Signals, Issue 99

Signals

Cover: The museum’s replica of James Cook’s HMB Endeavour saluted Cunard’s flagship Queen Mary 2 between Cape Duquesne and Cape Nelson, just outside Portland, Victoria, as the tracks of both vessels’ circumnavigation of Australia crossed on Sunday 4 March 2012. Endeavour was 10 months into her 13-month circumnavigation (see the voyage report on page 4). Photographer James Morgan, reproduced courtesy of Carnival Australia.

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3 Bearings

From the director Kevin Sumption

4 Endeavour comes home

Both captain and shore crew reflect on the replica’s historic 2011–12 circumnavigation of the continent

12 Building bark canoes

Museum-led workshops contribute to a revival and a new understanding of Indigenous canoe technology

18 Collections to connections

A museum intern works with our Indigenous Communities collection

22 On the rocks

Rock art around Australia records centuries of ships that have navigated to and in Australian waters

30 Members message and winter events

Winter exhibitions and attractions

36 The first Australian tugboats

A new book records, for the first time, the complete story of this vital industry

44 Two Fremantle maritime museums

Two sites of the Western Australian Museum showcase the state’s maritime history and archaeology

50 Tales from the Welcome Wall

A child migrant lived Kingsley Fairbridge’s dream

52 Australian Register of Historic Vessels

New additions to this important national database, from a classic Fife cutter to bark canoes

55 Readings

Shipwrecks; Broome pearling life; First Fleet art

60 Collections – exotic cigarette card

Annette Kellerman, the mermaid from Marrickville

62 Currents

20th birthday photo winners; AMMC conference

Bearings

Kevin Sumption

ya pulingina milaythina mana –greetings to all of you and welcome to our land

At the grand April opening of our winter attractions Fish in Australian Art and Remembering Titanic – 100 years, one guest speaker was godfrey lowe (left), the Australian grandson of the heroic Titanic fifth officer Harold lowe whose story was told in the last issue of Signals (No 98 pages 28–30). godfrey lowe shows director Kevin Sumption a gold sovereign carried on Titanic, given to his grandfather by a grateful surviving passenger. Photographer A Frolows/ANMM

On a chilly autumn morning, with a north-easterly gale blowing in our faces, the crew of the museum’s Endeavour replica and I received this heartfelt welcome to country from June Sculthorpe, manager of Health, Policy and Planning at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc. The original Endeavour, captained by James Cook on his voyage of scientific discovery in 1768–71, mapped the eastern Australian coastline for the first time, paving the way for the British settlement of Australia. Consequently, for many Indigenous Australians Endeavour remains a symbol of invasion and dispossession.

That morning our Endeavour had just completed ten gruelling days working down the west coast of Tasmania from Portland to Hobart, the 16th port of call on its epic 13-month voyage around Australia. As I stood on the quarterdeck I began to appreciate that the voyage had been more: it was a unique opportunity for us to use the replica to work with remote and regional communities, and in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to promote recognition and understanding of our shared history.

Crucial to achieving this was the museum’s partnership with the Australian Government on a national Indigenous pre-employment project, providing 39 berths across various voyage legs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to join in this unique experience and develop new skills. Working alongside Capt. Ross Mattson’s professional crew, our Indigenous crew members were trained in sailing and navigation techniques and I am delighted to learn that for many, this experience has already helped secure employment. Following their sea-time on Endeavour, Job Futures has been working closely with them to maximise their experience and find employment.

One of many stories of the voyage changing lives is Gary Fridolf’s. Gary sailed from Brisbane to Gladstone, and was touched by Endeavour’s message of reconciliation. ‘When we undertake the process of healing we walk in the

footsteps of our ancestors. For me, this journey was a chance to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors who experienced the arrival of the First Fleet, to heal and move on to a better place where all Australians can know and understand each other better. It was a chance to share some of my culture with others,’ Gary said.

The centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander maritime history to the museum’s mission is further exemplified by the first-ever national conference on Indigenous watercraft, Nawi – Exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft, that we developed and are hosting here from 30 May to 1 June 2012. Nawi is the Aboriginal word, recorded by early colonists, for the bark canoes that plied Sydney Harbour. From the bound-bark canoes of Tasmania to the double outriggers of Torres Strait, there is an immensely rich history of Indigenous vessels across Australia spanning thousands of years of maritime history.

The conference brings together Elders, community members and researchers from across Australia to share stories and information on Indigenous craft and canoe culture, with the aim of building a national picture, documenting watercraft-building techniques and their cultural significance. It encourages Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to share their knowledge and to pass on traditional methods and stories. It highlights how watercraft have been and remain integral in Indigenous culture, from travel and fishing to guiding, international trade and ceremonial use. The three days include practical demonstrations on construction techniques, storytelling, performances, lively seminars, discussions and film screenings.

The Nawi conference and Endeavour program highlight the museum’s commitment to working alongside Indigenous communities and demonstrate how our expertise, collection and programs can have a deep and significant impact on individual lives. 

HMB Endeavour behind the scenes

The Endeavour replica’s 2011–12 circumnavigation of Australia visited 18 ports around the country, and called for a monumental effort from her crew, museumbased staff, support personnel and volunteers recruited in every port. We asked one of them, project coordinator Holly Shalders, for her perspective on this epic project.

Having been intimately involved with the administration of HM Bark Endeavour’s 2011–12 circumnavigation of Australia since the time it was announced, I am extremely excited, proud and relieved that our replica of James Cook’s famous Whitby collier is very nearly back in her home port at the time that I write, safe and sound after her monumental voyage. It has been a fantastic project for everyone involved: those of us here in the office at the museum, her professional sailing crew, the shore crew and the many volunteers who have worked with us in so many of the ship’s ports of call, and the voyage crew as we call them – our customers who sailed as working participants. Endeavour is a special ship and has certainly garnered many more enthusiastic supporters during her voyage.

The role I have played as project coordinator was mainly behind the scenes, working closely with Endeavour voyage manager Trish Pascuzzo.

This included all the administration for recruiting the voyage crew, processing their applications and the medical checks they needed to have, their insurance and payments – not so glamorous, but extremely important in order to make sure we were completely squared away (to borrow from the language of tall-ship sailing) to take 40 people at a time sailing from port to port.

It has been a terrific task, both enjoyable and at times frustrating, but it has afforded me the opportunity to talk with people from all over Australia and the world, helping them to realise their life-long (or in some cases newly conceived) dream of sailing on a tall ship. They range from one of my earliest voyage crew, who not only turned up in a replica 18th-century officer’s coat but went on to handcraft vintage uniforms for our professional crew, to the young man who literally came running onto the wharf with his completed application just hours before we sailed from Fremantle.

Endeavour encountered fair winds and seas in the great Australian Bight last January on her voyage from Albany, WA, to Port lincoln, SA.

All photographs by ANMM staff.

I can scarcely imagine the number of photos now in existence of the ship and life aboard, taken from 15 April 2011 to 21 May

2012

clockwise from above:

Visiting Melbourne in April this year, Endeavour’s topmasts had to be lowered to allow the ship beneath the Bolte Bridge across the Yarra River, to reach the docklands precinct. Endeavour is accompanied by Enterprise under sail.

The museum’s support truck and its driver, staff member Craig lockwood, who circumnavigated the continent anticlockwise by road to deliver critical equipment – including gangplanks, ticketing and merchandise booths – to each port visited.

In June 2011 Endeavour’s complement enjoyed a visit to Middle Percy Island on the inner passage of the great Barrier Reef, where passing ships and yachts leave their name inscribed to record their visit.

Voyage crewmember Alison Boyes goes aloft between Hobart and Melbourne – the ultimate rite of passage for all newcomers to square-rig sailing.

Many of our amateur sailors have taken the time to email and say that, despite gale-force winds and seasickness, they had a ball.

My favourite part of the process has been when I actually met my voyage crew when they turned up on the wharf on departure day, or arrived in port after a passage. The former were always extremely excited; the latter usually tired but elated. It was always gratifying to be able to put faces to the names that have become second nature to me (it’s scary how many details your brain can hold onto).

In doing this I have also been lucky enough to travel to places I had never been, such as Darwin, Geraldton and Hobart, taking my turn as shore manager. I have really enjoyed getting to see the hard work come to fruition and the project come to life. I have also loved visiting smaller towns like Albany, where a tall ship is more of a novelty and the local community has welcomed us with open arms.

The reception we got was always fantastic and it ran the gamut from the local Council members to the schoolkids, and the members of the public who came to see her sail in. Everyone has been enthralled … although the cannon that is fired upon entering a port has given some people a fright. Interestingly the most common question was about one of the flags we fly. In some ways it’s curious that such details arouse attention; you might think the masts, sails, cannons etc would do a better job!

Endeavour sails under the old Red Ensign of the Royal Navy, as Cook did, and also the museum’s house flag. The one they have queried the most is the Torres Strait Island flag which many people aren’t familiar with. It’s flown in conjunction with the Aboriginal flag, every time we enter or leave a port. We have had young Indigenous voyage crew on board for most legs of the circumnavigation in a program run in conjunction with the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. This facet of the project in particular has been very rewarding, since sailing with us has literally changed some of these young people’s lives. These were reported in more detail in Signals No 96 pp 16–17 and No 97 pp 18–20.

The ports changed but the sentiments did not; we were always thrilled to be there and the locals were thrilled to host us. Very often coming in to port is a bittersweet time for the voyage crew.

Everyone is exhausted, yet nobody wants to say goodbye and move on; for most people who sailed with us this really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We have had some memorable occasions in all the ports we have visited and have forged very special bonds between ship and shore.

Most notably in this respect was our return to Fremantle in October 2011. The ship was built at Mews Road, Fremantle, from 1988 to 1993, begun as a Bicentennial gift to the nation. It was really exciting to bring Endeavour back to her birthplace and we got an amazing reception from the Fremantle community throughout our stay of nearly three months. The ship celebrated her 18th birthday and participated in the 2011 ISAF World Sailing Championships, part of the qualifying events for the 2012 Olympic Games, during which Endeavour did day sails and served as a sort of celebrity ambassador among much smaller boats. Her departure from Fremantle on 6 January was nothing short of spectacular, and marked an auspicious start to the second half of our circumnavigation.

For me there were many sleepless nights. Did I properly annotate that application with regard to a peanut allergy? Have I sent the correct boarding day details to my next voyage crew or will they be waiting on a beach in Broome rather than a wharf in Albany? We never had anyone actually miss their departure, though we were asked by one duo if they could charter a boat from a port in Western Australia and catch up with the ship two days out to sea. As cool and adventurous as it sounded, unfortunately it wasn’t feasible. They ended up swapping voyage legs, to our great relief. This extraordinarily complex project has gone very smoothly and has been a huge success in every respect, but this certainly would not have been the case without the assistance and hard work of many hundreds of people who have helped us along the way. From our regional volunteers, who acted as ambassadors for this amazing vessel after what can only be described as a crash course, to the port authorities who have bent over backwards to accommodate us, our security guards, ticket and merchandise sellers and exceptional shore crew, we have worked with some absolutely terrific people.

Working alongside our ship keeper, driver of the ANMM support truck and all round good egg Craig Lockwood, the people who packed and unpacked the truck and set up all the shore-side

It’s not every day that you get to see a piece of your history anchored off your hometown or firing her cannons as she comes in to port

infrastructure – it’s a bit like a travelling circus -- need a special mention. It was not just their elbow grease on windy, cold, rainy, steaming, parched or tropical wharves around the country, but their ability to untangle the labyrinthine puzzle that was the truck, and knowledge of how everything fits in just so. Their skills were critical for putting in the last minute things, which unfortunately are massive gangways and not so easy to squeeze into a gap! You might think the truck would get emptier as we travelled but funnily enough it has been the opposite. The truck is a marvel in itself – we are very fond of her, even though she completed the voyage without a name.

Our volunteers have been absolutely brilliant, another of the components that made this voyage possible. We gave them a half day of training and a small guidebook – which became their ‘bible’ – and then set them loose on the public to interpret the story of Cook’s voyage of discovery and the layout of the ship, when she is open to the public and in museum mode and the public boarded her. They provided much more than that, from making bickies for the crew to bringing in fresh foliage to set up as botanical specimens on display in the Great Cabin. Along the way we have met some truly lovely people and had some great laughs. They were a stellar bunch and I take my hat off to them.

The school visits have been an absolute highlight. There is nothing like reading the riot act to 40 noisy eight-year olds and then, when you have their attention, ask if anyone has a question – only to hear ‘Is Captain Cook on board?’ Or my recent favourite: ‘Was Captain Cook really a cook?’ Their delight at seeing a tall ship is something that we have marvelled at around the country; when you look back to your own fairly ordinary school excursions you can appreciate their excitement. We had well over 17,000 school children through and the vast majority were magnificent.

Another great facet of the project is the feedback I have received from the voyage crew. When I hear that they had an absolute ball and that the professional crew were inspiring, accommodating and caring, and they all respond that YES they would recommend a voyage to a friend, it brings a smile to my face – we must be doing something right! This is not to say it has been a picnic; managing the paperwork of 800 voyage crew sailing on 20 legs over a 13-month voyage with 18 ports of calls (not counting Sydney!) has been hectic. I have come to know their wives, husbands and children as well. We have spoken on the phone, exchanged cards and thousands and thousands of emails. It is a humbling experience to have played a part in delivering a dream to so many people.

Visiting schoolchildren aboard the ship during its stop in Darwin in August 2011.

A huge amount of credit must go to the professional crew. Since I began working for the ship I have been in awe of what they do, particularly the ones of about my age. They train to do something so romantic yet so completely removed from our modern lives and experience; they are quite exemplary. Early on I met some of my newfound friends on board one morning in order to climb the mast. Some had come to help, train and guide me; a few more had come to watch. I made it! Up the foremast and over the futtock shrouds. And that was while she was alongside – I cannot even begin to think what it would take to do that out at sea.

So while I have not taken part in the actual sailing, it has been epic to follow from the shore – from island hopping through the Whitsundays to cruising the Kimberley coast, or the ship’s recent rendezvous with the Cunard’s flagship Queen Mary 2 off the coast of Portland. I can scarcely imagine the number of photos now in existence of Endeavour and the life aboard her, taken from 15 April 2011 to 21 May 2012. This will be a lasting legacy of the voyage that will in turn jog people’s memories in the years to come. Aren’t we lucky she’s so photogenic?

The museum’s goal with the circumnavigation was to extend our outreach to regional centres by sending our flagship to promote this hugely important part of our maritime heritage and our nation’s history. We are privileged to manage her and it has been a true joy to be able to achieve this important aim. As this great adventure drew to a close and Endeavour sailed home we realised just how valuable this has been, not only for the museum but for the country. It’s not every day that you get to see a piece of your history anchored off your hometown or firing her cannons as she comes in to port.

Thank you all, it has been a real adventure, even from this landlubbers’ perspective! 

