time I boarded it felt as if they were waving a final farewell to me.

As a child, I was close to ‘the uncles’, particularly Bjarne, Magnus and Trygve, and I still miss them

I saw nothing strange about going sailing on Sydney to Hobart–winning yachts

With the naivete of childhood, I thought my uncles would win any race they entered (and they almost always did) and I saw nothing strange about going sailing on Sydney to Hobart–winning yachts or spending a couple of weeks a year on one of the hire cruisers, along with my mother and grandmother Bergithe. When my brother Paul and I were planning to build a cubby house or billy cart, Mama would take us to the yard at Ryde to collect timber offcuts for our creations. Since we went on weekends, the yard was empty, so Paul and I would climb onto half-finished boats to explore, and slide across the floor in skips that were on rails. One of our favourite projects was a retired dinghy that sat in our backyard and which Paul fitted out with two cabins. Even to this small fiveyear-old, it was cramped, but it was such an adventure, pretending we were at sea!

Spending time in the snow was another Norwegian ritual, and every year we spent two weeks at ‘Telemark’, a mountain hut built by Papa, my uncles and a few friends in Perisher Valley in 1952. I was skiing not long after I could walk and by age five was expected to eschew the dog sled and ski the three kilometres from Smiggin Holes to the hut, my child-size rucksack on my back. There was no electricity, and food was kept in a cage outside in the snow so the foxes couldn’t get it. We could see their red eyes outside at night. Cooking was done on the massive granite fireplace and light was provided by oil lamps. The uncles hand-made our little skis.

Paul and I had sailing adventures, even on land!

Despite looking terrified in this photo, I loved our sailing outings with Uncle Trygve, who taught me how to ‘read’ the wind and water.

Uncle Carl with my son Carl, who was named for both his great-uncle and his great-great-grandfather, Karl Klemmetsen (the spelling was interchangeable). When ‘young’ Carl began as an apprentice shipwright, Uncle Carl was visibly moved, proudly declaring, ‘Båtbygger ‘[boatbuilder] Carl!’

While it was Lars and his father’s passion for craftsmanship that made the boatbuilding legend, it was Bergithe’s seafaring ancestors who were the link to her sailing sons. I can see Lars’ dogged determination in my son, Carl Juell, who trained as a shipwright. ‘Young’ Carl has a perfectionist’s eye and a passion for working with wood. And I see Bergithe’s strength in my daughter, Camilla Bergithe, who not only physically resembles her namesake but is just as fiercely intelligent and tenacious.

How much is nature and how much nurture?

I still don’t know.

Randi Svensen is the author of Wooden Boats, Iron Men – the Halvorsen Story (VEL 623.82 HAL); Heroic, Forceful & Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage (VEL 623.8232 SVE); Nuts and Bolts and Petticoats: how the Nock and McCathie families shaped retailing in Australia; and A Changing Tide: the history of Berrys Bay, Sydney Harbour, 33.83S, 151.18E (VEL 623.8209941 SVE)

Reef-top anchor at Boot Reef with its concretion layer generally well intact. Note the flash rusting in a damaged small area in the foreground. The anchor is not near the edge of the reef which is most exposed to wave action, as the wreck seems to have been pushed over the reef for quite a distance before it broke apart. Image Julia Sumerling/Silentworld Foundation

A cultural heritage object, including a shipwreck, has depth, meaning, connection and impact beyond what is initially evident

Black reefs: friend or foe?

Underwater cultural heritage and marine ecosystems

‘Underwater cultural heritage’ refers to items and artefacts that end up on the sea floor. Whether as small as a nail or as large as a ship hull, they can affect their environment in different ways, one of which is the phenomenon of ‘black reefs’. Irini Malliaros explains.

A SHIP IS WRECKED, resulting in chaos, tragedy and loss. Yet, given enough time, the shipwreck and its story can become a source of wonder, a reason for adventure and discovery, a site full of potential and a source of creative inspiration.

We often think about what a ship and its wrecking event mean to humans – those on board at the time, or their families and descendants; those who owned, salvaged or bought the wreck; or those who, decades or centuries later, rediscovered it. The consequences of a wreck, however, extend far beyond the human world.

An artefact – whether large, such as a ship, or small, such as an object it carried – is like the centre of a web. As someone whose profession is investigating such webs, I often perform a thought experiment; I imagine the whole story from different points of view, such as that of an object lost in the wreck, or of a fish or a coral that lives near where the shipwreck rests. To what end, one might ask; why think of it this way? Well, put simply, a cultural heritage object, including a shipwreck, is not just a thing – it has depth, meaning, connection and impact beyond what is initially evident. Applying this thought experiment gives us a more holistic view.

Let’s take, as an example, vessels that run aground on reefs. The crest of the reef is its highest and therefore shallowest part, often exposed at low tide. This is where ships are most likely to come to grief or to spill onto after hitting the upper reef slope. Reef crests are generally dynamic environments, experiencing the strongest winds and roughest wave action. A wooden vessel is likely to break up relatively quickly by the actions of physical, chemical and biological agents, particularly if it struck the side of the reef that is exposed to prevailing weather and seas. The components of a wooden vessel that usually survive the longest are composed of inorganic materials such as metals (anchors, sheathing, metal fasteners, iron knees, chain), ceramic or glass. If the vessel has an entirely metal hull, it will usually remain relatively intact for a longer period.

Now, let’s transfer our point of view to that of a fish living on the reef. One stormy night a big ship crashes onto the reef and becomes so damaged that it is abandoned by the humans on board. Over the next days, weeks or months, the abandoned vessel is pushed and shoved onto the reef by wave action, rolling back and forth, crushing and gouging out large sections, causing mechanical damage to the very structure of the reef. Finally, the vessel may break apart enough for sections of it to detach and drift off, in the case of a wooden vessel. Or, if it is a metal ship, it may eventually dig itself into a spot and settle in. But what happens after a much greater span of time, such as 150 years or more?

The phenomenon of ‘black reefs’

Over time the wreck, or parts of it, begin to affect the surrounding habitat in different ways. This is particularly evident in the case of iron components, as sea water causes iron to corrode. As years turn into decades and even centuries, the corroding iron is released into the water column around and down-current of the wreck.

Iron is a limiting resource in natural environments, meaning that organisms that thrive on it are constrained by its supply.1 Iron occurs naturally in some areas of the ocean, but in relatively small quantities, and many coral reef environments are generally iron poor. The presence of large iron objects – anchors, knees, chain, even an entire ship hull – increases the amount of iron available. This enables the prolific growth of organisms that are otherwise limited by its supply, such as seaweed and cyanobacteria – often to the detriment of others, such as corals.

A metal-hulled shipwreck from the 1950s on Palmyra Atoll, central Pacific Ocean, was actively deteriorating with flash rusting, causing a phase shift in its surrounding environment. The US Fisheries Pacific Region intervened and removed 126 tonnes of the rusting material. Image Susan White/ US Fisheries Pacific Region

A single Admiralty pattern anchor from the 1850 wreck of the British barque Jenny Lind, on Kenn Reefs in the Australian Coral Sea Territory. Note the blackened area all around it. Various wrecks on Kenn Reefs were investigated by a team from the museum and Silentworld Foundation in 2017. Image Irini Malliaros/Silentworld Foundation

Is the impact of underwater cultural heritage on its surrounding environment positive in any way?

The term ‘phase shift’ 2 is given to dramatic change, be it immediate or gradual, from a coral-dominated reef ecosystem to one that is depleted of hard coral and dominated by macroalgae (seaweed) and/or corallimorphs (soft corals).

Events such as extreme weather (including cyclones), pollution or run-off can disturb an ecosystem sufficiently to cause such phase shifts. 3 ‘Black reefs’ is the term given to a shift related to the presence of iron in an otherwise iron-poor environment. The term accurately describes the change that occurs, as the organisms that come to dominate the new environment near the wreck are brown to black. This colouration contrasts with the unaffected parts of the reef.4

The phenomenon of black reefs has been noted and studied at some sites of modern shipwrecks dating from the 1970s onwards. 5 However, little work has been done on the effects a historic wreck may have on its surrounding environment over a longer time – so we now adjust our lens to focus on sites from around the 1870s or earlier.

In 2017, archaeologists from the Australian National Maritime Museum and Silentworld Foundation noted the dark colouration typical of ‘black reefs’ on satellite imagery following an expedition to Kenn Reefs in the Coral Sea. These dark areas were directly associated with shipwreck sites 170 years and older that had been ‘ground-truthed’, or physically sighted and recorded during field work, by the team (see image 02 opposite).6 At the time, we aimed to use the concept as a predictive model while planning future expeditions to identify sites of interest for ground-truthing while on location. We put this plan into action at the end of 2018 on the very next expedition to Boot Reef, where the black reefs effect as seen on satellite imagery was extremely subtle. The wreck was not near the weather edge of the reef and the imagery had been obtained following an extreme weather event that had caused coral die-off and a consequent change in the colour of the reef top, making it difficult to clearly pinpoint areas of black reef.7

Porter-patent anchor with coral growth. Recovery from the ‘black reef’ phenomenon – essentially a reversal of the phase shift – is possible and was observed on deeper sites at Kenn Reefs. Possibly due to its depth, the site was not reached by regular wave action and therefore the concretion (the underwater cultural object plus the mass of natural growth attached to it) remained intact. This ensured that very little iron was released from it, so the iron-dependent species numbers were kept lower and the conditions were suitable for coral recruits once more. Image Julia Sumerling/Silentworld Foundation

A satellite image of the black reefs phenomenon: wreck artefacts on remote Kenn Reefs in the Australian Coral Sea Territory are indicated by the presence of black streaks, caused by iron objects disintegrating into the water column. Satellite image DigitalGlobe Imagery; overlying notation Silentworld Foundation

Underwater cultural heritage: positive or negative?

Since that time, my understanding of this field has grown, as has my view of its potential. Wearing both my maritime archaeologist and biologist hats simultaneously, I am inclined to take a more deeply probing approach to try to explore and understand the full potential of the interaction between underwater cultural heritage (UCH), including but not limited to shipwrecks, and the surrounding ecosystems to produce data that can inform a wide range of interrelated research facets with realworld applications.

For example, is the impact of UCH on its surrounding environment positive in any way? UCH in some cases is viewed as potentially creating habitat for organisms. We are now asking questions that fling us into the wider parts of that web radiating from the object – does the object’s surface provide a substrate for the development of a habitat that is appropriate and suitable? 8 Is it attracting and accommodating indigenous organisms or is it a structure that either introduces or recruits non-native species? 9 Does the UCH habitat attract mobile indigenous species away from their nearby natural habitat and, if so, what impact does this have on them and the habitat they have abandoned? 10

The phenomenon of black reefs has been noted and studied at some sites of modern shipwrecks dating from the 1970s onwards

Growth around the Boot Reef anchor – some small corals and green and brown slimy-looking algae on the shank and on the dead corals beside it. Image Irini Malliaros/Silentworld Foundation

Where UCH is in near-shore environments, it may be used for heritage tourism, which may be of benefit to the local community. In addition to the income generated from visitors, the fish populations that aggregate on the site may be of value to local fishers. However, are the fish on site appropriate for human consumption, are they absorbing harmful substances from the UCH, or are they displacing fish of a higher economic value? 11

Conversely, how are the surrounding environment and its processes affecting the cultural heritage item? Are crashing waves degrading it? Are organisms slowly destroying it? And what of human activities – are fishers or divers or human-generated pollution contributing to its degradation?