Scarcely drawing breath or allowing the sails to dry after their return to the museum on 21 May this year, following the 13-month circumnavigation of Australia, Endeavour ’s master and professional crew put to sea again on 30 May 2012 to sail the replica of James Cook’s famous ship to l ord Howe Island to observe the Transit of Venus on 6 June 2012. The complement of new voyage crew has been selected by a special ballot from hundreds of eager applicants keen to make this historical 13-day round-trip voyage of 391 nautical miles (724 km) each way.

It was to observe a Transit of Venus occurring on 3 June 1769 that the British Admiralty despatched l ieutenant James Cook to Tahiti in the flat-bottomed, bluff-bowed ex-collier renamed His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour. Cook was a skilled celestial navigator who had impressed his superiors earlier in his career with an observation of a solar eclipse. The purpose of observing and timing the planet Venus in its rare passage across the face of the sun was to help astronomers to calculate the distance of the earth from the sun, which is a basic astronomical unit. After this task, of course, Cook’s orders sent him on in search of a missing southern continent. He circumnavigated and charted New Zealand, charted the unknown east coast of Australia … and we know the rest.

The rare transit event, when Venus passes exactly between e arth and our star, takes place at the irregular intervals of 105.5, 8, 121.5 and 8 years. e ach time it takes up to seven hours for Venus to make its way from one edge of the sun to the other.

The last Transit of Venus took place on 8 June 2004. After the transit on 6 June this year, you’ll have to wait over 121 years for the next one. The 2012 event will be visible in its entirety in our part of the world, starting in Sydney at 8.16 am (1st contact) and ending at 2.44 pm (last contact), and is well worth making arrangements to view. Seen through a suitably filtered telescope, Venus is a perfect, tiny black sphere, like a sesame seed upon a tennis-ball-sized disc of yellow. School groups visiting the museum that day will be able to view it – provided it’s not cloudy! JRM

An interview with Captain Ross Mattson

The responsibility for the welfare of the museum’s Endeavour replica and all her people fell squarely on the shoulders of Captain Ross Mattson during the 13-month Australian circumnavigation that was nearing completion as we went to press. We asked him for some reflections on this voyage that was the culmination of three years of intensive work for him and other museum staff in its development and planning.

What were some of the factors that went into planning the route and the timing of the voyage?

It was always going to be an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of Australia, for two reasons. First, we wanted to retrace Cook’s 1770 voyage northwards up the east coast of Australia. And secondly, going that way allowed us to take advantage of prevailing winds and the best seasons. So last year the south-east trade winds favoured the voyage up the east coast and across to Darwin, sailing through the tropics after the tropical cyclone season had passed. By summer we were in Perth, timed to coincide with their big preliminary Olympic sailing event. In late summer we crossed the Great Australian Bight, which can be very challenging, but the weather systems generally favour an easterly passage. Rounding Tasmania and coming home in autumn exposed us to some colder conditions and stiff rain in weather fronts.

What did it mean to you, as a seafarer, to be following in the footsteps of James Cook?

It really enthralled me going through the same waters up the eastern seaboard, closely following his path, anchoring

at some of his different locations. I was reading extracts of his journal on a daily basis, getting comparisons with his sailing and our sailing, notifying the voyage crew of every estuary and landfall that Cook sailed past, and how he named them. We were literally sailing in Cook’s wake, living it day by day. And we were sailing exceptionally well … at some stages it was a little bit hard to slow her down, having the prevailing wind abaft the quarter … a little bit too blustery at times.

We sailed through the inner and the outer reef, only about a mile away from where Cook entered and exited. We chose a little bit wider passage than Cook did, for safety reasons. Yes, we had the GPS and the charts and the engines to get us out of trouble, but it was nerve-wracking to make sure the ship sailed safely through that labyrinth. We sailed past Endeavour Reef, only 200 metres away from where Cook ran aground, and you just couldn’t see any water disturbance. The only reason I knew was because it was on the chart. I said to the voyage crew, it’s that little patch over there. A lovely experience was to climb up Lizard Island to be where Cook had stood looking for a way to exit the reef after repairing his ship. Even with Polaroid sunglasses it was hard to see the reef. Going to Possession Island off the tip

Some of the museum team critical to the success of Endeavour’s 2011–12 circumnavigation, left to right: voyage manager Trish Pascuzzo, Captain Ross Mattson and project coordinator Holly Shalders, author of the preceding article.

of Cape York [where Cook had taken possession of ‘New South Wales’ for King George] was an interesting exercise with huge tides and some uncharted waters. Tidal predictions weren’t completely accurate, and there was a huge wall of water where the currents meet. We had six knots of currents, and it was touch and go to land. But we were able to put people ashore. We left our own little time capsule there, everyone put something significant into the jar.

How did the 18th-century ship perform? What have you learned?

We’ve had a couple of surprises but nothing noteworthy, the ship has performed exceptionally considering the waters we’ve had to sail through. She’s a safe ship … and to use those immortal words of Cook, ‘No sea can harm her’! We came away from our Sydney docking with new standing rigging and freshly painted, and to maintain that the professional crew work constantly to keep the ship in a seaworthy state. We headed out straight away into some interesting seas … 35 knots at times. There was constant settling in and tightening up of the new rig, and in the tropics it just sagged and dripped tar because of the heat. In colder climates now, the tensioning has settled down somewhat. Going head to wind and tacking is interesting. It depends on getting the voyage crew trained … we wear ship all the time, but tacking takes more precision. That is a very rewarding experience when it happens. It’s nailbiting stuff, you can hear a pin drop on the deck when you’re getting the head into the wind and getting the sails ready for the next command, bracing yards on the next tack. Every person’s on deck working a particular line. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, but we’re definitely getting better at it, learning what sails work the best in what sea conditions. There are a few little tricks of the trade. You need boat speed, you really need to use your 550 tons of displacement to get her around. And you do need to be patient. I use the expression ‘hold fast’: you’ve got the boat speed, you need to hold on for the right moment.

What for you has been a personal highlight of the voyage?

Every voyage has had its highlights, it honestly has. But out of all the voyaging legs, marine life, whales breaching, marine turtles, beautiful sailing in the trade winds? It was when we had an unannounced arrival at Croker Island,

a remote Northern Territory Aboriginal community. We had some Indigenous voyage crew who asked if we could visit, because they had relatives living there. I said we can’t really do that, we don’t have permission. But there was no problem. We phoned up the elders on the satphone, and we were welcomed into this remote island off the top end of Australia, completely unannounced. The hospitality there was overwhelming. For me to see that isolated outpost of Aboriginal community up there was a very humbling experience. We had a chat to the school children … and I’m still receiving emails, the kids sent me painted Christmas cards and drawings of the ship.

What was your most heart-stopping moment of the voyage?

It was on the recent voyage up the east coast of Tasmania, from Hobart to Melbourne. We have been through some gales out to sea, pretty exciting stuff, so with a strong front coming through I decided to weather it at Port Arthur, a safe anchorage. I had an idea of what time the front was due and had standing orders to the anchor watch to wake me as soon as they saw the clouds come through. Within half an hour of the watchman calling, the wind had increased to about 30 knots. This was about 4.00 in the morning. Another half an hour and the winds were 50, gusting to 60 knots. We were in a desperate situation with anchors out, engines deployed, dragging towards the Isle of the Dead, which was dead to lee. It was dark, there was horizontal rain, you couldn’t see anything in front of you, and I had the crew ready to cut the anchor cables … it was a very harrowing experience. But it all went well, I was able to get the stern into the wind and manoeuvre the vessel so we could get out safely at daylight. It was quite a demanding situation, yes.

As well as a core professional crew, the ship is handled by a new voyage crew who join, fresh and green, in each port. What does the voyage offer them?

In my preliminary talk I say that at the end of the voyage, I hope you will appreciate and have a bit of knowledge about 18th-century voyaging. That’s one of the key things that people walk away with … nothing but admiration for early maritime exploration. It’s challenging but very rewarding to mould all those people into participating watch members, and I’m proud of the way that my professional crew mentor them and achieve that … getting them trained up to sail the ship

That’s one of the key things that people walk away with … nothing but admiration for early maritime exploration

as Cook would have done 243 years ago. Safety is always paramount. It’s a bonding experience and the word comradeship comes up time and time again. All of the sailing participation, the cleaning, the maintenance, working in watches, it all makes for a very close community. I also have a program of lectures as we go along. The first one is understanding the rig, the naming of the mast, yards, spars, the design of the hull … why Whitby colliers were chosen by the Admiralty, what are the benefits and the drawbacks of a flat-bottomed hull. We go on to understanding the principles of 18thcentury sailing, what sails we set in what conditions, the balancing of the rig. I move onto meteorology, how we predict the weather, how to make good use of it. We talk about early navigation, dead reckoning and celestial navigation. I bought a blow-up globe of the world to demonstrate latitude and longitude and declination of the sun. And we carry out the noon shot. It’s a great experience for everyone to get the concept of looking through a sextant to measure the altitude of the sun. We’ve simplified the calculations so people can apply declination and altitude ... and there is your latitude, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. They come to understand why it was important, why the log book entries are from noon to noon. It makes them feel connected to the wonderful old traditions of navigation. We promoted these voyage crew places as being the voyage of a lifetime, and I hear that expression time and again as I shake their hand when they leave and they say it has, indeed, been the voyage of a lifetime.

And the rewards for you?

It’s been a three-year project, it was a lot of work for me and a lot of other people to get this up and running. For me it’s seeing the rewards that the museum, the voyage crew and the visiting communities are getting … but most of all, it’s bringing that ship home safe, with her future looking good. 

Building bark canoes a revival and

a new understanding

In the lead up to the museum’s conference Nawi – e xploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft (30 May–1 June 2012), ANMM curator David Payne led two workshops that investigated, in the most practical way, the materials and techniques of making such traditional vessels. These innovative outreach programs forged new collaborations and contribute to communities that are reviving the nation’s original canoe cultures.

Building a bark canoe: a raw and rough slab of material stands before you, challenging you to grab hold of it and form it. It’s worked in the open with water, fire, a few basic tools and just your bare hands. The connection to the material fresh from the land is intense.

This is one of the basic forms that constitute the origin of all boatbuilding. Here in Australia it is emerging from a relatively dormant period to be practised again, renewing a vital part of Indigenous culture. The museum is very much a part of this, providing practical help through recent experience that we have acquired of model making and full-sized canoe building. This has come about through research in conjunction with developing the Australian Register of Historic Vessels, our growing online database of the nation’s heritage craft, which has so far listed 21 bark canoes from various museum collections around the country. But equally or even more important has been experimentation in my spare time, in the garage and the backyard, building models and first prototypes that have begun to throw light on how things may have been done.

Two recent community workshops that we have run in NSW and South Australia have provided quite different opportunities and methods to instruct and share ideas with both Indigenous and non-indigenous practitioners. Hands-on canoe building goes right to the heart of the story, but it’s words that convey the methods and hold the plans from the past that can be used now and in the future. These skills and concepts were traditionally transmitted orally; today we record and pass them on by camera and keyboard.

Once again the key point was that the knowledge of their design and construction was handed on by word of mouth

In late October 2011, the museum awarded a grant through our Maritime Museums of Australia Project Support Scheme (MMAPSS) to the Budamurra Aboriginal Corporation at Ulladulla, NSW, allowing them to host a weekend workshop in January 2012. The project was a first step in restoring canoe building as an active part of south-coast Indigenous culture and included other south-coast communities. The grant allowed me to attend as a workshop facilitator, to share my research and recent building experiences, and to learn from them as well in a joint exchange of knowledge. The workshop took place at the home of the Ulladulla Local Aboriginal Land Council (ULALC).

Our objective was quite simply to make a tied-bark canoe, of the type known as nawi on Sydney Harbour where this term was recorded and where many early visual records of this type of craft appear. One is reproduced on page 59 of this issue of Signals in a review of Art of the First Fleet. Tied-bark canoes of this type were used by Aboriginal people all along the south-east NSW coast, and were recorded as far as Gippsland.

Bark is the key to it all, and this vital material was supplied by Forest NSW (FNSW) as part of their ongoing commitment to supporting Indigenous heritage. Over two days before the workshop Paul Carriage, Cultural Liaison Officer with the FNSW, together with his colleague Dave Mills, had felled four yellow stringy bark trees of a type that we have found works well for making canoes, and may well have been used in this region. The bark was then peeled off them, before being taken to a stream where the sheets were left to soak. This was hard work in steamy summer conditions.

Canoe makers gordon Campbell and Jonathan Hill front, Paul Carriage, David Payne, Tom Butler, James Andy and Cameron Nye at rear. Photographer D Payne/ANMM

It was Paul Carriage and his brothers Shane and Fred from the land council who had applied for the grant. They represented their community at the workshop along with Jonathan Hill and Gordon Campbell representing Vincentia High School and the Jervis Bay region, while Elder Tom Butler came up from Mogo Local Aboriginal Land Council with James Nye and Cameron Andy. Other people came and went throughout; it was a social time too, people joined in or just gave their encouragement as the group steadily turned sheets of bark into canoe hulls over the two days. Appropriately, all of it took place out in the open.

We started on the Saturday, up to our knees in a stream well off the main road, heaving three, four-metre-long pieces of heavy, soaking-wet bark up close to where Dave Mills and his FNSW State Forests truck were waiting. The sheets had been soaking overnight to retain their moisture and indeed to gain even more, which would help with the shaping later on. Once offloaded into the ULALC backyard, the first step was to invert the bark so that the stringy outside of the tree became the inside of the canoe. Then came the long, laborious process of peeling off the loose exterior bark, back to the good fibres that are tightly woven together and give the canoe its strength and form. There was a lot of area to cover. We were down on hands and knees with hatchets and other blades lifting ends to start a strip peeling, before standing

up to peel it back as far as it would go. Having come to an even, clean surface, both ends need further thinning down for about a metre – again by peeling – to make the ends easier to fold. This peeling back process showed the wet, resin-coated nature of the live bark, and it is this moist and supple feel that is vital to the process. Old dried bark is simply not suitable.

After a late lunch the fire was lit, the means by which we heated the ends to make them even more pliable, to help with the folding. Half an hour later when the flames had died, we put the first end over the hot coals. It picked up the heat quite quickly, almost to a point where you could not leave your hand on it. That was the temperature test; there are no gauges or thermometers in this technology. This was the time for the bark to come off and be laid down on the grass. On their knees two people, one on either side, grasped the bark at the edges and with two folds brought the sides in toward the middle. A third person lassoed it with a rope to haul the bundle tight, further compressing the ends and creating a final fold on the centreline. It’s a cooperative job for many hands: a fourth person then pierced the folds with a screwdriver to allow a peg carved from a branch to be hammered through, helping to secure the folds. Finally, we used wet strips of bark to lash the end together, and after repeating the entire process at the other end of the bark sheet, our canoe hull was formed.

It’s tough work and does not necessarily go to plan, but that’s what we were here to learn. Over the first afternoon we heated and folded ends to form two boats, and each end was an improvement on the last. Tears in the bark, uneven thickness at different points, and the difficult nature of a material that none of us were all that familiar with in this situation, all presented us with problems to work around. The first ends that we formed were uneven and not closing up well, but the next two started to look right. We made the fire wider to help make the heating more even and began to hose the ends lightly to reduce the drying out. Each end was part of a learning process, and that summarises the intention of the weekend. We expected mistakes and problems, but by making a series of attempts we hoped to learn and improve empirically, and that was happening. With a mixture of modern tools and traditional materials we went upwards on the learning curve.

Day two started in bright sunshine with a new fire going, renewed energy and more ideas coming from the group. One was to thin down the middle of the third sheet even more, as this was the area that was hardest to fold. Another suggestion was to dismantle canoe number one, reduce its width, cut off the daggy end and start it again. While we waited for the fire to heat up and then to settle down, Tom went down the road to cut some blueberry ash branches for the beams that we would need later on.

Sheet number three went on the fire and started to heat up, while underneath Paul started lunch preparations with potatoes wrapped in foil. The folds went well this time around, using longer strips of bark to make the binding easier. When we reheated and folded the ends of the first sheet from the previous day’s work we were now getting the result we wanted: a tight vertical set of folds neatly pegged and bound. The process was working. The physical nature of the work builds a healthy appetite, and plenty of potatoes were cooked then consumed as the morning went into lunch.

The last thing to do now was to secure and strengthen the middle of the canoes with cross branches and bark ties pulling it all together, to prevent the sides spreading apart. The re-formed first canoe also looked a bit thin on the sides, so we decided to add branches that would form gunwales, a feature that was not widely reported on tied bark canoes from this coast. Most records suggest these craft were reinforced by cross beams or frames only, though at least one or two reports observed canoes where the gunwales had been strengthened.

We cut down the blueberry ash branches that Tom had already de-barked, and tied them into place with smaller bark strips, trying different ways of sewing the bark through the bark sides and tying the various parts into place. Two hulls were completed over the afternoon before it was time to tidy up, take a group photo and call it a day.

The desired outcomes were achieved. The group had learned and improved with every step taken; it had gained invaluable experience with the material, recognising its qualities and how to take advantage of them, and everyone had shared ideas and methods. All of this was done by words and demonstration, repeating the original way in which knowledge was shared, where nothing was written down. There was great satisfaction all round in being part of this process and realising how much had been learned and could be passed on. It provided the group with a way forward to do this again within their own communities, learning and improving with each new canoe.

It’s working in the open with water, fire, a few basic tools and just your bare hands. The connection to the material fresh from the land is intense

left to right:

Dave Mills of Forest NSW beside one of the partially peeled yellow stringy bark logs.

Photographer Paul Carriage

Paul Carriage helps remove one of the barks that have been soaking in a stream overnight.

Photographer D Payne/ANMM

Paul Carriage tends the bark as it’s being heated, while potatoes cook underneath.

Photographer D Payne/ANMM

Cameron Nye and Jonathan Hill secure the end of a canoe with bark strips.

Photographer D Payne/ANMM

The third canoe with both ends folded and secured, ready for beams to be added, showing off the lovely golden colour of the bark. Photographer D Payne/ANMM

In both workshops bark quickly became a precious material; the canoes and models were handled with care and a great respect developed and took hold

It started with everyone sitting in a circle, acknowledging the land and its traditional owners. We then discussed the ethnographic and regional background of the craft, the loss of the canoe culture that once existed on so many of our waterways, and the diversity of craft around the country. The group then learned how to make rope from fibres, using a two-strand technique.

This involves twisting the top strand in the direction away from you, then bringing it back toward you and overlapping the bottom strand, and then repeating with the new top strand. This too became a social event as people sat in groups talking and rope making.

The group then went to work using samples of bark that Dr Keryn Walshe from the South Australian Museum had been able to source some days beforehand. Each type of model began with me explaining and demonstrating the construction method on a small piece of bark, then everyone chose a piece and attempted the process themselves, or worked in pairs. The approach worked: watching, listening and questioning, the students took in the ideas and quickly produced models, sometimes taking them apart and improving them at a second attempt.

Canberra. Christened a ‘shopping trolley’ by people from north-east Victoria where they had used a similar type of raft, a particularly fine example was carefully finished by one of the girls in the class. The last type that we built was a rolledbark canoe from Tasmania, a type recorded in detail in 1803 by French explorer Nichloas Baudin on the Géographe, on the east coast of Schouten Island. A replica example is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. For this, paperbark was substituted for the cork reed and stringy bark that were used by the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Once again the girls had the patience and dexterity for the last details, the binding at the ends, made from split palm fronds.

Throughout the two days the group learned about using the various materials in sympathy with their characteristics and performance. They also learned how to use and adapt whatever was available in the workshop’s own environment, seeking plants and their parts from the backyard and even the kerbside to make ties, ropes, caulking and support structures. We used the spikes of Phoenix palm fronds as needles, saved twigs and branches from the firewood pile to build rafts, all the time sharing ideas and results.

In March 2012 I went to coastal Port Noarlunga on the Onkaparinga River south of Adelaide, where I ran a two-day workshop building models of Australian Indigenous watercraft. The event was sponsored by Flinders University and coordinated by Dr Jennifer McKinnon, who lectures in the university’s Bachelor of Archaeology and Graduate Program in Maritime Archaeology. A group of ten archaeology and maritime archaeology students explored the construction, on a small scale, of different types of Indigenous Australian watercraft that have been recorded in earlier times and in some cases preserved in museum collections. We used this activity to discuss these crafts’ background, plus the many aspects of Indigenous culture that are expressed through such a diverse variety of canoes and rafts.

This was a workshop for the students with a few differences too: again it was outside the classroom in a backyard; it was hands-on; it used naked fire; and there were no handouts or notes to take home. Once again the key point was that the knowledge of their design and construction was handed on by word of mouth; demonstration followed and the students took home the information, in their heads and in their models.

On the first day the group built models of tied-bark canoes from the south-east coast of Australia, and also the derrka or nardan of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, made famous in the movie Ten Canoes and used to gather goose eggs on swamps and billabongs. For the tied-end nawi style of the type that the Ulladulla workshop had produced, ends were thinned, folded and pegged, then framed up with supporting branches made of twigs. For the Arnhem Land derrka, the ends were formed between two sticks in the ground and then sewn with fibres, just as they would be if making the fullsized craft. Once completed, these bark canoes were put over a small fire to dry them out and singe off the loose fibres. The smell of smoking eucalypt added to the ambience of the setting.

On the second day the group worked with branches to make a model of the Mornington Island walba raft, assembling, lashing the pieces together then disassembling again until an arrangement was achieved that held together well. Then using the same process, the students made a small type of raft used as a container when collecting food from the shoreline, based on a NSW coastal example that I had seen at the National Museum of Australia in

In both workshops bark quickly became a precious material; the canoes and models were handled with care and a great respect developed and took hold. This is a key element of Indigenous culture that is best appreciated from the practical approach of the activities in Ulladulla and Port Noarlunga, and the connection that this approach gives as you fashion a craft that comes directly from the land and what it has to offer. 

Nawi – e xploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft (30 May–1 June) is presented in association with Reconciliation Australia, supported by the National Film & Sound Archive. www.anmm.gov.au/nawi

clockwise from top: eight canoes and two rafts: the Flinders university group. Photographer Mark Polzer

David Payne uses the fire to dry out his tied bark model canoe. Photographer Jennifer McKinnon

A close up of the first derrka model, forming the bow. Photographer D Payne/ANMM

Tying the pointed prow of the first derrka model. Photographer Mark Polzer

Collections to connections insights of an intern

Museum internships provide valued experiences for museum-studies students, who can bring fresh perspectives and ideas with them. university of Sydney museum studies student Mariko Smith completed two internships here, working with collections data and developing web content. She reflects upon her time with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects held in the museum’s Indigenous Communities collection.

Many students of museum studies and art curatorship eagerly anticipate the practical component of their postgraduate course. The internship presents an opportunity to apply theory gleaned from textbooks and tutorials to practice at a real museum, gallery or cultural organisation. As a second-career Master of Museum Studies student, formerly a commercial lawyer, the prospect of exploring the museum sector firsthand was always going to be an exciting experience for me.

The internship programs in turn provide participating institutions with hands-on assistance and fresh insights into their programs, activities and services. With a set project brief, students are placed in a workplace with experienced practitioners in a particular field of focus over the course of 20 or 40 days. The student not only picks up valuable, on-the-job knowledge and skills directly from their supervisor and through carrying out the project tasks, but they also learn a lot simply by osmosis, from being in the thick of museum work – from listening to curators preparing exhibitions or watching conservators take objects out of storage, to catching a glimpse of a designer’s work on an exhibition display board.

this definitely was not all the Australian National Maritime Museum was about.

The then-director of the museum, Mary-Louise Williams, had often said that the Australian National Maritime Museum has been successful in interpreting maritime history in ways that are relevant to as many different people as possible. As an arid island continent surrounded by the seas, with rivers and lakes of great importance, there are many different maritime experiences to be told. These stories can help us to understand the development and identity of Australia as a nation. Although we hear about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in regards to land rights in history books and media, it is also important to acknowledge that sea rights – consisting of philosophies and practices imbued with strong physical and spiritual connections to water – are also significant for many Indigenous communities.

Search these artists’ work at www.anmm.gov.au/collections

When I heard from the museum studies internship coordinator that the Australian National Maritime Museum was looking for an intern to assist in its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander object collection, I was intrigued and more than a little interested. Although I had visited some exhibitions at this museum in the past, I was unaware of the extent of its Indigenous content. I had always thought of the museum in terms of its focus on the Western naval tradition, and more often than not images of ‘ye olde’ tall timber ships full of fancydressed European explorers would play through my mind. But after doing some online and onsite sleuthing, I learned that

top right: Billy Missi comes from Maluilgal country in Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait), descended from a respected generation of art practitioners and geographers. His works are held in a number of international collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cambridge Museum of Anthropology and the university of British Colombia. Photograph courtesy of the artist and KickArts Contemporary Arts

right: Mudhaw Warul (Sheltered Turtles behind the reef) by Billy Missi, 2007, hand-coloured linocut. eleven sea turtles hide beneath a clamshell, while men prepare to fish. This image was adapted for the logo of the museum’s conference Nawi – exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft. All items from the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Indigenous Collection are reproduced with the permission of the artists/makers.

left: Author Mariko Smith’s online work takes the museum’s Indigenous collection to ever-wider audiences. Photographer A Frolows/ANMM

What really appeals to me about museums is their capacity to become familiar spaces that can operate as meeting places

These messages clearly resonate in the museum’s Indigenous Communities collection, which holds more than 1,700 art, craft and ceremonial objects collected from a diverse range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia. A small selection of them are displayed in the museum’s gallery Eora –First People, representing a wide variety of maritime environments which had influenced the featured artists and makers in their choice of subject matter, media and materials. These include bark paintings created by Yol u artists that illustrate detailed maps of their saltwater country and the related body of Indigenous law in north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory; and intricate jewellery and water carriers made by Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) women using locally-sourced sea shells and sea kelp, respectively.

In my studies, I developed a keen interest in how objects are interpreted by museum practitioners, and how their intrinsic qualities – such as particular contexts, meanings, knowledge, histories, stories and significance – are then conveyed to the public. Physical display in exhibitions is traditionally the main mode of museum communications. Nowadays, however, public programs and the World-Wide Web are also integral components of the contemporary museum professional’s tool-kit. These considerations are especially relevant and interesting to think about in relation to materials of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage held in museum collections. All too often, they are viewed mainly in terms of their ethnographic and aesthetic qualities, when there is so much more to these objects than that.

My interest has been influenced not just by my academic research but is also a matter of personal significance, since I am a descendant of the Aboriginal Yuin Nation on the south coast of New South Wales. What really appeals to me about museums is their capacity to become familiar spaces that can operate as meeting places, where Indigenous communities can visit to (re)discover and celebrate their diverse cultural heritage. I remember recently reading about an unpublished report commissioned by the National Museum of Australia in 2000, titled Research Findings and Recommendations: Audience Research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. It referred to ‘the importance of museums’ potential to contribute to a sense of belonging, to act as a tool of empowerment and provide a forum for cross-cultural education’ for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Through their research, conservation and programming resources, museums are also quite well-placed and informed to promote an in-depth awareness and understanding of Indigenous peoples, cultures, histories and experiences for both non-Indigenous and Indigenous audiences.

During my first 20-day placement, I worked closely with the Indigenous Communities collection in the museum’s curatorial department with senior curator Lindsey Shaw. This project initially involved working with the collection records in the museum’s collection database system. A substantial component was to help review and organise image reproduction approvals from various sources that owned or had interests in the associated intellectual property, particularly copyright, such as the artists, makers and/or their representative art centres. This would enable the museum to reproduce images of the objects for non-commercial, museum-related purposes, such as record keeping and public access to its collection for the purposes of research and education, on the museum’s digitised, online collection database called eMuseum.

My second 20-day placement built upon my previous project brief working with the Indigenous Communities collection. It incorporated a new aspect of audience engagement through the museum’s online social media channels, such as its WordPress blog, Facebook and Twitter pages. Alongside my co-supervisor, the museum’s web development officer Carli Collins, we worked on sharing with the public

a special selection of traditional bark paintings, contemporary artworks and artefacts from the museum’s key collecting areas of Arnhem Land, Torres Strait Islands, South Australia’s Murray River and Tasmanian Bass Strait regions. I thoroughly enjoyed the online content development component of my project. Once the artist/maker and object records were reviewed and being updated in the system, and negotiations for image production permission were successfully completed, I was able to carry forward the preparation of public-facing material. This involved writing a series of short weekly project updates in the form of blog posts, which later included ‘Object of the Week’-style entries on two particular artists, and a Google Map prototype covering relevant locations.

In my intern’s blog, I wrote about Billy Missi, an Indigenous artist from the Torres Strait Islands, which are located between Queensland and Papua New Guinea. Billy is particularly well-known in Australia and internationally as a leading printmaker of the Torres Strait. The museum has eight linocuts that were created and printed by Billy in association with KickArts Fine Art Printmaking studio, Djumbunji Press in Cairns. These were displayed at the museum in last year’s NAIDOC Week exhibition, an annual event highlighting pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Billy’s linocuts are striking, being predominantly black and white with hand-painted splashes of blues, reds, yellows and greens. The subject matter of the linocuts show Billy’s interpretations of the maritime cultural heritage, life and traditions of Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait), as they have passed between Elders and young people on the islands over many generations, in the forms of art, dance, song, traditional knowledge and story-telling.