Most of the work conducted, and still continuing, on these and related topics has been carried out on modern shipwreck sites. But what is the impact of all these factors if the object remains on location for 150 years and more?

Logically, we can begin assessing older sites by applying some of the methods used to investigate recent wrecks and by using studies on artificial reefs. Collecting and collating comprehensive data in this manner will inform and assist us to actively monitor and manage underwater cultural heritage on coral reefs and in other habitats.

1 A Butler (1998). ‘Acquisition and utilization of transition metal ions by marine organisms’, Science no 281(5374): 207–9; B Entsch, R Sim and B Hatcher (1983). ‘Indications from photosynthetic components that iron is a limiting nutrient in primary producers on coral reefs’, Marine Biology 73: 17–30.

2 TJ Done (1992). ‘Phase shifts in coral reef communities and their ecological significance’, Hydrobiologia 247: 121–32.

3 B Hatcher, R Johannes and A Robinson (1989). ‘Review of the research relevant to the conservation of shallow tropical marine ecosystems’, Oceanography and Marine Biology 27: 337–414.

4 This article focuses on the effects of shipwrecks on reefs, but it should be noted that shipwrecks are not the only source of increased availability of iron in reef environments.

5 B Hatcher (1984). ‘A maritime accident provides evidence for alternate stable states in benthic communities on coral reefs’, Coral Reefs 3(4): 199–204; R Schroeder, A Green, E DeMartini and J Kenyon (2008). ‘Long-term effects of a ship-grounding on coral reef fish assemblages at Rose Atoll, American Samoa’, Bulletin of Marine Science 82: 345–64; TM Work, GS Aeby and JE Maragos (2008). ‘Phase shift from a coral to a corallimorph-dominated reef associated with a shipwreck on Palmyra Atoll’, PLoS ONE 3(8): 2989; LW Kelly, KL Barott, E Dinsdale, AM Friedlander, B Nosrat, D Obura, E Sala, SA Sandin, JE Smith and MJ Vermeij (2012). ‘Black reefs: iron-induced phase shifts on coral reefs’, The ISME Journal 6(3): 638–49; S Mangubhai and DO Obura (2018). ‘Silent killer: black reefs in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area’, Pacific Conservation Biology 25(2): 213–14; V Van der Schyff, M Du Preez, K Blom, H Kylin, NSCK Yive, J Merven, J Raffin and H Bouwman (2020). ‘Impacts of a shallow shipwreck on a coral reef: A case study from St Brandon’s Atoll, Mauritius, Indian Ocean’, Marine environmental research 156: 104916 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2020.104916

6 J Hunter and I Malliaros (2017). ‘Wreck of the Jenny Lind: The Kenn Reefs archaeological survey’, Signals 119: 8–13; I Malliaros and J Hunter (2017). ‘The Colours of Wrecks’ in Ongoing Projects Blog, Silentworld Foundation <https://silentworldfoundation.org.au/the-colour-ofwreck/>, accessed 12 August 2024.

7 K Hosty, J Hunter, I Malliaros and P Hundley (2019). ‘Black reefs and the “Jardine Treasure” – The Boot Reef Project 2018’. Signals 126: 19–25.

8 JHR Burns, KH Pascoe, SB Ferreira, H Kane, C Kapono, TL Carrell, A Reyes and A Fukunaga (2023), ‘How do underwater cultural heritage sites affect coral assemblages?’, Remote Sensing 15(8): 21–30.

9 A Hylkema, QCA Hakkaart, CB Reid, R Osinga, AJ Murk and AO Debrot (2021). ‘Artificial reefs in the Caribbean: A need for comprehensive monitoring and integration into marine management plans’, Ocean & Coastal Management 209: 105672.

10 J Bohnsack (1989), ‘Are high densities of fishes at artificial reefs the result of habitat limitation or behavioral preference?’, Bulletin of Marine Science 44: 631–45.

11 NL Crane, MJ Paddack, PA Nelson, A Abelson, J Rulmal and G Bernardi (2016). ‘Corallimorph and Montipora reefs in Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia: documenting unusual reefs’, Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation 21(2016): 10–17.

Irini Malliaros is the founder and director of I AM Archaeology: Habitat & Heritage.

Transplanted from its original Queensland location after it was decommissioned, the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse has stood on the museum’s waterfront for 30 years.

ANMM image

A lifesaving sentinel

The Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse

This year, the museum commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse and 30 years since it reopened on the museum site at Darling Harbour in Sydney. Curator Inger Sheil relates episodes in the life of the lighthouse and the ships that it relied on it.

A SOUTHERLY BREEZE WAS BLOWING as SS Grantala departed Townsville at around 4 pm on 23 March 1911. The Adelaide Steamship Company’s 3,655-ton coastal steamer was southbound from Cairns, calling at ports on route to Melbourne. ‘Good steaming weather’, one of her officers described it, but as the ship approached Cape Bowling Green, 70 kilometres to the south, at 7.30 pm that evening, Captain James Sim was alert to a change in the weather.1 The wind had picked up, the barometer was falling and it was cyclone season – a week before, a devastating storm had struck Port Douglas, killing two people and destroying most of the town. Sim decided to seek shelter in Bowling Green Bay.

The light station at Cape Bowling Green was the second in a series of lighthouses built to the same ‘ironclad’ design

Since 1874 the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse had stood watch over this stretch of coast, alerting marine traffic to the 22-kilometre low sandy spit that could be difficult to distinguish from its surrounds until it was too late. A history of ships running aground in the vicinity had prompted the people of the newly founded settlement of Townsville to call for a lighthouse. The light station at Cape Bowling Green was the second in a series of lighthouses built to the same ‘ironclad’ design, comprising a local hardwood frame clad with iron plates imported from Britain. The ironbark frame was assembled at the Union Saw Mill in Maryborough then disassembled in June 1873 for transport to Cape Bowling Green, and the plates were prefabricated in Brisbane before being affixed to the re-erected frame on site, ensuring an economical construction in a remote, inaccessible location.

The Rooney Brothers, who had previously built the light towers at Sandy Cape and Lady Elliot Island and were familiar with the construction techniques involved, were awarded the contract to build the light tower. Work commenced in July 1873, overseen by John Rooney, and was completed on 3 October 1874.

More wreckage from the ship would drift ashore along the coast in following days

01 Coloured postcard of the Adelaide Steamship Company’s SS Grantala, date unknown. ANMM Collection ANMS0047[113]

02 Plan of Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse, drawn by David Payne in 2003. ANMM

Thirty-six years later, Captain Sim ordered Grantala into a position 11 kilometres west-northwest of the sentinel lighthouse, staying well clear of the shallows that extended far out from the shoreline, dropping both anchors in preparation for the night to follow. His decision proved wise as the wind built to cyclonic strength, accompanied by heavy squalls of rain. Grantala ran out 100 fathoms (180 metres) of cable to ride out the storm at anchor. The cyclone reached its height in the early hours of the morning; so strong were the rain squalls that, at intervals, they even obscured the Cape Bowling Green Light’s 13,000-candlepower beam that would normally be visible at 25 kilometres. 2 But as crew and passengers waited through the night, Grantala held its own against the onslaught, on a night that Sim would later describe as one of the worst he had ever experienced. 3

Conditions were no less alarming in the light station itself. In the three lightkeepers’ cottages, the keepers and their families were at the mercy of the deteriorating weather. The cottages shook and the beds rocked on the floor; Superintendent John Kidd, head lighthouse keeper since 1902, feared the roof would lift or the structures might be carried off in their entirety. The following morning, he found his small garden buried in sand up to the top of the one-metre paling fence that surrounded it, and two metres of sand piled up against the walls of the cottage.4

The lonely job of tending to the light in the 22-metre tower in the early hours of the morning fell to Assistant Keeper Thomas Carter, who had 16 years’ experience in lighthouses. Struggling to stay on his feet as the light tower shook and vibrated violently, he thought it was the wildest night he had yet seen. In addition to the movement of the tower, the drop in pressure had made it more difficult to keep the kerosene-fuelled light burning, and he had to keep a constant watch lest the vital flame go out.

But the storm passed, the wind came around towards the north and the barometer rose. Normal operations could proceed, and by the following morning Grantala was once again under way. As they reached the mouth of the Brisbane River late on 27 March, they were signalled by the keepers of the Moreton Bay Pile Light, urgently asking if they had seen anything of Grantala ’s sister ship, SS Yongala, which was overdue. 5

Captain John Anderson Kidd and his wife, Esther Jane Prance Kidd, at the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse. John Kidd was the lighthouse superintendent from 1902 to 1912. Image Burdekin Shire Council Library Services

02 Lanterns at the Yongala wreck site as shot by Ron and Valerie Taylor during filming of their documentary on the shipwreck in the early 1980s. ANMM Collection ANMS1458[018] Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Valerie Taylor in memory of Ron Taylor

Unidentified lightkeeper and family in front of a Cape Bowling Green Light Station cottage c 1914. Australian Maritime Safety Authority Collection

In the three light keepers’ cottages, the keepers and their families were at the mercy of the deteriorating weather

Yongala was last seen heading north on the evening of 23 March by the keepers of the Dent Island Light. The keeper on watch noted the time as 6.30 pm and observed that the steamer was on its usual track and in its usual trim. It was in sight for 20 minutes until passing out of view, obscured by the squalls sweeping the coast.6

In the following days searchers were dispatched and vessels at sea kept a keen lookout for any sign of the missing ship. Early on the morning on 28 March, the keeper on watch in the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse noticed what appeared to be wreckage in the water. Superintendent Kidd’s daughter, Essie, patrolled the beach in the following hours and found bags of chaff, bran, pumpkins and pollard rolling in with the waves. Kidd telegraphed the Adelaide Steamship Company’s Townsville office,7 which confirmed that the markings on the bags corresponded with cargo stowed in Yongala ’s lower, number three hold. 8 This was not deck cargo that might have been washed overboard – its location deep in the holds indicated a catastrophic accident had befallen the ship. It was the first real confirmation that Yongala had been lost.

Although more wreckage from the ship would drift ashore along the coast in following days, it was not until 1958 that the wreck was located, lying 22 kilometres east of Cape Bowling Green. The site is the final resting place of 122 passengers and crew, among them

Matthew Rooney, his wife Katherine and their daughter Elizabeth. Matthew was one of the founders of the Rooney Brothers firm, builders of several Queensland lighthouses, including the Cape Bowling Green Light.