Using the traditional Zenadh Kes zig-zag patterning style, known as Uruy Dhangadh, which is inspired by natural objects such as animal bones and shell patterns, Billy portrays Torres Strait pigeons, turtles, interactions between Papua New Guinean and Zenadh Kes peoples and cultures, and the overarching influence of the cosmos on daily life in the region. These designs were then executed in the Western art medium of the linoleum block and linocut form of relief printing. When I first came across Billy’s work, I thought they were a fascinating combination of the traditional and contemporary, demonstrated in his use of symbolism, abstraction, narrative and

The idea is to emphasise that these objects have a life and presence beyond the museum and online space

printmaking techniques. The combination of the abstract and the literal, notably in the use of bold geometric shapes, effectively challenges the standard interpretations of what is Indigenous art. This promotes a greater appreciation and deeper understanding of the diversity in Indigenous artistic and cultural expression from across Australia – beyond the quintessential bark dot paintings or x-ray styles from the mainland.

Inspired by the cultural revitalisation efforts of Palawa women across Tasmania, I also blogged about the work of Palawa mixed-media artist Lola Greeno, whose shell jewellery, sea kelp and fibre work symbolise strong Aboriginal cultural identity, connections back to sea country and relationships between water and people. Lola’s country is Cape Barren Island, which is part of the Furneaux group of islands in Bass Strait, the body of water between Victoria and Tasmania. The ocean and beachside are key features of Lola’s artistic practice, and the materials she uses come from her local maritime environment. Some of her works are displayed in the Eora – First People gallery, and she was also involved in the tayenabe project, which featured in last year’s exhibition tayenabe: Tasmanian Aboriginal women’s fibre work, which travelled here from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Besides the blog, I combined my artist and object research studies and situated the content into a geographical context through the online Google Mapping tool. Although it is still very much a work in progress, we could already see in its early stages that it can be a very useful resource for visitors. By populating a map of Australia with ‘geo-tag’ location pins and

geographical data, we could demonstrate the breadth and depth of the museum’s Indigenous Communities collection. It would also connect the objects and artists/makers with the actual physical locations they are related to – whether the places they were made, the places that inspired or featured in the object, or places related to the artist/maker’s biographical information. The idea is to emphasise that these objects have a life and presence beyond the museum and online space, and especially for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, showing the strong influence of country on life and culture. It is also something that could easily be replicated for other objects and collections at the museum.

I developed the overarching theme ‘From collections to connections’ to signify the objectives of my web content development project. This aimed to convey a key message that there is much more to the museum experience for visitors beyond a museum’s physical site, presence and collections. I wanted to contribute towards bringing the museum’s records to life, and to show a greater appreciation of the rich and diverse connections many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have with water and the sea. 

Author Mariko Smith recently completed a Master of Museum Studies at the university of Sydney. As well as her internship, she also assisted the museum’s NAWI conference team. She would like to become a curator specialising in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage, and undertake further research into incorporating Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing into contemporary Australian museum practice.

above: Palawa artist and craftswoman lola greeno with one of her rice-shell necklaces. Photograph courtesy of the Launceston Examiner

top: Water carrier made in 2004 by lola greeno, using a cured bull-kelp pouch threaded onto two sticks. A twisted grass rope forms handles. opposite: Karkuran purika (laying eggs) by Billy Missi, 2008. linocut printed in black ink from one block. The print depicts a turtle by the water laying eggs.

On the rocks

ships at Aboriginal rock-art sites

Rock-art sites spread widely across Australia provide a rich record of culture contact and the fascination of Indigenous artists with the forms of vessels that have borne visitors and settlers to Australian shores.

Professor Paul Taçon of griffith university, Queensland, has made extensive field studies of this genre and has written this introduction to the subject for Signals.

Australia has one of the largest, most diverse and oldest continuous rock-art traditions in the world, with over 100,000 sites and millions of images. Rock art consists of paintings, drawings, engravings, bas reliefs, stencils, prints and designs pressed onto the surface in beeswax. They are located in rock shelters and caves, on boulders and on rock platforms widely distributed across Australia. Today rock art is still being encountered and recorded by researchers in remote, rugged environments. However, there are also sites in and around cities with thousands of them found in the greater Sydney region. Some are in quite well-traversed locations; others lie almost unnoticed on rock surfaces in parks and reserves.

Rock-art sites are often important spiritual and historical places where aspects of group and individual identity and experience have been recorded visually, but they were also used in many other ways. When Asian mariners visited Australia’s northern shores at different periods, and Europeans arrived to settle across Australia, Indigenous artists added new subjects and styles to their sites to reflect the changing environment they found themselves in.

One of the most common new additions to rock-art sites consists of images of the things that brought the new people to their lands, especially boats and ships – but there are also depictions of horses, aircraft, motorised vehicles, buggies and even bicycles. In many other parts of the world, indigenous peoples who were still making rock art when outsiders arrived – especially in North America, southern Africa, New Zealand and some locations in South-East Asia –also engraved, painted and drew representations of new transport, occasionally even showing trains (in South Africa) or a motorcycle (in Malaysia).

Only a few rock-art depictions of watercraft can be precisely correlated to particular known vessels

The widespread act of depicting ships, by far the most common new subject, reflects a fascination with the large range of watercraft navigating past and arriving upon traditional lands. They are often a form of transport associated with first contact. In Australia, this has led to some sites now containing dozens of paintings of ships, while one in southern Thailand has over 70. In many cases these depictions of different ships were painted over hundreds of years.

Australia has more rock paintings of non-Indigenous watercraft than any other country, with several hundred scattered around the coastline and some at sites as much as a couple of hundred kilometers inland. Particularly large concentrations can be found in parts of northern Queensland, on Groote Island and in western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, but there are smaller clusters in the Kimberley and Pilbara of Western Australia. Drawn and engraved ships can also be seen scattered across the greater Sydney region as far inland as Falconbridge in the Blue Mountains.

Most Australian rock-art ship depictions can be identified as being vessels of South-East Asian origin (for example various types of perahu, the Indonesian term for boat) or those of the European shipbuilding traditions including Australian colonial craft. Indigenous rock-art depictions were made from memory so often we see unusual combinations of features, making precise identification of vessels challenging and often impossible. Nonetheless, many detailed images can be described according to type. Only a few rock-art depictions of watercraft can be precisely correlated to particular known vessels.

The earliest surviving image of a foreign vessel that we know of is a yellow painting of a South-East Asian perahu at Djulirri, an outstanding Northern Territory rock-art site in Arnhem Land’s

White pipe-clay painting of a ketch simultaneously deploying both anchor and sails, and a prominent rudder. Hawk Dreaming, Kakadu National Park. All photographs reproduced courtesy of Paul Taçon.

The widespread act of depicting ships, by far the most common new subject, reflects a fascination with the large range of watercraft navigating past and arriving upon traditional lands

top: Drawing of a faint, yellow-ochre painting of a South-east Asian perahu dated to before the mid-1600s. The typical tripod mast and sail can be seen but the hull is obscured by other paintings over it. Another, smaller perahu is visible to the right. Arnhem land

above: White painting of a perahu under a beeswax female figure. The painting has a median age of 1777. Arnhem land

opposite: Multi-coloured painting of a cruise liner (‘love boat’) depicted from the front, with a couple embracing just to the left. Arnhem land

Wellington Range (shown on this page, top left). Perahu can be identified at rockart sites because of distinctive types of sails, tripod masts, the shapes of the hull ends and other features associated with those boatbuilding traditions. At Djulirri, the perahu image is overlain by parts of other paintings and a snake made out of beeswax pellets pressed onto the shelter wall.

Recent radiocarbon dating of the beeswax snake design on top of the perahu painting suggests this depiction was made prior to at least 1664 and probably much earlier, since the beeswax figure has a date range of 1517 to 1664 and a median age of 1577 according to the variability assigned to the radiocarbon dating technique.

A second perahu painting, in white (below left), has a beeswax female human figure over part of it with a date range of 1644 to 1802 and a median age of about 1777.

The minimum dates for these two perahu paintings are significant as they support the theory that people from South-East Asia were visiting Australia’s northern shores well before the start of the trepang (sea cucumber or bêche de mer) industry, an organised fishery carried out by people known collectively as Macassans who sailed each year from parts of the Indonesian archipelago, from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. This is argued by historians to have commenced about 1780, based upon the available documentary evidence. The yellow perahu is the oldest dated contact subject from any rock-art site in the country. The minimum age from carbon dating suggests that visits from South-East Asia occurred around the same time the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and other Europeans first sailed near or to northern Australia, and perhaps even before.

Many paintings of ships in Australian Aboriginal rock art are compositions with new features added by different artists over time. For instance, at Djulirri one of the oldest dated paintings of a European vessel is a three-masted ship (shown on page 42). Numerous samples from beeswax designs over and under the ship were radiocarbon dated. They consistently revealed the painting was made sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s, and so represents a sailing ship even though no yards or sails are evident. Later a funnel was added in and on the middle of the deck, complete with smoke billowing from the top, turning the painting into what now resembles a steamer from the late 1800s or early 1900s. On two occasions some crew members, shown with hats and pipes,

were painted standing on deck, first in red and later in white. The result is a mosaic of imagery and colour that documents changes in maritime movements along the coast about 20 km north of the site.

Supporting the observation that additions were made to the original tallship painting are two similar tall ships in other parts of Djulirri’s main gallery that did not have new additions. Furthermore, at Malarrak, another site in the Wellington Range, two small lugger-like ships were initially painted next to each other in white. More painting was done later to join them together, making a painting of a much a larger ship. A funnel was also added, turning the painting into a large depiction of a steam ship rather than two smaller vessels.

Some paintings highlight the essential features of ships, illustrating them in a schematic rather than totally realistic manner. For instance, there are paintings where ships are shown in full sail but also with an anchor deployed from a chain or cable below, something not normally seen in real life. Occasionally in Arnhem Land, cargo is shown in the hold of ships using the region’s traditional x-ray convention of depicting the inside of things as well as the outside.

In various parts of the country, especially from the Pilbara across to Groote Island, crew members are shown standing on board ship depictions. Sometimes the captain is illustrated with a hand on the wheel or someone is shown looking through a telescope (page 43, top). In both the Pilbara and western Arnhem Land, European crew members are often illustrated with their hands resting on their hips. People from South-East Asia standing on ships are not shown this way and a global survey indicates that in many parts of Australia, and several other countries as well, Indigenous artists distinguished depictions of Europeans at rock-art sites from other people by using a ‘hands on hips’ convention.

On Groote Island, human figures shown on the decks of large perahu were painted in different colours, perhaps reflecting the ethnically diverse crew known to be on board, originating from various seafaring cultures of South-East Asia as well as Aboriginal Australians and even indigenous Papuans.

Changing maritime technology is illustrated through the accumulation of different sorts of ship imagery over time, with 20th-century war ships and ‘love boat’ cruise ships added most recently. At Mount Borrodaile in the Northern Territory, an elaborate

composition with all manner of ship painting has been interpreted as a representation of Darwin Harbour, shown on the opening pages of this article. It includes a warship, a passenger ship and vessels with forms that can readily be associated with the pearling industry and/or island workboats or mission boats.

In New South Wales, there are a number of rock engravings of ships of non-Aboriginal origin, most likely by Europeans. Among those that are confidently attributed to Aboriginal artists, however, are both a drawing (shown opposite) and an engraving of what may well be HMS Lady Nelson, the little 60-ton brig that, in the words of the Sydney Gazette, served the colony for more than a quarter of a century, contributing more to its exploration and settlement than any other. Used by Matthew Flinders and others, she was the first to sail through Bass Strait and the first to enter Port Phillip, transported the first settlers to Tasmania, and sailed up and down the Hawkesbury River in the early 1800s between explorations of the east Australian coast.

pages 40–41: Northern Territory rock-shelter panel at Djulirri, in Arnhem land’s Wellington Range, with white pipe-clay paintings of a liner, naval vessel, small ketch and schooner, and a biplane.

top: european three-masted ship dated to the late 1700s or early 1800s, Djulirri, Arnhem land. later a funnel and billowing smoke were added, turning it into a 19th- or early-20th century steamer. Crew members with hats and pipes were added in red and later in white. Cargo and interior spaces are shown using the x-ray convention. above: Perahu painting in white. Other features were added later in yellow, along with a depiction of a european sailing vessel to the right.

Arnhem land

Much of the current investigation into rock-art depictions of ships resulted from a research project called Picturing Change that began in 2008, a collaboration with colleagues from Griffith University, The Australian National University, the University of Western Australia and the University of New England. During this project, rock art made after the arrival of Asians and Europeans began to be examined systematically on a national scale for the first time. Many exciting discoveries have been made in the process, resulting in both publications

Australia has more rock paintings of non-Indigenous watercraft than any other country, with several hundred scattered around

the coastline and at inland sites as well

and films. A lavishly illustrated volume on maritime subject matter in rock art, to be published next year, will highlight the importance of this and other contact rock art as an Indigenous historical archive of life-transforming, cross-cultural encounter, experience and expression. 

Professor Paul S C Taçon FAHA FSA has edited three books and published over 170 scientific papers on prehistoric art, material culture and contemporary Indigenous issues. He is a specialist in rock art, landscape archaeology and the relationship between art and identity. Professor Taçon is currently Chair in Rock Art Research and Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology in the School of Humanities, griffith university, Queensland. He also directs griffith university’s PeRAHu (Place, evolution and Rock Art Heritage unit). He was formerly Principal Research Scientist in Anthropology at the Australian Museum in Sydney.

top: Close-up of a schooner or pearling lugger illustrated with a person looking through a telescope. Wellington Range, Arnhem land centre: Charcoal drawing of a two-masted ship, with another small ship depicted underneath the spanker, in a rock shelter near the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales. This approximates HMS Lady Nelson, known to have carried grain and other supplies on the Hawkesbury in the early 1800s.

right: Rock engraving with features of a 19th-century barque, Falconbridge, New South Wales.

Members News

Prize draw for Members

A big welcome to all our new Members who joined recently, and of course welcome back to those who have renewed their memberships. Each month we will be offering new and renewing Members the opportunity to go in the draw for some terrific prizes. In June you could win a family lunch or one of ten morning teas aboard our neighbouring heritage ferry South Steyne – the former queen of the Manly run that’s now a function centre and restaurant.

Over the next two months we will be asking you to take part in surveys and focus groups that we are undertaking to ensure that your interests are being met by our programs and Members’ benefits. Your feedback is most important to us, so do let us know what you think.

We hope you will enjoy some recent changes to the Members lounge: fresh flowers, daily newspaper, a range of herbal teas and fresh fruit available for children. Don’t forget you can make bookings or renew your membership in the lounge as well. Drop in on your next visit to the museum and meet our friendly hosts.

Our winter program has something for everyone, with lots to celebrate. Did you know this year is the 175th anniversary of P&O? We’ll say happy birthday with a lecture by historian Rob Henderson who’s been delving into the shipping line’s archives. In this period of Royal Australian Navy Centenary celebrations, we know you’ll

enjoy the ceremony of the ever-popular wardroom dinners aboard our Daring class destroyer, ex-HMAS Vampire. Sign up to pass the port!

There are two fantastic, themed family days coming up. There’s l ighthouse l arks, put together in honour of l ighthouse Week. Another is Terrific Tugboats, celebrating those l ittle Toots that everyone loves. That’s when you can meet the author of the new book Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage, Randi Svensen, who tells her story of getting to know the tugboats and the characters who worked on them (read more starting on page 36). At a time when Sydney Harbour has lost its vibrant working life this is an important testament to Australia’s commercial maritime heritage.

Randi’s talk is part of our regular author series. Another features naval historian Dr Ian Pfennigwerth, who spent 35 years in the RAN in seagoing, staff and overseas postings. His sixth and latest book commemorates the life of Samuel elliot l ees Stening, a poignant true story of courage, conviction and brutality during WWII.

l ook out for two new, regular programs which commence in July: Meet the Neighbours and In Conversation with Members. I look forward to seeing you at the museum soon. enjoy your winter edition of Signals

Di Osmond

Acting Members manager

Southern Swan struck fear into passing ferries last April on our pirate family cruise, with staff and guests prepared to give no quarter.

Below right: Members volunteers george Pepperal and Jeanette Whieldon, public programs manager Neridah Wyatt-Spratt and acting Members manager Di Osmond. Photographs by Sharon Babbage

A trick on the helm under the watchful eye of pirate Captain Marty Woods, Member Jo Sokalski and some junior pirates.

Will Jones and son Joseph stepped right out of the Spanish Main.

Members events

Members events

Calendar Winter 2012

Saturday 2 On the water: 70th anniversary of Japanese midget submarine attack

Sunday 17 HMB Endeavour: Transit of Venus dinner

Sunday 24 Family fun day and lecture: Terrific Tugs

Sunday

Sunday 8 Book launch and lecture: In Good Hands: the life of Dr Sam Stening POW with Dr Ian Pfennigwerth RAN (Rtd)

Wednesday 11 For kids: Hook, line and sinker fishing workshops

Saturday 14 Family program: Art in the Dark family tour

Wednesday 25 Debate: Fishwrecked debate

Sunday 29 Inaugural Members in Conversation program: Warwick Abadee: mankind’s greatest moving object, the ship August

Friday 3 Author talk: Captain Cook’s Apprentice with Anthony Hill

Saturday 4 HMAS Vampire: Wardroom naval mess dinner

Sunday 12 Lecture: RAN Centenary annual lecture series 2012 with guest speaker VADM Peter Jones

Sunday 19 Family program: lighthouse larks family fun day

Tuesday 21

Inaugural Meet the Neighbours program: South Steyne Manly ferry on-board tour and lunch

Sunday 26 Members in Conversation: Jeffrey Mellefont: sails with pirates

Family program

Terrific Tugs: family fun day

11 am–3 pm Sunday 24 June

Kids on Deck hourly sessions

Celebrate the small but mighty heroes of the harbour – tugboats! Build your own terrific tugboat model, race your boats in interactive games. Discover the spectacular science of tugs that break ice, tow barges, fight fires, rescue and salvage stricken super-ships. Climb on board a terrific working tug at the museum’s wharf to learn about life aboard one of Sydney Harbour’s workhorses.

Free for Members

Terrific Tugs author talk

Discovering Australia’s tugboat heritage

2–4 pm Sunday 24 June

Author Randi Svensen recounts her adventures while researching her brandnew book Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage, published by Citrus Press in association with the Australian National Maritime Museum (see article on pages 36–41). l earn about the memorable characters and the brave little vessels of our tugboat industry, past and present. Buy a copy and have it signed by the author.

Members $25. general $35. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

Tug Heroic and Queen Mary during WWII

Members events

P&O 175th anniversary lecture

Great Liners of the past

2–4 pm Sunday 1 July

P&O archivist Rob Henderson will commemorate the 175th anniversary of this great shipping line in his illustrated talk about some of P&O’s most enduring and best-loved ships. View classic images from Robert’s personal collection and from P&O/Orient l ine’s archives, and see historic footage of the golden age of cruising. The program will be introduced by CeO of the cruise ship company Carnival and museum councillor, Ann Sherry AO.

Members $25. general $35. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

Workshop

NAIDOC week celebrations: artist workshops

5.30–8 pm Thursday 5 July

2–4.30 pm Friday 6 July

During annual NAIDOC week celebrating Indigenous culture, join a workshop with Indigenous artists whose work is featured in the exhibition Fish in Australian Art l earn the stories and techniques behind the works. All workshop materials provided.

Members $35. general $40. Includes workshop, materials and refreshments

EMAIL BULLETINS

Have you subscribed to our email bulletins yet? Email your address to members@anmm.gov.au to ensure that you’ll always be advised of activities organised at short notice in response to special opportunities.

Book launch and lecture

In good hands: a POW’s life

2–4 pm Sunday 8 July

Captured in 1942 when the HMAS Perth was sunk in the Sunda Strait, a wounded paediatrician became a POW for three and a half years in Japan. With scant resources he treated patients suffering overwork, starvation, punishment and extreme climate. After the war, he worked to develop paediatrics as a field of medicine. Join the author of In Good Hands: the life of Dr Sam Stening, POW, Dr Ian Pfennigwerth RAN (Rtd), for this fascinating account of an unsung hero.

Members $25. general $35. Book signing by author, Coral Sea wines and refreshments

Kids fishing workshops

Hook, line and sinker

10 am–12 noon and 1–3 pm sessions Wednesday 11 July

These ever-popular workshops offer a theory session followed by fishing in the museum basin. Children learn responsible and sustainable fishing practices, finer points of knot-tying, line-rigging, baiting a hook, casting, and handling their catch. Find out about the fish that live in and around Darling Harbour.

7–12 years. Members $25, general $30 per child. Includes light refreshments. Children are fully supervised by Department of Primary Industries education officers.

Family event

Art in the Dark family tour

5–7 pm Saturday 14 July

Join in after-hours family fun as we explore the evocative Fish in Australian Art exhibition with our engaging character guide, Monsieur le Poisson. enjoy French fare and refreshments. go wild with glow-in-the-dark art activities. Suitable for 5–12 years and adults.

Members: child $20 adult $10. guests: child $25 adult $15. Bookings essential 9298 3655

Debate Fishwrecked

6–8 pm Wednesday 25 July

Join us for a night of lively conversation and debate as our expert speakers build creative bridges between our two big current exhibitions, Remembering Titanic: 100 years and Fish in Australian Art Members $20. general $25. Includes light refreshments and gallery visit

Author talk

Captain Cook’s Apprentice

6–7.30 pm Friday 3 August

To celebrate the National Year of Reading, come along to hear award-winning author Anthony Hill speak about his book Captain Cook’s Apprentice – a fascinating work based on the story of a youngster who stows away as Endeavour leaves england. As part of his research Anthony sailed on the HMB Endeavour replica and has some fascinating tales to share.

Members $7. general $10. Bookings essential 9298 3655 email bookings@anmm.gov.au

centre:

P&O liner SS Maloja on 1910 poster

In Good Hands book cover

Neon Fish 2010 by Deborah Halpern

Naval tradition

HMAS Vampire wardroom mess dinner

6–9.45 pm Saturday 4 August

Celebrate HMAS Vampire’s naval service with our annual, traditional Navy dinner in the destroyer’s wardroom. Your dinner president will be a former commanding officer of Vampire e xperience the passing of the port, the loyal toast and more – all in the best RAN traditions. Includes pre-dinner cocktails and canapés on the deck and a three-course meal. Places are limited due to the size of the wardroom.

Members $120. general $160. Civilians and partners welcome. Dress black tie and miniatures

RAN Centenary 1911–15

Annual lecture series – 2012

2–5 pm Sunday 12 August

To mark these years of centenaries of the Royal Australian Navy – 2011 was the centenary of the Royal Warrant, while 2013 will mark the Fleet’s first arrival –the museum is hosting a series of annual lectures exploring the RAN’s history, stories of its servicemen and women and its future. Join us for the second in this important series. Speaker Vice Admiral Peter Jones AM DSC RAN, Chief of Capability Development group

Members $15. general $20. Includes Coral Sea wines and refreshments

Family program

Lighthouse Larks: family fun day

10 am–4 pm Sunday 19 August

Celebrate International l ighthouse Weekend at the museum! Activities include storytelling sessions, family-friendly tours, film screenings and Kids on Deck creative crafts inspired by our Cape Bowling green lighthouse and lightship Carpentaria

For full information on times and booking details visit www.anmm.gov.au/kids

New Members program

Meet the Neighbours

11 am–1.30 pm Tuesday 21 August

Meet our neighbour the classic Manly ferry South Steyne, a Sydney icon and harbour grand dame. Hear tall tales and true of this magnificent, historic veteran. Meet the owner and enjoy a tour. See her Harland & Wolff steam engine, a smaller version of the Titanic’s. get up close and gritty as the engineer explains its workings. enjoy an on-board boardroom lunch in Art Deco splendour.

Members $25. general $35. Fish and chips, champagne, tea and coffee will be served

BOOKINGS AND ENQUIRIES

Booking form on reverse of mailing address sheet. Please note that booking is essential: online at anmm.gov.au/membersevents or phone (02) 9298 3646 (unless otherwise indicated) or email members@anmm.gov.au before sending form with payment. All details are correct at time of publication but subject to change.

Afternoon tea in the lounge

Members in Conversation

Warwick Abadee

3–4 pm Sunday 29 July

Meet Warwick Abadee, a founding museum volunteer guide who’s been part of the museum family since it opened over 20 years ago. Warwick enjoyed a long and distinguished career in international shipping, including many years with the Netherlands’ Royal Interocean l ines. He has often sailed as an enrichment lecturer on board cruise ships, speaking about his varied maritime interests, including this museum. The keynote of Warwick’s afternoon chat will be: ‘Mankind’s greatest moving object – the ship.’

Afternoon tea in the lounge Members in Conversation

Jeffrey Mellefont

3–4 pm Sunday 26 August

editor of Signals magazine, Jeffrey is a onetime wharfie and tuna fisherman, formerly a professional blue-water yacht skipper and navigator, and a long-standing maritime writer and photographer. He’s had a 30-year research interest in Asian maritime affairs and has led Members tours to the region. Putting some of these things together, he sailed through the Indonesian archipelago last year by yacht, catching some tuna on the way. Jeffrey will speak about his monsoon voyage and answer the question everyone asks: what about pirates?

Destroyer Vampire wardroom dinner

Tea in the Members lounge

Classic South Steyne poster

Fish in Australian art

5 April–1 October 2012

This is a story of people and fish, told through a history of Australian art. Fish and fishing have inspired a sense of wonderment in Australia’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, both amateur and professional. The art they have produced shows how fishing culture has touched the lives of individuals and communities.

Featuring works by William Buelow g ould, Margaret Olley, William Dobell, Arthur Boyd, Yvonne Koolmatrie, John Olsen, Rupert Bunny, John Brack, Michael l eunig, Craig Walsh and many more.

Remembering Titanic – 100 years

29 March–11 November 2012

Titanic was to be the greatest ship afloat, shining proof of the industrial power of the modern world. The vision was shattered on the first voyage, when Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on 15 April 1912 with the loss of over 1,500 lives. To mark this centenary, the construction, disaster, rediscovery and controversy surrounding the sinking and salvage are explored. The exhibition features original costumes and props from the 1997 movie Titanic, lent by 20th-Century Fox.

Nawi – Exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft

7 March–11 June 2012

Images of Indigenous watercraft from Arnhem l and and the Buccaneer archipelago in north-west Western Australia are shown in this display of contemporary bark paintings, technical drawings and photographs from the 1920s.

In association with our conference Nawi – e xploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft, at the museum Wednesday 30 May–Friday 1 June 2012. www.anmm.gov.au/nawi

ADMISSION

Refund of your entry fees if you become a Member during your visit!

Galleries & Exhibitions Ticket

Adult $7

Child (4–15 years)/Concession $3.50

Family (2 adults + 3 children) $17.50

Members/Australian pensioners/ Children under 4 FREE

Big Ticket (Galleries & Exhibitions + Vessels + Kids on Deck)

Adult $25

Child (4–15 years)/Concession/ Pensioners $10

Family (2 adults + 3 children) $60

Members/Children under 4 FREE

Group bookings (10 or more people) 20% discount on ticket prices

FREE ENTRY to galleries & exhibitions on the FIRST THURSDAY of the month (excluding public and school holidays)

Cat and fish by William Buelow gould

RMS Titanic leaving Southampton

Ra-Kalnwanyimara dugout canoe

Principal partner

exhibition entrance featuring Neon Fish, 2010, by Deborah Halpern

exhibitions

Escape from Vietnam

13 June–14 October 2012

A selection of 14 photographs from the collection of the Archive of Vietnamese Boat People documents one of the largest mass migrations in modern history – the exodus of boat people from Vietnam to South-e ast Asian refugee camps in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Barque

James Craig

Sydney Heritage Fleet’s magnificent 1874 iron-hulled barque James Craig was recommissioned in 2000 after an award-winning 30-year restoration – one of only four such vessels in the world that are still sailing.

Joint ticketing with the Sydney Heritage Fleet. The ship sails some Saturdays and Sundays. Check www.shf.org.au for details

HM Bark Endeavour replica

The replica of James Cook’s famous ship, His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour, is returning to go on display at the museum after her historic 2011–2012 circumnavigation of Australia, and a voyage to observe the Transit of Venus at l ord Howe Island. From late June the ship will be open to the public and school groups for tours of her upper and lower decks, with cabins and living spaces authentically fitted out as they were in 1770 – just as though the officers, scientists and men who sailed with Cook had stepped out for a moment.

Tour of the ship included in Big Ticket. Members FRee. Check opening dates and times on 02 9298 3777 www.anmm.gov.au/endeavour

ANMM travelling exhibitions

On their own –Britain’s child migrants

19 May–14 August 2012

Western Australian Maritime Museum

From the 1860s until the 1970s, more than 100,000 British children were sent to Australia, Canada and other Commonwealth countries through child migration schemes. The lives of these children changed dramatically and fortunes varied. Some forged new futures; others suffered lonely, brutal childhoods. All experienced dislocation and separation from family and homeland. A collaboration between the ANMM and National Museums l iverpool, uK

Freshwater Saltwater – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prints

15 May–8 July 2012

Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery

Prints from the museum’s collection commemorate the rich living relationship between Indigenous people and water. Vivid representations of marine life and environments celebrate the survival of these communities and their struggle for justice and land and sea rights.

Baru (Crocodile) by Nancy gaymala Yunupingu 2005

Rescued refugees fly South Vietnam flag

Child migrant Stewart lee, 1955

Aloft in Tasmania, March 2012

1874 tall ship James Craig, Sydney Heritage Fleet

The first Australian

tugboats

The Australian National Maritime Museum is the associate publisher, with Citrus Press, of the recently released Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage by Randi Svensen, the first-ever history of the Australian towage industry, featuring a colourful cast of waterfront characters and their sturdy little vessels. This extract from the book, looking at the industry’s origins with the very first steamers to operate in Australia, is reproduced courtesy of the author and Citrus Press.