Some stories connected with the lighthouse had happier endings. In early September 1874, as work neared completion on the light station, John Rooney and the first Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse keeper, Henry Lander Pethebridge, were startled by the sudden arrival of an open boat with eight shipwrecked sailors. Their ship, the 1,021-ton Guinevere, had wrecked on Pocklington Reef in Papua New Guinea and its 29 crew were forced to take to three open boats. They made the daring decision to sail south to the Australian coast, a voyage of some weeks in which the boats became separated. One boat did not sight land until coming to Palm Island, north of Townsville. The crew were unaware of any European settlements further north than Bowen until they came alongside Cape Bowling Green and saw the welcome site of a new lighthouse. 9 Rooney and Pethebridge met the crew and provided what hospitality they could before directing them on to Townsville.10 Over the following days the other two boats made landfall as well, having made the 1,300-kilometre voyage without a single fatality.

Superintendent Kidd’s daughter, Essie, patrolled the beach and found bags of chaff, bran, pumpkins and pollard rolling in with the waves

In the following months changes will be coming to the lighthouse 01

Cape Bowling Green Light Tower being re-erected on site at the museum. ANMM image

Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse, pictured in 1987, watched over its original location for 113 years. Image Mike Lorimer, Ove Arup and Partners

Cape Bowling Green Bay, today part of a national park that includes diverse landscapes ranging from mountain ranges to coastal estuaries, presented some unusual challenges to the families that lived there. The mangroves near the lighthouse provided an abundance of both stinging insects and – far more welcome – mud crabs, but were also a habitat for more dangerous predators. By 1892, erosion had necessitated moving the keepers’ cottages 335 metres away to safer ground. At high tide the keepers used a skiff to cross to the lighthouse. On the night of 27 August 1892, Assistant Keeper James Rose was making the crossing when he was attacked by a crocodile. Rose escaped the terrifying encounter by climbing a telegraph pole, from which Superintendent Richard Cole was able to rescue him with a dinghy.11

As the lighthouse approaches 30 years at the Australian National Maritime Museum, conservation and curatorial staff have developed an object management plan to document the history and material fabric of the tower, manage future conservation works and develop new interpretations for visitors. Among other initiatives, the museum commissioned a comprehensive structural engineering report from heritage experts Partridge to document the current condition of the light tower and identify any major issues.

In the following months changes will be coming to the lighthouse, from new interpretation panels sharing the narrative of the light and the community that developed around it, to a more discreet security barrier enabling better visitor flow. We are exploring ways of using innovative technology to make the lighthouse accessible for a wider audience online. Visitors will be able to enjoy new digital experiences, exploring the view from the top with a virtual tour, zooming into the details with 3D photogrammetry and discovering new stories on our updated website. We invite you to explore the rich history of this lighthouse that stood through storm and rain, and the people who kept the light going no matter how much their world rocked and the tower trembled beneath their feet.

1 ‘Grantala ’s Experience’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1911, p 9.

2 Ibid

3 ‘Voyage of the Grantala ’, The Age, 28 March 1911, p 6.

4 ‘More Wreckage at Bowling Green’, Queensland Times , 31 March 1911, p 5.

5 ‘The Yongala ’, The Evening Telegraph, 30 March 1911, p 6.

6 ‘Grantala ’s Experience’, op cit

7 ‘Passed All Right’, Daily Telegraph, 30 March 1911, p 7.

8 ‘More Wreckage at Bowling Green’, op cit

9 ‘Wreck of the Guinevere ’, Evening News , 26 September 1874, p 2.

10 Ships’ Mails, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 October 1874, p 4.

11 ‘Attacked by an Alligator [sic]’, Warwick Argus , 30 August 1892, p 2.

Preserving our maritime culture

Maritime Museums of Australia

Project Support Scheme 2024–25

For almost 30 years, the Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme has assisted maritime museums and heritage institutions across Australia to develop, present, preserve and interpret their collections.

Peter Drogitis profiles three projects that were successful in the latest round of grants.

SINCE 1995, THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT has funded an annual program of small-scale grants and internships through the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. To date, the Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme (MMAPSS) has provided more than $2.5 million in funding for over 550 projects and facilitated 85 museological training courses at the Australian National Maritime Museum.

The Australian landscape is threaded with rivers, lakes, estuaries and other bodies of water, and our home is also ‘girt by sea’, as our national anthem famously states. Within all these waters the history of our continent stretches back millennia. Through MMAPSS, many maritime bodies have gained funding to provide greater opportunities for the public to engage with the country’s maritime history.

Past grants have aided the restoration and conservation of significant vessels and helped to develop many exhibitions, from those exploring Aboriginal connections with land and water to others on the history of shipwrecks around our coast.

This year’s scheme provided $130,000 to be dispersed across multiple institutions nationwide

A deck log from the whale chaser Cheynes , from September 1959, records its positions and, in the far right column, details of its catch.

Logbooks owned by Discovery Bay Tourism Precinct, WA, chronicle the lives and actions of Norwegian whale chasers.

Images Discovery Bay Tourism Precinct

Past grants have aided the restoration and conservation of significant vessels and helped to develop many exhibitions

Maiwar, the boat Tom Robinson designed, built and launched in Peru, and which he was forced to abandon in the eastern Coral Sea. It was later found on the island of Panawina, Papua New Guinea. Tom is recognised by the Guiness Book of Records as the youngest person to row across the Pacific Ocean and is one of the maritime adventurers featured in the Queensland Maritime Museum’s Making Waves exhibition. Image QMM

Lisa Blair is another mariner profiled in Making Waves . She was the first woman to sail solo around Antarctica, and she also set the record for its circumnavigation. Image Callum Sherington

2024–25 funding awards

This year’s scheme provided $130,000 for dispersal across multiple institutions nationwide. There were 16 successful applicants and 10 training courses were awarded. Three of the projects that received assistance are outlined below.

Discovery Bay Tourism Precinct, WA: Unlocking the logbooks

The Discovery Bay Tourism Precinct was awarded $8,265 to complete their project of translating and digitising logbooks in their possession. These logbooks are key to understanding the history of Discovery Bay. They chronicle the lives and actions of Norwegian whale chasers as they served aboard the steamship Toern Local residents crewed these ships for more than 26 years, and the vessels were significant to the industry and economic development in the area.

The funding will help preserve the books and will allow interpretive imagery of them to be created. The project aims to inform the local community, as well as national and international researchers, of the history of this ship and community, including how the vessels helped facilitate Norwegian migration to and settlement in Australia.

Queensland Maritime Museum, QLD: Making Waves

The Queensland Maritime Museum received funding of $12,994 to help develop and create a new exhibition dedicated to significant Australian maritime adventurers, including those who have sailed around Antarctica, rowed across the Atlantic and circumnavigated the globe. This exhibition will remind visitors of the achievements of Australian people and our inescapable connection to the sea. It will illuminate the importance of Australians in maritime sport, recreation and recordsetting, and will educate the public about challenging journeys of ocean exploration, historical lives at sea and maritime technologies such as sail-making and navigational and safety equipment.

Glenelg Shire Council – Portland Maritime Museum, SA: First Nations Gallery

Glenelg Shire Council – Portland Maritime Museum was awarded $14,990 and in-kind support to create a First Nations Gallery focusing on the region’s Gunditjmara people. Co-curated by the local traditional owners’ group, it will tell of their connection to sea country, informing the local community of the Aboriginal presence and stories still present within it. A mural by a Gunditjmara artist will mark the entrance to the exhibition space. The Gunditjmara hold a unique and significant relationship with the sea and especially to whales; a whale skeleton will be central to the exhibition, and other objects will also be displayed.

Tangible histories

Museums and historical institutions exist to preserve and to pass on knowledge. They tell the story of who we are and demonstrate that our tangible maritime heritage requires constant care and maintenance. The institutions that have received MMAPSS funding will be able to preserve not only vessels and objects, but also the historical and cultural assets contained within them. Without the hard work of the volunteers and staff of these institutions, such cultural assets might otherwise be lost to history and time.

The museum congratulates this year’s recipients and wishes them the best of luck in seeing their projects through.

Adam Black (Heritage, Research & Policy Manager, Gunditj Mirring), Denise Lovett (Aboriginal Heritage Officer, Gunditj Mirring), Agostina Hawkins (Cultural Collection Management Coordinator, Glenelg Shire Council) and Tanya Flockhart (Manager –Libraries and Arts, Glenelg Shire Council), with Denise’s grand-daughter Maliah LovettMurray. Denise is holding the Nyamat Mirring (Sea Country) Plan. Image Glenelg Shire Council – Portland Maritime Museum

A selection of projects from other successful grant applications can be explored on our website: w ww.seamuseum/grants

Peter Drogitis is a registrar with the museum.

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Feline seafarers

A history of Australian ships’ cats

For over 150 years, domestic cats were a vital part of Australian shipping. Cats appeared on naval vessels, mercantile and passenger ships, private and commercial yachts, and cruise liners. They were prized for their ability as ratters and mousers and also for their companionship and affection. The history of the ship’s cat is a tale of adventure on the high seas, but most of all, writes Dr Jodie Stewart, it is a story of love.

IN 1809, A HEARTBROKEN MATTHEW FLINDERS penned a tribute to his beloved cat, Trim. Trim had disappeared while he and Flinders were imprisoned on the island of Mauritius from 1803.1 A handsome black and white cat of ‘superior intelligence’, Trim had been the British cartographer’s loyal companion on several seagoing voyages. 2 Most famously, he was by Flinders’ side when he circumnavigated the continent the British would name Australia. Of Trim, Flinders wrote, ‘Alas, my poor Trim;

Hundreds of ships’ cats made invaluable but often invisible contributions to Australian maritime shipping

thy extraordinary merit required only to be known, in order to excite universal admiration’. Flinders also promised Trim he would erect a monument in his honour ‘to perpetuate thy memory’ and ‘record thy uncommon merits’. 3

The story of Flinders and Trim is a tale of love and feline admiration. Matthew Flinders was so affected by ‘this good-natured purring animal’ that he was compelled to record Trim’s exploits and document his remarkable qualities in the hope that his legacy and memory would endure.4 Trim was indeed a remarkable cat. He was also a ship’s cat. His personality and behaviours were influenced by a life at sea surrounded by a ‘fearless seaman’. 5 As Flinders put it, ‘being brought up amongst sailors, his manners acquired a peculiarity of cast which rendered them … different from those of other cats’.6 Hundreds of ships’ cats like Trim demonstrated their extraordinary abilities as seafarers, making invaluable but often invisible contributions to Australian maritime shipping. The ship’s cat served an essential role as a vermin controller but also as a loving friend and loyal shipmate. Moreover, they taught their human fellow crew members how to love and be loved.

Sailor with pet cats, c 1910. ANMM Collection Samuel J Hood Studio 00036908

Like Trim, many ships’ cats were indeed fearless, and given the conditions they were exposed to and had to contend with, they demonstrated remarkable survival skills. In 1905, the ship’s cat on board the Ortona got itself in a spot of bother after becoming trapped inside the ship’s refrigeration chamber. The ship’s engineer discovered the unfortunate cat 32 days later, when he heard faint meowing from the chamber. Puss was found emaciated and had lost parts of an ear and its nose due to frostbite. The ship’s refrigeration unit was filled with Australian meat and butter headed for England, out of reach for a creature with no opposable thumbs; the Sunday Times reported that the cat had survived by licking the condensation from the chamber’s walls.7 In 1928, Peter, the ship’s cat on board the Jervis Bay, survived a trip of several kilometres from the port of Sydney to Watsons Bay on the vessel’s rudder after missing the final whistle signalling the ship’s departure. Peter was forced to swim to the departing ship and cling to the rudder until he was found by one of the crew. The Evening News reported that Peter slept soundly for the remainder of the journey to Melbourne and could not be enticed from his quarters. 8

The ship’s cat frequently escaped injury or death due to pluck, luck and intelligence, but death and injury still occurred. In 1948, ship’s cat Smoky fell 10 metres down the number three hold of the SS Bundaleer Smoky lost several teeth and received severe bruising to her back. Ships’ cats often fell overboard or down holds and became trapped in and among cargo. Many ships’ cats also survived shipwrecks, often saved by the crew. On 9 September 1950, the Melbourne Herald reported that fireman Andrew ‘Smudger’ Smith ‘grabbed’ diminutive puss Snookums and whisked her to safety when their ship, the Empire Gladstone, hit rocks off Haycock Point near Merimbula on Tuesday 5 September. 9

Many ships’ cats were fearless, and given the conditions they were exposed to and had to contend with, they demonstrated remarkable survival skills

Ship’s cat in a specially made hammock, HMAS Kanimbla, c 1939–45. Naval Historical Collection, Australian War Memorial 300848

Able Seaman K Wilkins of HMAS Australia with one of the ship’s cats, 1946. Argus newspaper collection of photographs, State Library of Victoria

Many understood how valuable a ship’s cat could be to the day-to-day operations of a seagoing vessel, and the ship’s crew often went to great lengths to ensure the wellbeing and safety of their feline crew members. Smoky, who took a dive down the number three hold, was nursed back to health by the cook and some of the crew, who fed her milk and ‘regularly bathed’ her. Furthermore, if a ship’s cat could no longer sustain a life at sea, the crew would often go to great lengths to find alternative lodgings. In 1947, the ship’s cat on board the Mahia was injured. Her ‘owner’, John Spurling, petitioned the Melbourne Age to help find her a new home onshore. In response, Spurling and the Age fielded more than 40 telephone calls from prospective carers.

The ships’ cats helped minimise and eradicate vermin, but the crew also valued them for their loyalty and companionship. Of Smoky, the cook told the South Western Times in 1948, ‘we were all very concerned about her injuries because she is the cleanest and best pet we have ever had’.10 Flinders said of Trim that he was a favourite of everyone on board.11

Ships’ cats were also often recruited as mascots, and some were assigned quasi-official roles. In 1940, ship’s cat Bosun was photographed surrounded by smiling naval reserves stationed at the Royal Australian Naval Depot in Brisbane (see page 56). Bosun was described as ‘no ordinary cat’ and was given an ID tag to identify him as a member of the ‘fighting forces’.12

The mainly male crew on board seagoing vessels cared for and showed deep respect and commitment to their feline crew members in various ways

Men from the Naval Reserve with their mascot, a black cat named Bosun, c 1940. Argus newspaper collection of photographs, State Library of Victoria

Two ship’s cats on HMAS Nizam have a hammock to themselves. Negative by G Silk, c 1941. Australian War Memorial C35355

The mainly male crew on board seagoing vessels cared for and showed deep respect and commitment to their feline crew members in various ways. They assigned specific quarters for the cats to sleep in, fashioned hammocks for them to nap in, prepared special dinners for them, and worked their cats’ feeding schedules into the rhythm and flow of the ship. The human crew cared for them when they became sick or injured. When John Spurling found a home for the Mahia ’s ship’s cat, Bosun, he prepared a travel bag for him, a sack made of sail canvas. The Age described Spurling as an ‘ordinary man’, yet he showed extraordinary kindness and care toward his feline shipmate.13

Matthew Flinders stated that exposure to a supposedly dauntless human crew influenced Trim’s extraordinary characteristics. Yet the presence of cats like Trim and many others invariably shaped the behaviours and attributes of men who were fortunate enough to encounter them. Moreover, the ship’s cat provided men with ways to give and receive love. The ship’s cat helped the male crew to cultivate practices of care and affection. As maritime historian Sari Mäenpää argues, animals like the ship’s cat provided a safe space for men to love and be loved.14

In Trim’s tribute, Flinders included an epitaph for his beloved cat to be inscribed on a monument dedicated to him. Part of the epitaph reads, ‘many a time have I beheld his little merriments with delight, and his superior intelligence with surprise: never will his like be seen again’.15 For decades after Trim’s untimely demise, many more ships’ cats would delight and surprise their human shipmates and be loved and adored in return.

1 Although Flinders’ manuscript is dated from 1809, Philippa Sandall and Gillian Dooley note that at least two earlier drafts exist. See Phillipa Sandall and Gillian Dooley (2019), ‘Introduction’, Trim: The Cartographer’s Cat, Matthew Flinders, Philippa Sandall and Gillian Dooley, Bloomsbury Publishing, London.

2 Matthew Flinders (1809): ‘A biographical tribute to the memory of Trim’, in Flinders, Sandall and Dooley, ibid, p 16.

3 Ibid, p 49.

4 Ibid, p 16.

5 Ibid

6 Ibid.

7 ‘Remarkable cat story’, Sunday Times (Sydney), 19 November 1905, p 8.

8 ‘Peter the cat’, Evening News (Sydney), 6 February 1928, p 13.

9 ‘Freighter aground’, The Herald (Melbourne), 9 September 1950, p 2.

10 ‘Real “sea cat’’’, South Western Times (Bunbury), 16 September 1948, p 8.

11 Flinders, op cit, p 17.

12 ‘‘‘Bosun’’ finds new home on shore’, The Age (Melbourne), 3 December 1947, p 3.

13 Ibid

14 Sari Mäenpää, 2016. ‘Sailors and their pets: men and their companion animals aboard early 20th-century Finnish sailing ships’, International Journal of Maritime History 28(3): 480–95.

15 Flinders, op cit, p 50.

Dr Jodie Stewart is a university tutor from the New South Wales south coast and (potentially) Australia’s first cat historian. Since 2023, she has been researching what our history would look like with cats in the centre, and how cats and humans have shaped each other.

Our December campaign

Endeavour and sensory-friendly mornings

For our end-of-calendar-year campaign, the Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation is seeking support for two important projects: the maintenance of Endeavour, and the delivery of inclusive programs for children and adults with hidden disabilities.

Image Rhiannon Hopley

THE MUSEUM GREATLY VALUES the generosity of our members and supporters. In July this year, we raised close to $30,000, which will make a significant difference to what we can achieve in refurbishing our Learning Centre. Thank you!

For our end-of-calendar-year campaign we are seeking support for two important projects: the ongoing maintenance of Endeavour as a working vessel and the delivery of inclusive programs for children and adults with hidden disabilities.

In February, Endeavour will sail to Hobart for the 2025 Australian Wooden Boat Festival, with further voyages being planned for later that year. Your gift will contribute to the ship’s maintenance ahead of these voyages.

We are also seeking support to expand our ‘sensoryfriendly mornings’. It is estimated that 16 per cent of Australians have a hidden disability such as autism, energy disorders, mental health conditions or sensory impairment. For these people, noise, crowds and unfamiliarity can be a barrier to visiting museums. As a result, with the assistance of Sunflowers in Sydney (a program funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme and designed to increase community participation), the museum has developed a special program to address these barriers.

When people book into a sensory-friendly morning, they are sent a detailed information pack so they know what to expect. On the day, museum staff work to create a calm, supportive environment. Soundtracks are turned off or down, additional lighting is put in place and a quiet space is provided. If there are special activations, participants are taken behind the scenes to meet the performers so they can see how things work, making the experience less intimidating.

There are a number of ways to support our end-of-calendaryear campaign. You can donate:

• online at sea.museum/donate

• by direct deposit: BSB 062 000 Account Number 16169309 with your surname as reference

• or by phone to the Foundation Office on 02 9298 3777.

All donations are tax deductible. Thank you for your support.

At other times, visitors can hire a sensory backpack for themselves or their child. This provides free resources to reduce the sensory overload that can be a feature of exhibitions. The pack includes headphones, sunglasses, a torch to use in dark areas, a magnifying glass and a notebook.

The sensory-friendly program has been running since 2019. Many Sundays are booked out, with participants making repeat visits. As one parent wrote of last summer’s Octopus Garden:

The ocean sounds are calming, the lights are low and there is plenty of space to take time … We had such an amazing experience. The staff and hosts were perfection.

Another, coming to the museum with her children, including her four-year old autistic son, commented: This was probably the first enjoyable museum visit we have had … The staff was very friendly and engaged … and it was a great opportunity to connect with another family and share our experiences. It was also enjoyable because, knowing that the children present had special needs, no one was judgmental of the running around, loud screams and bumping into people that tends to prevent us from visiting places that are too crowded.

Currently, resources allow us to run the program one morning a month. We are seeking your support to increase the number of sensory-friendly days and, potentially, to extend the program to include a late afternoon or weekend session for neurodivergent adults.

Please give generously. Every donation makes a difference.

Summer program

In the theatrical installation Superluminal, children can investigate a world of interactive light.

Keep up to date

Our summer program is still being revised and expanded as Signals goes to press, so for dates, times, prices and all the latest information, please check our website: sea.museum

Image Patch Theatre

A summer of exploration

Holiday activities for all the family

The summer sun is right around the corner, but here we’re getting ready to dive into the marvellous and mysterious depths of the midnight zone. So put on your dive suits and plunge into a program packed with adventure for all ages.

LAST SUMMER WE WELCOMED almost 60,000 visitors to our festival-style Wonderwater program. This year we’re inviting people to make the museum their underwater playground, a space that everyone is welcome to explore. There will be super submersibles, deep-sea discos, luminous theatre shows and more.