Before tugboats, sailing ships could only move into and out of port at the whim of Mother Nature and were too often becalmed by the headlands that marked an entry into port and stole the wind from inland waterways. To enter or leave harbours, therefore, sailing ships had to be laboriously pulled by oarsmen or gradually moved by kedging –a process of boats laying anchors at a distance from a ship and then winching the vessel manually towards them. (The word comes from ‘cagger’, an early form of ‘catch’, as in ‘to catch the ground’.)

Steam-powered vessels were independent of the wind, and the early steamers soon ‘moonlighted’ as the first tugboats. Although, in the early days of steam, sailing ships remained faster and cheaper for ocean voyages, the steamers revolutionised trade between England and her colonies, as well as between the colonies themselves. The history of tugboats became closely linked with that of steam-powered vessels.

Just which was the first steamer in Australia has long been a matter of debate and The Sydney Herald certainly contributed to the confusion by declaring, in an article on 17 May 1831, that Sophia

Jane was the first ‘steam-vessel’ to be seen floating on Sydney Harbour, despite the fact that the ‘steamboat’ Surprise had been launched on Sydney Harbour in March that same year.

Sophia Jane had arrived under sail during the night of 13 May, after a journey of some five months from the United Kingdom. With the technology of steam still in its infancy, the early steamers carried a full sail rig for long distances. On arrival at Port Jackson, Sophia Jane’s paddles were still stowed, and her engine had yet to be commissioned. It would be weeks before she could be put in steam – some time after Surprise’s momentous test run on 19 May when she became the first boat ever to steam on Sydney Harbour.

The 80-foot (24.4-metre) Surprise was built in Neutral Bay by Robert Millard for H G Smith and his partners. Her engine had been shipped from England and was not yet installed, so she had to be towed after her launch, on 31 March 1831, by soon-to-be-redundant towing rowboats, to Sydney Cove. It was expected that Surprise’s engine would be installed and operational within three weeks, but the bright parts of her engine were rusted –

probably from weathering sustained on the journey to Australia – and this delayed her maiden run.

Surprise’s commercial debut, an overnight trip to Parramatta, was reported in the Sydney Gazette. It began triumphantly on Wednesday 1 June, albeit after a delayed departure which caused her to miss the tide. Having cleared Balls Head with aplomb, Surprise was then ignominiously grounded upriver and stuck in the mud at Red Point.

Her passage up the river continued to be as agreeable and successful as was her exit from the cove. The banks of the river were in many places crowded with spectators, whom the novelty of the expected sight had drawn from their homes. All went on well till she arrived at Red Point, the shallowest pass in the whole river, where she unfortunately stuck fast in the mud … Had she started at the hour fixed, ten o’clock, there is no doubt she would have completed her trip to Parramatta in the finest style.

Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser, 4 June 1831

above: Sydney, N S Wales, etching by John Carmichael showing activity in Sydney Cove, viewed from the north shore. A paddle steamer, possibly Sophia Jane, makes its way in an easterly direction from the Parramatta River. Prominent buildings include government House, Fort Macquarie, the Observatory and St James Church. ANMM Collection

opposite: The cover of this new book features a Samuel Hood photograph from the museum’s collection, showing the single-screw steam tug SS Heroic, operated by J Fenwick & Co Pty ltd, with HM troopship SS Queen Mary of the CunardWhite Star line ltd, embarking from Port Jackson in May 1940 to transport troops to war.

Undamaged, she was refloated later that evening and eventually moored alongside the Commissariat Wharf at Parramatta. Next morning, almost 500 Parramatta residents – quite a crowd for the settlement – turned out to gape at what was dubbed by the Gazette as ‘the surprising Surprise’.

On that first Parramatta run, Surprise was found to be rather top-heavy, with a tendency to roll, so she was taken out of service for a few weeks while her deck was lowered 45 cm. Such changes to vessels after commissioning were not uncommon, and trial-and-error remained a hallmark of tug development until the computer age, as vessels were built and then adapted for the job at hand.

A more detailed account of that historic first Australian voyage under steam appeared under the newspaper heading of ‘The Surprise Steamer’:

This beautiful little vessel, the first Australian steamer, performed her first trip to Parramatta yesterday. It having been announced by public advertisement that she would start at ten o’clock, a number of persons collected at that hour, on Bennelong’s and Dawes’ Points, to witness the interesting scene. The preparations were not completed till after eleven, when her chimney poured forth volleys of smoke and steam, her paddles began to buffet the water, and she gently glided out of the Cove, and pursued her journey in the finest style. The weather was delightful in the extreme, forming one of the most enchanting mornings of an Australian autumn. The little bark was neatly painted and gilded, and bore two flags, one of which was inscribed with her name. The wind was directly against her, but being only a gentle breeze, it did not materially obstruct her course, and served to give her smoke a more curious and picturesque appearance, resembling a pennant of most ambitious longitude, extending in graceful curls from g oat Island to Dawes’ Battery. She rounded Battery Point in the finest style, and proceeded up the river with majestic mien, until the spectators lost sight of her behind Ball’s Head. The effect was truly animating. The fineness of the morning, the beauty of the landscape, the smoothness of the water through which she gently swam like a living thing, her image reflected upon the silvery expanse, together with the consciousness that this was the first movement, in the southern hemisphere, of that tremendous power which has performed such wonders in the northern world, giving to conveyance by water the ease, the certainty, and more than

the rapidity of conveyance by land, combined to impress the reflecting spectator with the most joyous feelings and anticipations.

Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser, 2 June 1831

This colourful account of the first commercial steamboat trip in the colony heralded the era of steam navigation on Port Jackson – and ultimately the start of the tugboat and towage industry in Australia. It was a development that changed forever how Australians travelled and traded. Among those who relied on commercial shipping, anticipation was high and the arrival of the technology had been keenly awaited. But, as with so many new technologies, not everyone was happy about it, and the editor of the Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser had to warn Parramatta coach operators about making threats against the ship.

Another much larger steamer, the 126-foot (38.4-metre) Sophia Jane, was hot on Surprise’s heels. If there’d been a race to be the first steamer, Surprise would have only just won it, but Sophia Jane was to become the first of the two to operate as a tugboat.

Much larger and more luxurious than the Surprise, Sophia Jane attracted so much interest that her master, Captain Biddulph, announced in an advertisement in The Sydney Herald of 13 May 1831 that he was unable to welcome visitors on board until the crew had finished fitting the engine. This might, however, have been a ruse to pique the interest of potential buyers, since it was the captain’s intention to sell the ship. Captain Biddulph advertised Sophia Jane for sale ‘either wholly or in shares’ in mid-July. By then she was making regular trips

Her chimney poured forth volleys of smoke and steam, her paddles began to buffet the water, and she gently glided out of the Cove and pursued her journey in the finest style

opposite: This classic view by Australian photographer Max Dupain shows the steam tug Hero towing the four-masted steel barque Pamir (built 1905) from Sydney Harbour, dated November 1945. Hero was built in 1892 by J Fenwick & Co Pty ltd, Sydney, which was later taken over by Brambles, Australia. Silver gelatin print, ANMM Collection, gift of Brambles Australia. below: Paddle steamer Nile stranded at echuca, date and photographer unknown. PS Nile was built in 1885 at echuca on the banks of the Murray River and Campaspe River in Victoria, and was burnt out at Bourke in 1926. River steamers towed barges laden with farm produce including bales of wool, opening up large areas of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia for agriculture. ANMM Collection

to Newcastle and Green Hills (Morpeth in the Hunter Valley), leaving Sydney each Friday evening and returning the following Wednesday. The speculation paid off for Captain Biddulph and by early August all but ten of the 64 shares in Sophia Jane had been sold.

The early tugboats had to serve a dual purpose and Sophia Jane was a passenger and cargo vessel as well as a ‘bad weather towing-horse boat’. On Sunday 12 June 1831, she performed the first powered tow in Australasian waters. In miserable squally conditions, she towed the 429-ton ship Lady Harewood out of the harbour. It was a low-key event, described in the press as a private trip ‘intended for the amusement of a few of the captain’s friends’. Nonetheless, reported the Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser in its edition two days after the event, ‘The Sophia Jane, steamer, under a salute from several vessels in the harbour, towed the Lady Harewood out of port, on Sunday last, in a very imposing manner’.

Lady Harewood’s departure for London had originally been planned for 25 May and her valuable load of whale oil, wool, coconut oil, sealskins and Australian cedar might have been delayed much longer had Sophia Jane – or another steamer – not been there to tow her out to catch the winds back ‘home’.

In stark contrast to that first steampowered tow, crowds thronged to watch on the following Friday, 17 June, when, in beautiful weather, His Excellency the Governor, Sir Ralph Darling, hosted invited dignitaries on a morning pleasure cruise on Sophia Jane, with breakfast on board and a tour to Darling Harbour.

Later on the same day, Sophia Jane cruised to Middle Harbour, starting from the Domain, as previously advertised in both the Sydney Gazette and The Sydney Herald. The tour was open to anyone willing to part with seven shillings and sixpence (children under 12, half price). The waters of Port Jackson glimmered in the crisp, clear autumn sunlight, the weather was fine and the water was calm as the people of Sydney gathered on the shore to watch the show. The men stood dapper in their top hats, figure-hugging trousers and double-breasted frock coats or morning coats and the women were resplendent in ankle-length wide skirts with puffed sleeves and bonnets decorated with ribbons and feathers. Excited children jumped up and down with delight or clung tightly to their mothers’ hands in the festival atmosphere.

Compared with the vessels of sail and oar that were then to be found in Port Jackson, Sophia Jane was a marvel of modern technology. Built in the late 1820s by Messrs Barnes and Miller in the UK at a cost of £8,000, she began her life carrying passengers between England and France in her three cabins – ‘one for gentlemen, one for ladies and one for steerage passengers’, the Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser tells us – with a total capacity of 54 people. Basic as that may sound now, the same newspaper described her as having ‘apartments of the finest description’, for which no expense had been spared. The 256-ton Sophia Jane carried a 50 horsepower single-cylinder engine, which could achieve an impressive speed of seven to eight knots in smooth water.

Sophia Jane went on to have a long and undoubtedly illustrious career, plying her trade mostly along the New South Wales coast, both north and south of Sydney until 1845 when she was grounded on a reef off Wollongong and badly damaged. Later that year, with more expensive repairs required, her owners decided to withdraw Sophia Jane from service and she was laid up. Her still operational engine was subsequently fitted to another paddle-steamer, Phoenix

The up-and-coming steam fleet remained the talk of the colony and in October 1831 Sophia Jane and Surprise were joined by the 300-ton William IV, built near Newcastle by Marshall & Lowe for the Sydney to Newcastle run. The brigrigged Venus was also expected to arrive soon after from Glasgow.

It would be more than another century before the era of commercial sail was finally over but, in the meantime, those first steamers nudged their way into history simply by providing a service the world had never known: ships could now berth and unberth without delay in all but the most adverse conditions. The first exports of coal in 1799, and wool in 1807, had been followed by the boom of the gold rushes in the 1850s, and produce could now begin and end its voyage to markets almost 20,000 km away with a degree of certainty that the still-fledgling colony had never known. The world was one certain step closer.

In the 19th century, Australian produce became even more sought-after as wars raged and revolutions overturned the status quo in Europe, where production was inevitably slowed or even lost by such

The early tugboats had to serve a dual purpose and Sophia Jane was a passenger and cargo vessel as well as a ‘bad weather towing-horse boat’

turmoils. Increased shipping out of Australia also meant increased shipping into the country, providing the population with welcome access to imported manufactured goods that had not been available locally.

Just as they did when those first vessels raised steam, Sydneysiders continue to flock to their beautiful harbour at the promise of a spectacle, and even today have not lost their delight in welcoming ships of renown. Fast forward to the twenty-first century and it was the same when the Queen Mary 2 arrived in Sydney in February 2007, assisted by the tugs Korimul and Wonga – to be greeted by tens of thousands of people cheering the biggest cruise ship yet to pass through the heads. The 429-ton Lady Harewood would have been dwarfed by the 151,000-tonne Queen Mary 2, but the spirit among the spectators was the same.

These leviathans of the seas are attended by tugboats that are the descendants of the Sophia Jane and Surprise 

opposite: Design drawing for V Series tugboats designed and built by the Halvorsen boatbuilding family of Sydney. Drawing by Harold Halvorsen, lars and Harold Halvorsen Collection, ANMM

top: Steam tug Wattle was built at Cockatoo Dock in Sydney in 1932–33, and was the last vessel to be built there while the island was under the control of the Commonwealth Shipping Board. Photograph courtesy of Sea Power Centre Australia

right: Inside the wheelhouse of the steam tug Forceful, built in 1925 by Alexander Stephen & Sons of glasgow, and preserved at the Queensland Maritime Museum after a 45-year working life mostly on the Brisbane River. Photographer Randi Svensen

Voyaging into Australia’s tugboat heritage

The author of Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage, Randi Svensen, will speak at the museum on 24 June (details page 31) about her experiences getting to know the personalities and the vessels of the Australian towage industry, past and present. Here’s a preview.

Tugboats, like the well-behaved children of yesteryear, are rarely seen or heard –yet everybody loves them. From Theodore and the cute Little Toot of children’s stories, to 21st-century, omnidirectional azimuthing-drive workhorses, tugboats continue to engage our affections. Tugs are compact yet powerful enough to manoeuvre a ship many times their size, an intriguing combination.

As a boatie I had long shared that affection. But my real tugboat odyssey began six years ago, when Chris Stannard, latest in a long line of maritime entrepreneurs and CEO of a business with diverse marine interests including an interstate tugboat fleet, asked if I would be interested in researching and writing the history of Australia’s tugs for him. With a lifelong interest in history and one maritime book under my belt, I wondered how hard that could be. Six long years later, my manuscript finally in print, I can say that this history of Australian towage has been one of the most challenging, and fascinating, projects I have ever undertaken.

I fell totally in love with these powerful, yet somehow gentle, vessels on my very first tug ride. Like an excited child, I hung out of the wheelhouse to have a better view, as Wombi’s rubber fenders screeched and squealed when they made contact with a ship’s hull. The Sydney sunlight shimmered that morning as the tugs manoeuvred the huge

ship down the harbour in what – from the deck of the tug – felt like a slow, sensual dance.

In the years it took to research and write Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage there were many memorable moments, from my first tour of a steam tug when I descended into the blackness of its bowels and the only light was from the flash on my camera. There was the thrill of starting a tug’s massive engine, which rewarded me with a most satisfying roar. I have watched dolphins surf a bulk carrier’s bow waves only metres from the attending tug, and watched in awe as the tug I was on guided the gargantuan Queen Mary 2 into her berth. I’ve even been handed the helm of a 5,000 horsepower* tug – albeit under close supervision!

It was not all fun and games, though. In search of stories, I scoured libraries, museums and old scrapbooks all over the country. Our own Australian National Maritime Museum is a treasure-trove for maritime researchers and I spent many hours in the museum’s public research facility the Vaughan Evans Library, and in the Registrar’s section where staff helped me to view archives and collections. I often chatted with fellow

*Tugboat folk aren’t overly into kiloWatts. They have their own measures, including ‘bollard pull’ – and some pretty sturdy bollards to go with it.

Author Randi Svensen with skipper lance Kirby on board tug Keera, owned by Svitzer Australia Pl, on Melbourne’s Yarra River. Keera was one of the tugs called to assist the Pasha Bulker when the bulk carrier was famously blown ashore on Newcastle’s Nobby’s Beach in a winter gale in 2007.

Tug Gabo, owned by Svitzer Australia Pl, helps the roll-on-roll-off vessel Eternal Clipper to ‘park’ in a tight space on Melbourne’s Yarra River. Photographs by Randi Svensen

visitors, many of whom were following their own personal avenues of research, not necessarily for publication. Without exception, whatever their interest or level of expertise, they had nothing but praise for the friendly, helpful staff. This museum is surely one of Australia’s great maritime resources.

As I read more and more, immersing myself in the subject, I developed a great respect for the pioneers of this unsung industry – people like Thomas Fenwick, for example, who expanded the Fenwick towing empire from Sydney to the northern rivers of New South Wales in 1873, where he was respected for his skills, if not always for his ethics. He was known to have rammed a competitor when he lost a tow in the days of ‘seeking’, when tug owners raced each other to win a new job. Thomas died after his tug, the William Langford, was swamped by a huge wave and he and his crewman were thrown into the raging sea. I was so taken with Thomas’s story that I made a pilgrimage to his grave in Ballina just to say ‘thank you’.

Another entrepreneur with a reputation for ruthlessness was the coal baron John Brown, who brought Newcastle’s biggest and most powerful tug to the port in 1896. Champion was soon known as Brown’s ‘yacht’. Her saloon sported carved oak panelling and a piano, which his steward, Horatio Nelson Ashcroft, played to entertain Brown’s guests. Brown made his point that he could afford the biggest and best, until Champion was superseded by the Saint Class salvage tugs just after the end of World War I. Champion continued to serve, however, until 1954, when she sank … reputedly sabotaged. The old steamers were long-lived.

Tug operators were often resourceful opportunists. In the early 20th century, Axel Petersen of Mackenzie & Petersen in Sydney managed to avoid paying for coal for decades, simply by spilling into the harbour the odd ton that he was delivering by barge to the Maritime Services Board, then retrieving it under cover of darkness. Working for Fenwicks during the Great Depression, Harold

Gardner, now in his nineties, remembers finding five bags of copra floating in Sydney Harbour. Copra was as good as coal and the smell of burning coconut followed the steam lighter Nelson for almost a week.

Before radios, ‘seeking’ was the order of the day. The first tug to meet a ship usually won the tow and sometimes the competition became heated, since Thomas Fenwick wasn’t the only tug master with a competitive streak. Often two tugs raced neck-and-neck to meet a ship. Tugs were kept in steam with crews standing by … although that might be while drinking at some nearby waterside establishment. A frequent lament of deckhand Paddy Brinkworth, when the crew were ‘resting’ at the pub, was ‘There’s a ship rounding Bradleys and there’s not a whore in the house!’

There were lighter moments, too, stories of practical jokes and of being lost in fog. The old steam tugs, Forceful and Fearless, were known towards the end of their long, hard working lives as Forceless and Fearful. There was the young, newly minted skipper who blew his ageing tug’s whistle over and over to impress some girls, only to have the old tug wheeze to a stop because he had blown out all the steam. On Australia’s tugboats, humour is never too far below the surface.

Everyone I met on this journey gave generously of their time, their photographs and their memories …

even if upon meeting one of my old salts for the first time, I was greeted with: ‘But you’re a girl!’ Sometimes talking of their days on the tugs brought forth long-forgotten memories, and I am honoured to have been entrusted with the job of recording them. Their memories give a human face to a dynamic – and romantic – industry.

Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage is the history of an industry, but it is also the story of the people who inhabited it. Chris Stannard’s dream of recording an industry that his family had a long involvement with became my passion too, and I hope readers will enjoy the stories as much as I enjoyed collecting them. 

Meet author Randi Svensen and hear more of her tales of tugboats here at the museum on 24 June 2012 when we celebrate tugboats with a Members lecture and book signing, tugboat inspections and activities for kids. See page 31 for details, costs and booking. As well as Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage, Randi is the author of Wooden Boats, Iron Men –the Halvorsen Story, about her Norwegian boatbuilding family, published in 2004 by the Australian National Maritime Museum and Halstead Press and now in its third printing. Heroic, Forceful and Fearless: Australia’s tugboat heritage is available from The Store for $79.95

Two Fremantle maritime museums

Maritime heritage around Australia

Fremantle WA

Maritime heritage is represented on two contrasting sites in the port city of Fremantle. This account of their development is from Dr Ian MacLeod, executive director of the Fremantle Museums and Maritime Heritage division of the Western Australian Maritime Museum.

top left: Contemporary art in front of the mid-19th-century Commissariat building where the Shipwreck galleries are housed.

top right: Cox group’s design for the museum built to house Australia II is set amid surviving harbour heritage, with the WWII slip housing the museum’s Oberon-class submarine Ovens just to the right.

bottom: The maritime museums are flanked by the Indian Ocean, Fremantle Harbour on the mouth of the Swan River, and sandy Bathers Bay. The Shipwreck galleries in the old Commissariat are in lower RH corner.

Photographer Patrick Baker/WAMM

With water on three sides, the two maritime museums of the port city of Fremantle are located between two working ports, and adjacent to one that’s ancient and one that’s now disused. The museum buildings stand like armorial supporters of the Round House, the oldest public building in the state, erected as a gaol the year after the Swan River Colony was founded in 1829. Both maritime museum campuses are part of the Western Australian Museum, which also has sites in Perth, Albany, Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Geraldton.

The Shipwreck Galleries are housed in the convict-built limestone Commissariat adjacent to the old Customs buildings, all harking back to 1851–1862. They nestle near Bathers Bay, the onceproud maritime heart of the city where goods and people were first landed by lighters. In addition to its world-acclaimed shipwreck displays, the Commissariat site accommodates the WA Museum’s education, conservation, maritime archaeology and maritime history departments. A very fine stroll along the limestone paths to its west leads beneath the octagonal Round House on Bathers Bay, past old goods sheds which give way to the red brick of the World War II buildings housing Challenger TAFE. Suddenly the towering, 21st-century Maritime Museum fills the skyline.

Its sublime architectural form and the complex curves evoke the warm embrace of wind filling the outstretched arms of a sail, and a boat or ship upended on the shore – its bowsprit piercing the horizon. Sited at the extremity of Victoria Quay and abutting the harbour constructed a century before it, the modern materials of this latest addition are a bold cultural expression of the present century’s early years. The tales of an ancient Indigenous and a modern European society are interwoven inside it, and in the landscape between the two sites.

The almost brash, modern architecture of the Maritime Museum on Victoria Quay contrasts with the sedate limestone of the Shipwreck Galleries’ old Commissariat building on Cliff Street. This entices the visitors to enter and gain something different from each of them.

Originally all goods and services were brought into the state at Bathers Bay, where lighters would ferry cargo from ships anchored offshore in Gage Roads. As the colony grew the famous Long Jetty was erected, ultimately reaching a mile out to sea. The opening of Fremantle Harbour in 1897 was a modern triumph for the chief engineer C Y O’Connor, famed for constructing the Kalgoorlie pipeline. Opening the river bar that once formed a barrier for ocean-going ships allowed our inland capital city Perth, on the Swan River, to flourish. It was essential for the development of Western Australia in the transition from an agricultural to a mining economy.

The Indigenous perspective is that the formation of the harbour caused major trauma for the Wagyl, the ancient spirit who carved out all the features of the Derbal Yirrigan (Swan River) and Canning River valleys. The old bar had facilitated communications and marriage festivals, with gatherings of tribes from both sides of the river.

With the commercial focus moving from the Commissariat on Bathers Bay to the western end of the city, the old buildings on Cliff Street fell into a bad state of repair and by the early 1970s they were nearly derelict. When Premier Sir Charles Court announced that the site would be restored and handed over to the WA Museum as a home for shipwreck relics – most notably timbers recovered from the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia, wrecked in 1629 on the Abrolhos Islands near today’s Geraldton – many doubted that the historic buildings could be saved. Urgent planning took place in 1978 as the

Its sublime architectural form and the complex curves evoke the warm embrace of wind filling the outstretched arms of a sail, and a boat or ship upended on the shore

waterlogged Batavia timbers emerged from their treatment tanks; the museum took over the site and opened its exhibition galleries in September 1979 as part of the state’s 150th-anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Swan River Colony.

It was during the preparations for Fremantle’s defence of the America’s Cup in 1986 that extensions of Fishing Boat Harbour, just south of the Commissariat, impacted on sections of the site of the former Long Jetty. Vast quantities of drink bottles – including bottles of Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup that put babies to sleep with morphine – were among the myriad of artefacts that told a powerful story of commerce and trade over Western Australia’s early years. They were recovered by the museum’s maritime archaeologists.

The centrepieces of this museum were Batavia’s spectacularly intact stern quarter, and a beautiful sandstone portico that she was carrying in pieces as ballast – the prefabricated entrance for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) fort in its capital Batavia, in Java. The story of the ship’s loss off the Western Australian coast, mutiny and massacre among her survivors and their eventual rescue, is one of the most epic and harrowing tales of Australia’s maritime history. The discovery and recording of this and other old Dutch wreck sites in Western Australia, and the recovery of very important artefacts, established maritime archaeology in Australia – and the museum on Cliff Street was at its centre.

Under the direction of Jeremy Green, then and still the museum’s head of maritime archaeology, the complex jigsaw of bringing together all the scattered Batavia timbers into one coherent stern structure was managed to perfection by his chief diver and expert rigger Geoff Kimpton. The violent surge on the edge of the reef, where they had endured more

The

centrepieces of this museum were Batavia’s spectacularly intact stern quarter, and a beautiful sandstone portico that she was carrying in pieces as ballast

than 300 years of biological and microbial decay, had seen the bulk of the timbers lost. Those remaining were extensively waterlogged, with some of the ribs and hull planking holding up to 280% water in them, based on the dry weight of the timber. They were impregnated with polyethylene-glycol (PEG) to stop the degraded wood cells from collapsing, and to allow the timber to be carefully air dried. The timbers had come out of treatment tanks at the old conservation laboratories at the rear of the Fremantle Asylum building, and were transported to dehumidification chambers at the new museum before assembly could begin.

Dendrochronological measurements of the oak timber in a piece from Batavia’s stern showed it began to grow in Poland circa 1305, and was 300 years old when felled to form a key element of the onceproud East Indiaman.

Draeck (1656), the Zuytdorp (1712) and the Zeewijk (1727). They joined the few items recovered from Australia’s oldest shipwreck, the English East Indiaman Trial (1622), and the pre-colonial wrecks of the American China Trader Rapid (1812) and the Lively (c. 1820) which also sank in the waters of Western Australia. All provide unique insights into the lives and times of ordinary people from distant centuries.

opposite: On Australia II a mannequin crew recaptures forever the magic moment of Western Australia’s greatest victory, in the 1983 America’s Cup. Photographer J Mellefont/ANMM

below: Tangible links to a turbulent past: Batavia’s stern quarter, a Dutch east India Company cannon, and the prefabricated Batavia gate, all raised from the 1629 wrecksite.

Photographer Patrick Baker/WAMM

For the disassembled pieces of the Batavia portal raised from the sea bed, Geoff Kimpton again produced an inspired support system, allowing it to be exhibited in the correct arrangement. The original sandstone portico is now in the Geraldton branch museum, while a replica remains in the Commissariat building.

The maritime museum on Cliff Street displayed artefacts recovered from the other Dutch shipwrecks, the Vergulde

One of the museum’s major achievements of maritime archaeology and conservation is exhibited and interpreted in the Xantho gallery: the fully conserved engine of the state’s first colonial steamship which sank at Port Gregory in 1872. Staff maritime archaeologist Dr Michael McCarthy led a team that undertook the world’s first systematic biological, chemical and corrosion survey of an iron shipwreck. With the aid of very fine underwater drawings made by Geoff Kimpton, the Xantho engine was determined to be the only surviving example of the world’s first mass-produced, high-pressure marine steam engine.

Designed by the engineer John Penn of Greenwich in London for Crimean War gunboats, and assembled after jobbing out the work to a series of foundries, the Xantho engine was a war-surplus item that was sold to an enterprising scrap

The Xantho engine’s excavation and conservation has made the museum internationally renowned

clockwise from left:

Triple-nonstop-solo-circumnavigating yacht Parry Endeavour risks pitchpoling in the museum’s gallery, while a Jon Parry mannequin hangs on for life. Photographer Patrick Baker/WAMM

The scale, drama and fury of the whale hunt, in the days before the industrialisation of the whale fishery, is conveyed in this installation. Photographer J Mellefont/ANMM

Seen from the mezzanine level, the lugger Trixen presents a life-size diorama of hard-hat operations including a pith-helmeted pearling master who seems the embodiment of White Australia. Photographer J Mellefont/ANMM

metal dealer in Glasgow. He converted the ocean-going paddle steamer into a screwdriven vessel. Its excavation and 25-year conservation treatment program has opened up a whole new theatre of activity in the management of iron and steel shipwrecks, for which the WA Museum has become internationally renowned. That the engine can now be turned over by hand after over a century under water makes it a monument to our conservation staff, including my colleagues Dick Garcia, Alex Kilpa and Jon Carpenter.

In the late 1990s the WA Premier Richard Court – son of Sir Charles Court who as Premier supported the founding of what’s now called the Shipwreck Galleries – announced that his state would build a new maritime museum on Victoria Quay to house the 12-Metre yacht Australia II which was returning to its rightful home in Western Australia. This revolutionary winged-keel yacht, built in Fremantle and representing the Royal Perth Yacht Club, made world yachting history by winning the ‘unwinnable’ America’s Cup – the first time in its 132-year history that it had been taken from the Americans. Just as architects from the Cox Group had originally designed the Australian National Maritime Museum on Darling Harbour, Sydney, to house the historic vessel – it was displayed there from 1991 to 2000 – a team from the same group worked together with museum staff to create a nationally significant structure of considerable beauty and grace.

Unusual features of the building’s engineering include the leisure gallery being designed to survive 1.5 metre uplift in case a fully-laden giant container ship ploughs into the building! Deep seawater bores, on the finger wharf of the former Swan Docks, pump 20˚C, rock-filtered seawater through a series of heat exchangers to provide the primary heating and cooling of the building. This saves 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released each year.

With windows that allow extravagant views of the ocean and the harbour, the building envelope has two main elements. One is under the clinker-type hull structure that rises to more than 40 metres above the sea, to provide a home for Australia II. A lower envelope reflects the sweeping curves of a windfilled sail and takes the form of a membrane-covered timber roof. Inside is a major travelling exhibition gallery of 400 m2 as well as a ground floor lecture theatre seating 200. A large function centre has views into the galleries over

the pearling lugger Trixen and the ironhulled and steam-propelled pilot boat Lady Forrest.