The exhibition Ultimate Depth: A journey to the bottom of the sea will make its debut. It’s the perfect companion for James Cameron – Challenging the Deep in their mutual exploration of the vast, largely unexplored deep sea. It’s a place that has long captured our fascination with its other-worldliness, and both exhibitions allow visitors to see just what extremes of pioneering technology, determination, engineering and adventurous spirit are needed to get a glimpse into this watery abyss. The exploration doesn’t stop at our exhibitions. Young visitors can become scientists and adventurers in Superluminal, an exciting new theatrical installation brought to you by Patch Theatre. The gifted team at Patch brought us the wildly successful Sea of Light in 2022 and are well known for their popular children’s theatre shows Mirror Mirror and Wonderverse

In Superluminal, children receive a colour-changing lantern to investigate Patch’s world of interactive light.

Aided by a guide, they can create their own imagined creatures, sail them down a winding ‘waterway’ into illuminated islands, bring them to life with recorded sounds and spectacular lighting, and capture their fantastical shadows on a magical glow wall.

Co-designed with children, scientists and First Nations artists, Superluminal feels like being transported back to childhood where everything seems sprinkled with the possibility of magic. Both grown-ups and kids can expect to be equally enchanted by this new interactive.

On water, visitors can climb aboard our submarine, tall ships and navy destroyer and admire other historic vessels floating in our picturesque harbour. There are knowledgeable volunteers and a dedicated fleet crew on board to talk all things sailing, ships and the sea.

But that’s not all on the waterfront. To mark 100 years since Lars Halvorsen and his family of boatbuilders migrated from Norway to Australia, we will be celebrating this milestone with a remarkable display of Halvorsen boats on our newly restored Heritage Pontoon, highlighting the beauty and exceptional craftsmanship of the Halvorsen family in varied vessels. The Halvorsen Centenary Flotilla will be from Friday 10 to Wednesday 22 January, with all vessels on display during this time.

Our ever-popular Kids on Deck sessions combine art-making, science experiments and creative play. ANMM image

Classic Halvorsen cruisers (seen here at a past Classic and Wooden Boat Festival) will

to the

in January for the Halvorsen Centenary Flotilla. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

If you dive a bit deeper, there’s much more to uncover at the museum – especially for the lovers of lost worlds and LEGO® bricks. In response to the enormous popularity of Brickwrecks and Great Southern LEGO ® Reef, we’re bringing back everyone’s favourite colourful building blocks. But what are we building this time? What’s waiting below the surface? It’s a world of grand cities now submerged beneath the waves. Admire mystical sunken city builds or get hands-on and create your very own!

In our adventurous mission through the depths, we’ve well and truly reached the midnight zone now, where alien-like creatures glitter with bioluminescence like the lights of a disco – a Deep-Sea Disco! Young dancers can join us on selected days to shimmy like a sea-pig, hop and hustle like a hatchet fish, twirl like a vampire squid and glitter like an anglerfish. There will be free face-painting, dress-ups, themed crafts and photo-ops with some zany deep-sea creature roving characters. So come along in costume and get ready to groove on the ocean dancefloor.

As well as these fantastical new programs, we also have a line-up of familiar family favourites. With art-making, science experiments and creative play, the Kids on Deck space is a beloved dedicated kids’ area where creativity

sparks in an explosion of paper, paints, pastels and stickytape. A stop by the Cabinet of Curiosities to get hands-on with museum objects and artefacts is a must for curiousminded little ones. And why not pick up a kids’ activity trail from the front desk to guide young museum goers through the galleries with fun puzzles and prizes.

We also offer an array of bookable programs. In Mini Mariners, under-fives can sing and dance their way through the museum on a themed tour with our early learning educators. Tweens can learn an exciting new skill with talented professionals in our full-day creative workshops, and videogame lovers can take their skills beneath the harbour waves to pilot an underwater drone in their own private session.

There are boatloads of hands-on interactive and immersive activities this summer. These programs continue to sustain and grow our family audiences, encouraging visitors to embrace the museum as a space for intergenerational learning, live conversations, play and discovery.

So, get ready to plunge into a full day of family fun and learning as you traverse the deep sea right here at the museum.

We can’t wait to see you there!

Annalice Creighton, Family Programs Coordinator

return

museum

19 December 2024 – 2 February 2025

Message to members Events for summer

JOIN US at the Maritime Museum for a packed season of exhibitions, programs and events. And remember while you are on site to pop into the Members Lounge for tea, coffee or a refreshing cool drink (check opening hours on the day).

We are always adding new events, especially for our members, so remember to follow us on Eventbrite to keep up to date with all the new activities.

Also, did you know that the next issue of Signals magazine will be the 150th edition? To celebrate this milestone, we will be holding a special event for our members and looking back at some of the stories and people who have made Signals one of the most popular and enduring magazines from a cultural institution anywhere in the world. So look out for more details about that coming soon.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer. For those of you who celebrate, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and to everyone, all the best for the New Year.

Looking forward to seeing you at the museum in the near future.

All the best

Matt Lee, Manager, Member and VIP Relations

Postcard depicting paddle steamers on the Darling River at Wilcannia, 1906. Image ANMM Collection 00017011

Unless otherwise noted, talks are free for members and one guest. Book launches are free for all guests.

Bookings are essential.

Email memberevents@sea.museum and tell us which event you wish to attend, and who is coming. Or book through Eventbrite, phone us on 02 9298 3777, or scan the QR code below.

For all other events, please see sea.museum/ whats-on/events or sea.museum/kids

Online activities for kids sea.museum/kidscraft

Play, create, experiment! Have fun at home with easy creative activities and printable downloads for children. There are puzzles, colouring, crafts and much more to keep the kids and grandkids amused over the summer break.

Speakers talk

100 Years of Halvorsens

2–3.30 pm Saturday 18 January

Halvorsen boats hold a special place in the hearts of many Australians. Vessels by Lars Halvorsen and his sons were renowned for their innovative design, quality construction and distinctive styling. Join us to celebrate 100 years of Halvorsen boats on Sydney Harbour.

Presented by Gillian Lewis of the museum’s volunteer Speakers Group.

Members free / Non-members $10

Plan by Lars Halvorsen of a Norwegian fishing vessel, 1919. Image ANMM Collection ANMS1151[010]

On the water

Australia Day harbour cruise

10.30 am–3 pm Sunday 26 January

Join us on Australia Day for a relaxing time on the harbour and a chance to watch the iconic Ferrython from the comfort of our exclusively chartered vessel. Some of the details of this event are still being finalised, so mark the date in your calendar and check our website or Eventbrite for further information.

Member adult $135, non-member adult $149; child (15 and under) $120; member family (2 adults, 2 children) $470

Evening edition

Space: There and back again

6–7.30 pm Thursday 20 February

Distances in the universe, even those in our own solar system, are beyond most people’s comprehension. This talk playfully leads the audience across the mindbogglingly large cosmic scale, from Earth and its neighbouring planets, the nearest stars and our own Milky Way, to galaxies near and far, and eventually to the edge of the observable universe.

Presented by Prof Richard de Grijs of Macquarie University.

Members free / Non-members $10

Exclusive tours

Inside the National Maritime Collection

10.30 am–12.45 pm alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays

Our behind-the-scenes VIP tours are an opportunity to study and hear about objects that are rarely seen by the public. The tours run for about two and a quarter hours and finish with a cup of tea or coffee in our Members Lounge.

Members $30 / non-members $40. Check Eventbrite for dates and booking. See areas and items normally off-limits to the public on our collection tours. Image ANMM

Author talk

Ship of Death by Jane Smith

2–3.30 pm Saturday 15 February

When 276 poor British emigrants sailed away from Plymouth on the ship Emigrant in April 1850, seeking a better life in Australia, they knew nothing of the ordeal that lay ahead. For four terrible months at sea they endured cramped and squalid conditions, insufferable heat, bitter cold … and a mounting death toll from the dreaded disease typhus.

When the Emigrant arrived in Moreton Bay, the nightmare continued. For three long months in quarantine at Stradbroke Island, the immigrants’ hopes were raised and dashed repeatedly.

Free for all attendees

Speakers talk

Riverboats of the Murray 2–3.30 pm Wednesday 26 February

After they first crossed the Blue Mountains in 1813, it took many years for the British settlers to determine the final destinations of the inland river systems. In 1829 Charles Sturt finally navigated the river system from the Murrumbidgee to the mouth of the Murray. This illustrated presentation will trace early pioneers of the river trade and the colonial politics that affected their enterprise. You will be introduced to many of the riverboats and their crews as well as to the day-to-day hazards that they faced.

Presented by Arthur Pearce of the museum’s volunteer Speakers Group.

Members free / Non-members $10

Exhibitions

Ajiex Dharma’s image of a peacock mantis shrimp, taken in Bali, Indonesia, was Highly Commended in the Fine Art Photographer of the Year category. Image © Ajiex Dharma

Ocean Photographer of the Year 2024

Now showing

The Ocean Photographer of the Year exhibition features more than 100 beautiful and thoughtprovoking images from some of the world’s best ocean photographers.

THE IMAGES ARE SELECTED through an annual competition presented by Oceanographic magazine and Blancpain, attracting amateur and professional entrants from across the world. The Australian National Maritime Museum is excited to show the winners and finalists from the competition. The photographs reveal the full spectrum of ocean life both on and under the water, including imagery of wildlife encounters and seascapes and beautiful interpretations of the human–ocean connection.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/oceanphotographer

James Cameron: Challenging the Deep Now showing

Encounter the deep-ocean discoveries, technical innovations and scientific and creative achievements of underwater explorer James Cameron.

Created by the Australian National Maritime Museum’s USA Programs and supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund. Produced in association with Avatar Alliance Foundation.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ james-cameron

Inundated:

Photos of the Lismore Floods by Natalie Grono Now showing

When Lismore and other towns in the New South Wales Northern Rivers district were swept away in early 2022, during the worst floods seen in decades, photographer Natalie Grono captured the extent of how this catastrophe affected the community and its people.

Many Australians only experienced the floods through the news, from a macro perspective, far removed from the waters. Natalie Grono’s photos were taken on ‘ground zero’, recording the personal anguish the waters caused and the forces of nature at play.

A Graphic Tale of Shipwreck: Rediscovering the South Australian Now showing

Australian maritime archaeologists have partnered with German virtual design experts to re-create the 1837 wreck of the barque South Australian as a stunning graphic novel and an immersive diving experience. These depictions, plus artefacts from the shipwreck site, allow visitors to virtually explore the ship and reveal the detective work that uncovered its story.

Artwork by Professor Holger Deuter (University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserlautern, Germany) brings to life the terrifying tale of South Australian ’s loss. sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ south-australian

Image © Holger Deuter

Bridge to the Future

Closing soon

In March 1924, the New South Wales government signed a contract with English firm Dorman Long & Co to build a steel arch bridge across Sydney Harbour. At the same time, a Special Service Squadron headed by the pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, steamed into Sydney Harbour. This exhibit showcases a beautiful architectural painting commissioned by Dorman Long, capturing the winning design for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

This is the first time the work has been exhibited in Australia.

Chains of Empire Now showing

This exhibit explores what happened when former slave owners across the British Empire were compensated to free their enslaved workers. What were the financial, cultural and human consequences when former slave owners arrived in the Australian colonies?

Enslaved women on a tobacco plantation in Virginia by Benjamin Henry Latrobe (detail), c 1798. Courtesy Maryland Center for History and Culture, 1960.108.1.3.21

Mäna and Bäru: The Sea Country of Guykuda Munuŋgurr Now showing

An installation of 19 sculptures of fish and other marine creatures by Guykuda Munuŋgurr, representing species found in his Garrthalala homeland in northern Australia. Guykuda crafts his shapes out of the bush timber that surrounds his remote homeland. Many of the species represented in these works are depicted in the museum’s internationally significant Saltwater Bark paintings.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ mana-and-baru

HMB Endeavour cannon

Now showing

A small display of artefacts associated with Lieutenant James Cook’s famous HM Bark Endeavour. In June 1770, 48 tonnes of material, including six iron cannons, was jettisoned from Endeavour in a successful attempt to save the ship after it ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. One of the cannons is on display, along with some of the ballast. Cannon on loan to the museum courtesy of NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ endeavour-cannon

Travelling exhibitions

Brickwrecks – sunken ships in LEGO ® bricks

Vasa Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

Until 6 January

Featuring large-scale LEGO ® models, interactives and audiovisuals, Brickwrecks explores some of the world’s most famous shipwrecks, including Vasa, Batavia, Titanic, Terror and Erebus

Developed and designed by the Western Australian Museum in partnership with the Australian National Maritime Museum and Ryan McNaught.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ brickwrecks

Cats & Dogs – All at Sea Cairns Museum, QLD

Until 22 February

In a seafaring life from which families and children are usually missing, and are often very much missed, pets provide a focus for emotions and affection.

Sydney photographer Sam Hood went aboard countless ships between 1900 and the 1950s. He took hundreds of photographs of crew members as souvenirs of their visit or to send home to families. This selection of images shows how much pets meant to many seafarers.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ cats-and-dogs-all-at-sea

Crew members with pets, c 1910s.

Samuel J Hood Studio ANMM Collection 00023639

The Wharfies’ Mural

Now showing

For the first time since it was donated in 1997, the entire Wharfies’ Mural is on display at the museum. The mural, painted from 1953 to 1965, expresses the history and political philosophy of the Waterside Workers Federation and other maritime trade unions. Its subjects include the struggle for the eight-hour day, anti-conscription, a general strike and the fight against Fascism.

sea.museum/whats-on/exhibitions/ wharfies-mural

Image © Maritime Union of Australia, reproduced with permission. Gift from Maritime Union of Australia

Voyage

to the Deep

Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia, USA

From 25 January

Based on French author Jules Verne’s 1870 classic, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, the exhibition brings to life the adventures of Captain Nemo, his fantastical Nautilus submarine and his mythical world. Kids can venture through the world below the waves, including the octopus’s garden with its giant clamshell, a giant squid to slide down and a maze of seaweed to wander through in the kelp forest. They can also explore the lost world of Atlantis.

flyingfishexhibits.com/exhibitions/ voyage

Bidhiinja – Restoring our oyster reefs

Touring regional New South Wales

Oyster reefs were once abundant along our coastlines, but today only 1 per cent of reefs remain around Australia. This unique exhibition combines First Nations knowledge and Western science and is a collaboration between the NSW Department of Primary Industries –Fisheries (DPI) and the museum. It explains the forgotten history, benefits and First Nations relationships with oyster reefs in Australia – and why NSW DPI wants to bring them back.

Partner: NSW Department of Primary Industries – Fisheries

Learn, Think, Connect

The Workers’ Educational Association, or WEA Sydney, has been an outstanding leader in community-led adult education for over a century. Hundreds of thousands of people have undertaken courses in history and literature, learnt languages, participated in the arts, and explored music, philosophy, wellness and travel. For one day, two days or a whole term, there is something for everyone.

WEA Sydney tutors are experienced professionals who offer stimulating, friendly and inspiring learning.

Join face-to-face classes and workshops in the heart of Sydney, near Town Hall at 72 Bathurst Street, or try our online sessions. The summer 2025 program is packed with wonderful classes –enrolments are open now.

Live to learn and learn to live with WEA! For more information go to our website at weasydney.com.au or phone us on (02) 9264 2781.

A new muse

DEEPSEA CHALLENGER back home for the first time

IF MUSEUMS ARE ABOUT ‘THE REAL THING’, then from early December we will have the privilege of displaying the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible in our Tall Gallery as the centrepiece of a new exhibition titled Ultimate Depth: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the five zones of the ocean, from the daylight zone at the surface, all the way to the hadal zone, 10 kilometres down. On the way they will encounter the changing environment and inhabitants from the top to the bottom of the sea and the technologies we use to measure, explore, see and understand them.

This will be the first opportunity visitors have to see the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER in real life. It was built in secret in Leichhardt, Sydney, by James Cameron and an international team of ‘dedicated, like-minded, brilliant misfits’, including Sydney’s Ron Allum.

In DEEPSEA CHALLENGER in March 2012, Cameron became the first solo person, and only the third overall, to land in the deepest known point of the hadal zone in the Mariana Trench, where he traversed the environment and collected specimens over two and a half hours on the bottom.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the five zones of the ocean, from daylight at the surface to the hadal zone, 10 kilometres down

James Cameron emerges from the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible after his successful solo dive to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean. The dive was part of DEEPSEA CHALLENGE, a joint scientific expedition by Cameron, the National Geographic Society and Rolex to conduct deep-ocean research. Image Mark Thiessen/ National Geographic

DEEPSEA CHALLENGER begins its journey to the abyss, ten kilometres below the surface. Image National Geographic

Visitors travelling between the zones in the exhibition will see specimens, manganese nodules and a hydrothermal chimney recovered from the depths of the ocean, as well as the cameras, towed vehicles and bottles scientists use to map and sample the ocean.

As you dive deeper into the ocean, light disappears and pressure increases. Creatures adapt, and it becomes impossible for humans to survive without help. Test your knowledge with our pressure and light interactives and see if you can build your own deep-sea creature that would survive in the abyss. Learn about the mysteries of the ocean through the manganese nodules – which science has just discovered produce ‘dark oxygen’ – and medicines sourced from the sea. Moves to understand the ultimate depth have sparked innovation and discovery, courage and tragedy. There is much more to be done and understood. Start your journey here.

The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER is on loan from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with Avatar Alliance Foundation. Its display is supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

James Cameron – Challenging the Deep is developed by ANMM in collaboration with the Avatar Alliance Foundation. Supported by the USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

James Cameron – Challenging the Deep returns to the museum

From October to January, our exhibition James Cameron – Challenging the Deep returns from its world tour for a short season before departing for Queensland and beyond. This totally immersive and updated journey into the creative mind of James Cameron features artefacts from his career as both ocean explorer, inventor and filmmaker, from The Abyss and Titanic to Avatar – the Way of Water, and ocean expeditions to document amazing ocean phenomena, shipwrecks and the Mariana Trench.

A billion dollar benefit

The economic impact of unlocking the skills potential of migrants

IMAGINE THE INCREDIBLE CREATIVITY, ingenuity, and innovation that are currently locked inside the 621,000 migrants with skills, experience and education going to waste. People we already call friends and colleagues, but who have so much more to give.

These were the reflections from Craig Foster AM at the Australian National Maritime Museum in June, as SSI launched the latest Billion Dollar Benefit report. The billion dollar benefit is the huge economic potential we could realise if skilled refugees and migrants in Australia worked in their fields of expertise.

Right now, almost half (44 per cent) of the migrants and refugees in Australia are working in roles below their skill level. The research, an Australian first, found that the country would benefit from an average of $9 billion each year in economic activity if permanent migrants worked in jobs that matched their skills at the same rate as Australian-born workers.

Craig Foster; Sam Matti (Billion Dollar Benefit (BDB) Ambassador); Tharani Jegatheeswaran (BDB Ambassador and SSI Board Member); Lisa Annese (Diversity Council of Australia CEO); Chantal Mousad (BDB Ambassador) Dan Hunter (Business NSW CEO); Dane Moores (SSI Head of Strategic Relations); Richard Feledy (Allianz Australia Managing Director).

02 The latest research from the Billion Dollar Benefit campaign was launched in June. Pictured on the cover of the report is Anastasia Kachurovska (BDB Ambassador, a former refugee from Ukraine).

Images SSI

This would also plug critical skills gaps, while providing sustainable employment pathways for newcomers to build fulfilling lives and careers. It’s an all-round win.

On World Refugee Day, 20 June, more than 100 community, business, union and political leaders gathered at the museum alongside skilled professionals from refugee and migrant backgrounds to discuss the report’s findings and find common solutions to address the skills mismatch.

Settlement Services International (SSI) is a proud long-term partner of the museum and works to deliver a range of human services that connect new arrivals and people from diverse backgrounds with opportunities –including settlement support, training and employment.

For years, SSI has known that the under-utilisation of skills and qualifications was an issue for migrants and refugees. Now, for the first time, we can quantify just what we as a country are missing out on.

SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis said Australia’s migration program was designed to attract international talent, particularly to address national skills shortages, but the research showed that of 621,000 under-utilised migrants, three out of five entered through the skilled migration program. Addressing the under-utilisation of their skills would benefit not just migrants but the whole economy – there would be an increase in total employment and wages across the Australian labour market and improved productivity across industries.

This full-day summit involved insightful presentations, workshops, panel discussions, a press conference and live radio. It offered opportunities for people from refugee backgrounds to share their experiences and for everyone to connect and work together towards tangible change.

The Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon Brendan O’Connor MP, gave a pre-recorded address and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, the Hon Andrew Giles MP, chaired a panel.

To unlock this significant economic potential for all Australians, several systemic barriers need to be addressed: fixing the overseas skills and qualification recognition system, tackling labour market discrimination, improving English language support for newcomers, and targeted policies to address the specific barriers for female migrants.

The report was commissioned by SSI, conducted by Deloitte Access Economics, and jointly supported by Allianz Australia, Business NSW, Business Western Sydney and LinkedIn.

For more information, search ‘SSI Billion Dollar Benefit’.

Naushin Khan, Head of Corporate Partnerships and Philanthropy, SSI

Seavoice

A website of science and stories

THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE about the Seavoice website is that it’s beautiful. In an age when we all spend so much time on various websites, it’s rare to come across something that looks markedly different, especially in a good way. But this does – right from the title sequence, it’s stunning.

The site describes its mission as:

In a world where the impact of climate change on our oceans, rivers, and lakes is becoming increasingly evident, Seavoice aims to provide a beacon of hope. Through thought-provoking articles, captivating stories, and insightful interviews, this digital platform sheds light on the intersection between culture and climate.

It goes on to say:

Curated by academics on the frontline of the ocean climate crisis, this non-profit digital platform amplifies the voices, research, activism, and art of the people who work, live, and survive by bodies of water.

The stories are presented via themed volumes (for example, Volume 2 is titled ‘Community’ and Volume 4 is ‘Blue Tech’). There are currently four, with no doubt more to come. Each volume has a ‘welcome article’, and then 10 or so features. The features vary in length, but all include beautiful images. They cover a wide range of topics from across the world, from rowing to restoring mangroves, from Cornwall to California. There’s bound to be something that grabs you, and the website is available in both English and Spanish.

Unlike when assessing a book, this reviewer has not read the whole thing, as there’s just so much on offer. So far, I have particularly enjoyed ‘Rowing the Atlantic: beyond adventure’, written by Sara Brewer, the oldest woman to row the Atlantic, and ‘The ocean in our minds: a journey to Pitcairn Island’ by Jason Cleland, Research Assistant, Changing Oceans Research Group, University of Edinburgh.

I was also intrigued by: ‘Silenced Seavoices: the stolen, looted, and hidden histories of our oceans’ by Dr Arturo Rey da Silva. It starts with a poem with the opening lines: Be wary before the ocean It remains cryptic However intrepid you are and later argues:

Just as a person’s childhood, relationships with their parents, or first friendships are essential to understanding the adult individual, the sea cannot be understood without its past.

The volumes are also being produced as a hard-copy annual that you can order if you prefer to read offline or share with others.

Just as interesting as the articles are the people who wrote them. The site’s contributors page asks each to introduce themselves and answer two questions: ‘How do you connect with water?’ and ‘What fuels your love for the ocean?’.

Seavoice is funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation as an activity of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. It describes itself as:

more than just a magazine; it is a call to action. Together, let us raise awareness, ignite conversations, and empower individuals to make a difference.

It’s not entirely clear how empowering it is, at least not directly. There are no obvious prompts to sign up and do anything, except contact them about collaborations or subscribe to their newsletter. But you can tell that this is a site created by people who love, care for and understand the ocean and are keen to share their passion. Seavoice has a lot to say, and is well worth ‘listening’ to.

www.seavoice.online

Reviewer Em Blamey is a creative producer at the museum. She is currently developing an exhibition on crocodiles, which is planned to open in Brisbane in late 2025, before coming to Sydney in 2026.

The features cover a wide range of topics from across the world, from rowing to restoring mangroves, from Cornwall to California

A fisherman volunteering his boat during a clean-up event in Koh Phangan, Thailand, carries the nets back to shore. Image © Tania Kanchanarak

The village of Fairbourne, built on low-lying land in Cardigan Bay, Wales. Image © David Roberts

Serials at sea Maritime history through magazines

Think you’ve explored every avenue for your maritime history or family history research? What about the historic periodicals held by the museum’s Vaughan Evans Library? Many of our maritime magazines provide information and insights found nowhere else. Karen Pymble introduces two of them.

Blue Peter

THE BRITISH JOURNAL Blue Peter ran from 1921 to 1939, when it was subsumed into The Trident, which ran until 1957. Under both names, it holds a place in British naval and maritime history for many reasons.

Blue Peter is tied to British naval tradition. Its name comes from the blue-and-white maritime signal flag (signifying the letter ‘P’), which was historically flown by ships to advise of imminent departure. The flag’s symbolism reflects the journal’s focus on readiness, discipline and life in the Royal Navy.

The journal’s alternative name, Trident, emphasises the publication’s connection to British naval power. The trident, often associated with Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, represents naval dominance and Britain’s long history as a major maritime force.

The journal has historical significance through its historical accounts, insights into British maritime expeditions, and chronicles of naval battles and life aboard ships. This documentation provides a valuable perspective on both the operational and personal lives of naval officers and sailors.

Blue Peter is not only a source of naval news and updates, but also a cultural artefact that documents the Royal Navy’s role in British society, empire-building and global influence.

Its combination of naval tradition, historical documentation and cultural significance ensures that Blue Peter stands out as a notable journal.

The Shipbuilder and Marine Engine-Builder

This British journal began as The Shipbuilder when it was first published at the start of the 20th century. Focusing on ship construction and related technologies, it catered to professionals in the shipbuilding industry, offering a platform to share knowledge and updates in ship construction. In the 1920s, the publication expanded, adjusting its title to The Shipbuilder and Marine EngineBuilder. This change reflected the broader focus on both the design and construction of ships, as well as the development of marine propulsion systems.

As a trade journal, The Shipbuilder and Marine Engine-Builder catered to the shipbuilding and marine engineering industries. It had a role in documenting the evolution of shipbuilding and marine technology during a period of rapid innovation. Its pages span the development of steam and diesel engines,

as well as advancements in ship design and the construction of naval vessels.

The Shipbuilder provided technical details, drawings and articles on various aspects of ship design and construction, including materials, shipyard techniques and propulsion systems. The journal had a strong focus on marine engines, showcasing developments in steam turbines, diesel engines and gas turbines. It became a valuable resource for engineers and naval architects. The journal published detailed case studies on specific ships, often featuring line plans and technical specifications that cannot be found in any other source.

detailed record of technological advances and ship designs, and may well be a unique source for plans or interior photographs of the vessels you are investigating.

The journal has a comprehensive scope. It is not limited to British waters, but covers worldwide maritime news, history and developments. This breadth makes it a unique resource that shares a broader view of the maritime world. The Shipbuilder is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the shipping industry, maritime history, naval affairs and the seafaring life.

Karen Pymble is Library Co-ordinator at the museum’s Vaughan Evans Library. To inquire how the library’s unique resources such as maritime periodicals can assist your research, contact the library at library@sea.museum or on 02 9298 3731.

During World War I and World War II, The Shipbuilder covered British and Allied efforts in naval construction. The reportage during these periods offers insights into the challenges and solutions faced by maritime industries under wartime conditions. After World War II, the journal continued to document the transition from traditional steam engines to more modern diesel and turbinepowered vessels, as well as the rise of container ships. Each issue of The Shipbuilder remains valuable for researchers and historians studying the evolution of shipbuilding and marine engineering. It provides a 01 Blue Peter is one of some 300 maritime journal series held by the Vaughan Evans Library.

Independent researcher David Stuart harnessing the rich resources of the Vaughan Evans Library to fuel his studies of Australian colonial history and American maritime trade with the colonies. ANMM images

Darwin’s sailor saviours

A peacetime naval triumph

THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY (RAN) earned heartfelt and enduring praise for its rapid response when Cyclone Tracy destroyed much of Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974 (see ‘Operation Navy Help Darwin’, page 14). Among those stranded amid its ruins were members of the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS), known collectively as Wrans. Their stories form the basis of this engaging – and harrowing – account.

Author Patricia Collins was a newly trained Wran when posted to Darwin in November 1973. Trained as a wireless operator, she was based at HMAS Coonawarra, a shorebased signalling station of World War II vintage. Collins was just 19 and less than two years into her service when Tracy devastated large parts of the city. ‘A fierce blast knocked me off my feet and I landed on the deck,’ she recalls. ‘The rushing water swept me along the corridor, feet first’ (p 69). And this was inside her quarters at Coonawarra!

Rock and Tempest does an excellent job of balancing a tight range of historical sources against the recollections of naval personnel who survived the cyclone and subsequent recovery efforts. It’s an effective formula, especially as so many RAN and WRANS members based in Darwin at that time were in their twenties, full of vigour and resilience – up to a point. As Collins herself found, many who made it through the cyclone’s immediate impact eventually succumbed to its aftermaths, either emotionally or physically.

A substantial part of the narrative relates experiences aboard the four Attack-class patrol boats in Darwin harbour that violent night (HMA Ships Advance, Assail, Attack and Arrow). Their fate is described in detail, presenting a particularly empathetic tale of Lieutenant Bob Dagworthy, master of Arrow. His boat was lost with two hands after being smashed into Stokes Bay Wharf. Expecting to face a court martial, Dagworthy found instead that a board of inquiry aboard HMAS Melbourne (II) recommended he ‘should be immediately posted back to command to demonstrate our total confidence in him’ (pp 226–7).

Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy and its Aftermath

By Patricia Collins, published by Hachette Australia, 2024. Softcover, 311 pages, illustrations, index.

ISBN 9780733650239

RRP$35.00 VEL 994.295 COL

Naval personnel proved valuable in restoring essential services and clearing up the hardest-hit suburbs. The human impact of finding those who died – including sailors and their families – comes home in Collins’ telling. Just as potent are recollections of the nauseating stench of refrigerators filled with putrid food. Yet naval clean-up details ‘put in eleven- to thirteen-hour days, Monday to Saturday, for the duration of Operation Navy Help in the head and humidity of Darwin’s wet season’ (p 221).

This is a timely and lively account. Many who responded to the crisis 50 years ago are now in their seventies. Moreover – as Collins points out – not all have survived to the present day. The trauma of the cyclone and its aftermaths, coupled with prevailing social norms at the time, led to unhealthy consequences for many Tracy veterans. Many felt they could never really share their experiences, as those who weren’t in Darwin could not comprehend its obliteration. Their passing makes Rock and Tempest an even more important record of the cyclone, half a century after its angry tumult ceased.

Reviewer Dr Peter Hobbins is the museum’s Head of Knowledge.

A travelling exhibition produced by the Australian National Maritime Museum in association with the Avatar Alliance Foundation. Supported by the museum’s USA Bicentennial Gift Fund.

Recent additions to the Vaughan Evans Library

Each month we add new works to our library across a wide range of topics, including naval history, immigration, diverse local cultures, ocean science, river stories, Australian history, school textbooks and titles for kids. We also offer a variety of maritime, genealogical and general research databases. Check our library catalogue, schedule a visit and enjoy our wonderful new books. Visit sea.museum/collections/library

Sami Bayly

Surprising sea creatures: amazing evolution stories 591.77 BAY

John Blaxland and Clare Birgin

Revealing secrets: an unofficial history of Australian signals intelligence & the advent of cyber 940.485 BLA

Shauna Bostock

Reaching through time: finding my family’s stories 305.89915 BOS

Mike Carlton

Dive!: Australian submariners at war 359.32570994 CAR

Alexander Clarke

Tribals, Battles and Darings: the genesis of the modern destroyer 359.32540942 CLA

Louise Crossley (ed)

Trial by ice: the Antarctic journals of John King Davis 919.89 DAV

Brian Cuddy and Fredrik Logevall (eds)

The Vietnam War in the Pacific world

959.704331823 VIE

Tom Davin (ed)

The Rudder treasury: a companion for lovers of small craft 623.862 DAV

Richard de Grijs and Andrew Jacob

William Dawes: scientist, governor, abolitionist: caught between science and religion 994.4020924 DEG

Kristie Patricia Flannery Piracy and the making of the Spanish Pacific world 910.45 PIR

Andrew Fowler

Nuked: the submarine fiasco that sank Australia’s sovereignty 359.9380994 FOW

David Gibbins

A history of the world in twelve shipwrecks 910.453 GIB

Christian Grataloup with Charlotte BecquartRousset

A history of the world in 500 maps 911 HIS

Mark Hodkinson

Opening the gates of hell 940.53185 HOD

Robin Knight (ed)

Salt horse: memoir of a maverick admiral, Claude Lionel Cumberlege 359.0092 CUM

Max Leonard

A cold spell: a human history of ice 306.45 LEO

Mat McLachlan Krithia: the forgotten Anzac battle of Gallipoli 940.426 MCL

Kevin O’Brien

Defending Middle Head: a short history 355.7099441 OBR

Stefan Panis Shipwrecks of the Dover Straits

910.4530916336 PAN

Royal Australian Navy HMA Ships Maryborough (II) & Larrakia (II) decommissioning: Darwin –28 September 2023 359.94350994 HMA

Hampton Sides

The wide wide sea: imperial ambition, first contact and the fateful final voyage of Captain James Cook 910.924 COO

Silentworld Foundation Montevideo Maru: finding the final resting place of Montevideo Maru 28 March–27 April 2023

(Report to unrecovered war casualties – Army) 910.45309953 SIL

Rebecca Simon

The pirates’ code: laws and life aboard ship 910.453 SIM

Stephany Evans Steggall Rescuing Árni 823.92 STE

A life dedicated to maritime heritage

Vale Graeme Andrews OAM MA

19 September 1938–25 September 2024

GRAEME ANDREWS OAM MA , a distinguished maritime historian, writer, researcher and seaman, passed away recently at the age of 86. Born in the Sydney suburb of Gordon, Graeme dedicated his life to preserving Australia’s maritime history. His deep connection to the sea and Sydney Harbour, combined with his vast knowledge, made him one of the country’s most respected authorities on maritime heritage.

Throughout his career, Graeme made significant contributions to the preservation of marine heritage and was involved in several pivotal maritime projects. His early efforts were crucial in supporting the Sydney Heritage Fleet and he contributed to the Australian National Maritime Museum. His writing and research played a role in the recovery of TSS Earnslaw in Queenstown, New Zealand, and the rescue of the tall ship James Craig , as well as the preservation of other naval and maritime history that might otherwise have been lost.

His passion for the sea began early in life, sparked by daily ferry trips to school and his proximity to Sydney’s wartime harbour activities. At 17, he joined the Royal Australian Navy and later became the master of Sydney ferries, pilot craft and firefighting vessels, always documenting the maritime world around him.

In his last book, The Watermen of Sydney: Memories of a Working Harbour, Graeme chronicled the transformation of Port Jackson through remarkable photography and

oral histories of those who lived and worked on the harbour. His creation of the Sydney Working Harbour photography collection was a crowning achievement, in which he digitised, identified and donated approximately 10,000 images to the City of Sydney Archives. This marked one of the largest and most significant photographic contributions of its kind, offering future generations invaluable insight into Sydney Harbour’s history as a working port.

Graeme published over 20 books during his career, including The Ferries of Sydney, Australasian Navies, Pictorial History of Ferries, South Coast Steamer and Veteran Ships, among others. His dedication to maritime history extended to editing Sea Heritage and authoring other maritime articles and publications for historical societies and museums. Despite leaving school at 15, he went on to earn a Master of Arts in History in 1990 and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2000 for his services to maritime history.

Sydney City Archivist Mark Stevens praised Graeme’s photographic donation as a ‘living memory’ of Sydney’s maritime past. Lord Mayor Clover Moore also emphasised the importance of his work, saying, ‘Without people like Graeme, many memories and visual histories would be lost’. Dr Kevin Fewster CBA AM FRSA , former director of the Australian National Maritime Museum and Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, described Graeme as ‘a doyen of the maritime community’ with ‘an encyclopaedic knowledge of his field’.

Graeme’s creation of the Sydney Working Harbour photography collection was a crowning achievement

01 Graeme Andrews, c 1993. Image courtesy Carina Andrews

02 Graeme Andrews and his wife, Winsome. Image courtesy Andrews family collection

Beyond his professional life, Graeme was a devoted family man and an advocate for social justice. He was a loving and grateful husband to Winsome Andrews, a proud father to his daughters Carina McSweeney and Gillian Andrews, and a dedicated grandfather to Elyse, Patrick, Ren, Mitchell and Aiden.

Late in life, Graeme discovered that he was autistic, a revelation that helped him understand the social challenges he had faced throughout his life. He was a natural teacher, compassionate mentor and professional presenter, and spoke at National Maritime Museum events, but had difficulty in social and informal groups. He credited his autism for his exceptional memory, his deep passion for maritime history and his remarkable ability to catalogue vast collections of historical photographs. Graeme also acknowledged the unwavering support of Winsome, who helped him to navigate social situations, and whose guidance was crucial to his success.

Graeme Andrews’ profound contributions to maritime history, through both his writing and photography, ensure that his legacy will be cherished for generations to come.

Gillian Andrews

In 1993 Graeme Andrews donated over 15,000 negatives to the National Maritime Collection, with a focus on speedboat racing in the eastern states between 1965 and 1980. His collection can be viewed at collections.sea.museum/en/collections/188638/graeme-andrews

A tribute to Tasmania’s first mariners

Bass Strait Maritime Centre’s groundbreaking new exhibition

SITUATED ON THE SHORES of Devonport’s Mersey River in northwest Tasmania, the Bass Strait Maritime Centre (BSMC) plays a vital role in preserving and promoting the region’s rich maritime heritage. Renowned for celebrating the stories and artefacts that shaped the area’s seafaring legacy, BSMC proudly unveiled its new permanent exhibition, Our First Mariners – Sea Country People, on 12 September.

This exhibition marks a historic milestone as the first in the centre’s 51-year history to highlight the maritime heritage of Tasmania’s Aboriginal community. Through models, interpretive displays, artefacts, oral histories and storytelling, the exhibition reveals the deep connection between the palawa and pakana peoples and Tasmania’s waterways. It highlights how they crafted canoes, fished, established transport routes, and sustained their communities long before European settlement.

A window into First Nations maritime history

The Our First Mariners – Sea Country People exhibition invites visitors to engage with Tasmania’s Aboriginal maritime culture in an intimate, contemporary setting. Central to the exhibition is a meticulously crafted model of a paperbark ningher (canoe) by Uncle Rex Greeno, a pakana Tasmanian Aboriginal elder from Cape Barren Island. Rex’s work highlights the importance of traditional Tasmanian watercraft in daily life – hunting, transporting fire and connecting people with their island environments.

Another standout exhibit is a pair of traditional shell necklaces by Aunty Lola Greeno, an award-winning pakana shell necklace-maker. Lola has contributed a short choker made of Tasmanian penguin and maireener shells, and a magnificent, ceremonial-length necklace crafted from black crow and king maireener shells.

Dave Gough, Uncle Rex Greeno, Joanna Gair and Aunty Lola Greeno at the launch, with of a model ningher (rolled-bark canoe) made by Uncle Rex.

The exhibition is further enriched by the storytelling of Dave mangenner Gough, a respected Aboriginal elder and cultural practitioner, whose story underscores his family’s maritime connections and the enduring significance of sea country to Tasmanian Aboriginal identity.

This exhibition serves both as an educational resource and a cultural tribute, raising awareness of the unique maritime practices of Tasmania’s First Nations people.

A community-driven launch

The launch of the exhibition was a heartfelt celebration attended by key figures from the local community and beyond. Among the guests were Tasmanian Aboriginal elders, Devonport Mayor Alison Jarman, representatives from the Devonport City Council, and prominent members of Tasmania’s arts and culture sectors, including Uncle Rex Greeno, Aunty Lola Greeno, and Dave mangenner Gough. Museum staff and volunteers were also present, including Museum Coordinator Joanna Gair, who served as MC for the event.

Also in attendance were supporters and sponsors, including Dakota Dixon, First Nations Program Officer at the Australian National Maritime Museum; Michele McGinty, from TasPorts; and Mark Hosking, from the Tasmanian Maritime Museum, Hobart.

Curatorial vision

The exhibition was initiated by BSMC’s Museum Coordinator, Joanna Gair, who joined the museum in 2022 with a determination to address the missing component of Tasmanian Aboriginal maritime history within the centre’s narrative: ‘I was concerned that we were not telling the whole story of our region’s maritime history,’ she said.

To complement the three core exhibition pieces, Joanna commissioned a suite of Tasmanian blackwood exhibition furniture from renowned Tasmanian timber designer Toby Muir-Wilson, including a tall convex cabinet with blackwood veneer and a blackwood dais filled with green and blue ‘sea glass’. Additionally, Tasmanian graphic designer Emma Duncan created a set of removable panels to display interpretive materials, against a backdrop of contemporary wall graphics, allowing for easy updates as new research emerges. Joanna Gair noted:

A key element of the exhibition’s design and storytelling is the custom-made furniture and interpretive materials. These pieces not only enhance visitor engagement and learning but also deepen the historical narratives that are central to the exhibition experience, and I love how they contrast against the traditional museum fixtures.

Incorporating QR codes within the exhibition to connect directly to Tiagarra, Devonport’s Aboriginal Cultural Centre, and The Orb website is an unconventional yet impactful feature. This approach provides museum visitors, particularly school groups, with seamless access to a wealth of learning resources, allowing them to further explore Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage beyond the exhibition itself.

Support through a MMAPPSS grant

Our First Mariners – Sea Country People received financial support from the Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme (MMAPSS) in the 2023–24 round of grants. These grants are facilitated by the Australian National Maritime Museum and funded by the Australian Government. As Joanna explains: The MMAPSS funding was pivotal in bringing the exhibition to life. The funds enabled BSMC to collaborate with Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural practitioners, ensuring that the stories and artefacts were accurately and respectfully represented, and to create an engaging exhibition setting, befitting the significance of the subject matter.

Looking to the future

Bass Strait Maritime Centre’s Our First Mariners –Sea Country People exhibition is not only a milestone for Devonport’s maritime museum, but also for the preservation of Tasmania’s Aboriginal maritime heritage. With strong community support, the exhibition is set to become a cornerstone of BSMC’s offerings, educating both locals and visitors about the island’s deepest maritime roots.

Joanna Gair, Museum Coordinator, Bass Strait Maritime Centre

For more information on the Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme, or to apply for a grant in the 2025 round, see www.seamuseum/grants

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.

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SYDNEY EXHIBITION SPONSOR

Signals 149

Bearings

From the Director

Contents

Summer 2024–25

Acknowledgment of Country

Tasmanian Hydrowood

New life for drowned forests

A timber company with purpose

$10,000 maritime history prizes

Calling for nominations for biennial awards

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Operation Navy Help Darwin

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A window into First Nations maritime history

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