One of this building’s great features is the way it has incorporated so many largescale vessels of this sort, some of them fully-rigged, on several levels. As well as Australia II, a nearby gallery displays Parry Endeavour, the only vessel to have successfully triple-circumnavigated the globe non-stop; she was sailed around solo from 1986 to 1988 by WA resident Jon Sanders. Astonishingly, she’s displayed pitching down a notional wave at 45 degrees, one of the most dramatic large vessel installations in any maritime museum. A mezzanine floor creates viewing opportunities for examining the details of decks, engines, sails, keels and rudders, all of them vital to movement and safe passage through the marine environment.

The Maritime Museum tells of the passion of Perth people for the river and for engaging with the elements of wind and water, illustrated by vessels ranging from a humble tin canoe to the great 18-footer Mele Bilo, as well as all the Moths, Sharpies and dinghies. Other galleries tell of the importance of the fishing industry to the early and presentday economies of the state. Little True is believed to be the oldest exhibited fishing boat in Australia, hanging from the firstfloor beams forward of the classic 1924 Fremantle fishing boat Doria. Visitors can climb on board the old Swan River ferry Valdura, watch historic footage and listen to the tales of old ship captains who used to ply the waters daily. The presence of the Sama Biasa, an Indonesian prahu used to harvest sea cucumbers off the Kimberley coast, is a reminder of the close interactions with our near neighbours of South-East Asia. The entrance into a replica souk reminds visitors that Western Australia is oriented towards the Indian Ocean, which provided an arc of trade that long predates European arrival in the region.

From the viewing platform high above the deck of Australia II a lozengeshaped window reveals the brooding black bulk of the Oberon class submarine, ex-HMAS Ovens, hauled up tight on the 2,000-ton slipway that was built during World War II to service the Allied submarine fleet. Stepping back, the visitor finds a full-scale replica of the conning tower of HMAS AE2, lost during the Gallipoli campaign. One of Australia’s first two submarines, AE2 had penetrated the mine-strewn straits of the Dardanelles on 25 April 1915 and reached the Sea

of Marmara where it spent the next week creating diversions to keep the Turkish navy focused away from the ill-fated peninsula. It was holed and scuttled and its captain, Lt Cdr Henry Stoker RN, was captured with his crew. They are heroes who have been largely forgotten.

An operational periscope from an Oberon submarine gives visitors a taste of the control room, and the views of Cockburn Sound and of historic Fremantle through it are something special. It’s part of the Naval Defence Gallery that tells a complex story of the development of mines, torpedoes and guided missiles, and famous battles on Western Australia’s doorstep such as the 1914 victory of HMAS Sydney I over the German cruiser Emden, or the cruel loss of HMAS Sydney II in 1941 at the hands of the disguised German raider HSK Kormoran

A step away from the world of the navy gives visitors a wonderful insight into the impact and importance for the state of the early pearling industry. On the Broome lugger Trixen, superbly supported in mid-air, its faceless, pith-helmeted captain watches over the hapless hard-hat divers working to harvest lustrous pearl shell for the button trade – and the hope of finding the elusive treasure of a rare sea pearl. It is not just a romantic view of this often brutal industry, for the stories of death and misfortune wrought upon Indigenous, Malay and Japanese divers and crew are frankly told.

Alighting at the head of the staircase from the ground floor the visitor is confronted by the rising form of an American whale boat and the mock-up, life-sized tail of a whale about to crash onto the crew that was seeking its death. The early maritime trades in sealing and whaling are sensitively exhibited without resiling from their brutality. This is evident in massive steel tie rods from grenade harpoons, bent and buckled while hunting sperm whales in the Southern Ocean for processing in Western Australia’s southern port Albany.

Tucked around the corner are elements of the migration story that is a vital part of how our great state was developed, from its convict origins to the present, in a sequence of boom periods that followed the discoveries of gold, then nickel, and now iron ore together with gas and oil. The maritime museums at Fremantle are perfectly placed to give visitors an insight into what makes Western Australia the powerhouse of the national economy. 

Welcome

living Fairbridge’s dream

The names of 65 men and women who came to Australia as child migrants, grew up on Fairbridge Farm Schools and went on to serve Australia in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, have been inscribed on the Welcome Wall thanks to a grant from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. eva Warhurst, the Old Fairbridgian who championed their recognition, told her own migrant’s tale to Welcome Wall historian Veronica Kooyman

For any episode in history there is no universal experience, but a complex kaleidoscope of stories and voices. The systematic, 20th-century British child migration schemes operating to Australia and other Commonwealth nations gave rise to tales of abuse, exploitation and deep hurt. For these there have been official government acknowledgements and apologies, both here in Australia and in Britain. Some child migrants, however, experienced new opportunities and success in distant lands in spite of family separation and hardships.

Eva Warhurst (née Reid) was born in Washington Station, a small town near Newcastle, England. She was the sixth of a family that would grow to 18 children. The Reid family subsisted on the scanty wage of her miner father, and help provided by extended family. Postwar rationing was still in place, and a hot meal and orange juice was provided at school to stave off scurvy in British children. A social service organisation

Bay

ageing Aberdeen & Commonwealth line ltd liner of 14,362 gross tons, built in glasgow in 1921. ANMM Collection

pointed Eva’s parents towards the London-based Fairbridge Society.

This had been founded in the early 20th century by Kingsley Fairbridge, a Rhodes Scholar from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in response to the large number of British children living in poverty. Reflecting the values and needs of the British Empire and its settlement, the purpose was to transplant children from overcrowded British cities to the extensive spaces of the colonies, providing a future workforce that, it was thought, would be loyal to Mother England. This scheme was supported by well wishers and the governments of Britain and the Commonwealth. The first Fairbridge Farm School was established at Pinjarra in Western Australia in 1912 and by 1937 another school was opened by supporters in New South Wales near Molong. Initially, children were recruited from crowded orphanages and homes, but this later extended to broken families and those suffering serious poverty.

above: SS Largs

, an

left: eva Reid (seated far left, next to her sister Isabel) in the ‘Fairbridge party’ who migrated on Largs Bay in 1950. Standing are brothers lawrence and gordon (at left) and Jim (far right). Photographs courtesy of eva and Jim Reid.

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

To ease the financial burden of a large family it was agreed that Eva, aged 10, along with four of her (then) 12 siblings, were to be sent to Australia. The three boys and two girls departed Southampton on 31 March 1950 on the SS Largs Bay and arrived in Sydney on 19 May. After a medical check and a trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens, the children were placed on a train to Molong and arrived the following day at Fairbridge Farm School. The farm was organised into children’s cottages, each with a dozen children managed by a cottage mother. The fairly self-contained farm had a dining hall and kitchen, principal’s house, cottage hospital, staff quarters, a chapel, laundry, wood shed and yards containing a dairy, piggery and chicken coop. Many of the buildings were donated by benefactors such as prosperous businesses and wealthy individuals. Eva remembers with fondness her childhood at Fairbridge Farm and her connection with the Fairbridge Family – a term used to describe the hundreds of children who passed through the farm. For Eva life was tough but fair; discipline was enforced but treats and rewards were also dealt out. She regularly played sport

in town with local children, and was often allowed to stay on weekends at a school friend’s house. Annual holidays were always much anticipated, with Fairbridge trips to Lake Canobolas or seaside Gerroa. Eva excelled at hockey and was selected for the Far West girls’ team that played against the visiting 1956 World Champions and runners-up, Holland and Scotland.

Most children finished school at 15 but would often stay on until 17, assisting and learning skills on the farm. Rooms were always available for older children who had left the farm to return for holidays, particularly at Christmas. Fairbridge staff helped Eva to find her first job, aged 17, with Woolworths in Orange. She knew if ever she needed help Fairbridge would support her, and she returned regularly to visit. The farm school’s principal Frederick Woods and his wife stayed in contact with Eva once she had left.

In 1965 Eva met her future husband Ralph while working for the Red Cross in the Blue Mountains. In 1966 Eva moved to Melbourne to work as a nurse and Ralph followed. Later, when Ralph was employed as a safety instructor for Telecom and had to travel around the state, the couple bought a caravan and spent a wonderful time travelling together with their young son Ian.

Following Eva’s marriage, her mother and father came out to visit their children in Australia. Her father liked to credit the Australian children’s success to his decision to send them to the other side of the world – defensively, perhaps. Eva prefers attributing it to their own hard work. Her family had remained in England’s depressed northeast where the collieries declined over the latter half of the 20th century, and never had the chance or support to achieve their potential or much improve their living standards. Eva has visited England three times since the early 1980s; she is always pleased to return to Australia and feels she has won the jackpot in life.

By 1966 government policies had changed and no more children were sent to Molong. The school briefly housed Australian children but by 1973 it was closed and the property was sold. Eva has been an active member of the Old Fairbridgian Association for many years; her husband Ralph supported this and

also became involved. Before his death in 1999, he and then-chairman of the association, Bill Bradfield, worked to compile a Nominal Roll of all the children who came to Fairbridge and went on to Australia’s Armed Services.

Eva registered her own and one sister’s name with the Welcome Wall in early 2011. She has vigorously pursued a grant from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to have the Old Fairbridgians roll of war veterans listed on the Welcome Wall, appealing directly to Chris Bowen, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. The grant was initially rejected by the department but Eva’s persistence was rewarded when the minister personally intervened. She feels this is a way of recognising and thanking the children from Fairbridge Farm Molong for their service, and for some, their ultimate sacrifice for an adopted home. Sixty-five names of men and women who served in the Australian Forces in World War II, Korea and Vietnam were unveiled on Sunday 27 May 2012.

The May unveiling was also a reunion weekend with many ex-servicemen and women, widows and descendents of those being honoured coming to the museum from around the country for the unveiling ceremony. They were joined by representatives from the Department of Immigration and families of another 679 migrants being honoured on the Welcome Wall. 

The Welcome Wall

It costs just $105 to register a name and honour your family’s arrival in this great country! We’d love to add your family’s name to The Welcome Wall, cast in bronze, and place your story on the online database at www.anmm.gov.au/ww. So please don’t hesitate to call our staff during business hours with any enquiries on 02 9298 3777.

left: eva Warhurst and her late husband Ralph.

bottom left: Reunion of three of Fairbridge’s Rose Cottage girls, (left to right): Irene Sibbald, Jane Field and eva Warhurst.

Australian Register of Historic Vessels

H istoric

From sewn bark to a classic Fife cutter

These 13 unique craft are newly listed on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels, each approved when the ARHV Council met in March 2012. Among the selection is the cutter Fairlie II, the subject of a painting in the ANMM collection, and a suite of extremely rare Indigenous bark canoes from the Australian and Queensland Museums’ collections, writes ARHV curator David Payne

Fairlie ii was built in Hobart in 1899 by Robert Inches for Frederick N Clarke, designed by the famous William Fife III in Scotland. Surviving yachts by this third-generation yacht designer, who built two America’s Cup challengers named Shamrock for the magnate Sir Thomas Lipton, are esteemed today as classics. Clarke, noted in his obituary as a man ‘of independent means’, was a significant early supporter of Tasmanian yachting, and owned at least four craft designed by Fife. Fairlie II was framed up in Fife’s yard at Fairlie in Scotland, then disassembled and shipped to Inches who set up the frames again and planked the yacht in Huon pine. Fairlie II was the subject of a painting in the ANMM collection by 19th-century, Tasmanianbased artist Haughton Forrest, whose work was highlighted in Signals No 95 (June 2011).

The sloop Janaway had an even more curious construction story: it was built by Sid Perry and his son Jim for its amateur designer Wally Ward – on a houseboat that the Perrys lived on in a bay on Sydney’s Middle Harbour. When it came to launching, in 1938, the houseboat was towed across the bay to a jetty and crane where the yacht was lifted into the water, then slipped and fitted with its lead ballast keel. Janaway was an early Ward design, and was owned by him and his family for many years. Its canoe stern and balanced hull form were a great success and led to other famous designs by Ward, often built in conjunction with Swanson Bros, such as Cadence and Camille of Seaforth Hoana’s story is also intriguing, having been built more or less twice. Launched in 1925, it was written off a year later when it broke from its moorings in Sirius Cove, Sydney, and was smashed against

www.anmm.gov.au/arhv This online national heritage project devised and coordinated by the Australian National Maritime Museum reaches across Australia to collate data about the nation’s extant historic vessels, their designers, builders and their stories.

opposite: Fairlie II, named for the Scottish yard where its frames were produced, sailing in Tasmania in the very early 20th century. Captain Haughton Forrest (1826–1925), oil on canvas, ANMM Collection

rocks for hours during a severe storm. Hoana’s original builders, Hayes and Sons, rebuilt the yacht for their own use, and it subsequently undertook a world cruise when owned by the well-known Australian designer Joe Adams. In 2012 it also continues its long association with Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, and is one of the very few auxiliary coach-house cruisers from the 1920s still sailing with its original centreboard and gaff configuration.

The fourth of the yachts in this group of nominations is Utiekah II, an early example from the Savage family of boatbuilders in Victoria. Patriarch Jack Savage Senior designed Utiekah II and built it in 1911 while working in the firm Lyons and Savage, before venturing out on his own at a yard in Williamstown, where this family business is still situated in 2012. Utiekah II was used by Elliott Giles to take his Melbourne Grammar school students on character-building voyages, an early example of adventure training at sea.

PV Rothbury and PS Melbourne add to the list of Murray River paddle steamers on the register. Rothbury, built in 1881 as a tow boat, remained in commercial towage in the region for almost eight decades, involved in many infrastructure projects on the Murray River until 1958. It was known as one of the fastest paddleboats on the Murray River, a title it still retains. PS Melbourne, built for the Victorian Government as a work boat, was launched at Koondrook in Victoria in 1912. It was fitted with a large winch used for hauling fallen trees and snags from the river to keep the main channel open for navigation. PS Melbourne was also used for many public works along the Murray River, assisting with bridge, weir and lock construction. In 1912 both remain operational in Mildura as excursion

vessels. PS Melbourne retains its original steam engine and boiler, but PV Rothbury is now powered by a diesel.

Mulgi is a riverboat and ferry built at a cost of £7,000 in the 1920s by the wellknown Charlie Dunn of Berrys Bay, North Sydney, for use on the Clarence River on the northern NSW coast. It was the last riverboat built for the service of Captain Pullen, then one of the primary operators on the Clarence River. In the 1940s it was sold and came down to work on Sydney Harbour, becoming a ferry and charter boat. Mulgi still operates here as a charter vessel, retaining a configuration from the 1970s.

Mary-Ann Simms is a fishing vessel built in South Australia in 1957, at the time the largest vessel designed and built for the Spencer Gulf fishing fleet and the first fitted with refrigeration. It was built by R T Searle and Sons, for many decades one of the principal yards in South Australia, and has the unusual feature for the 1950s of having a sizeable sailing rig that was often used to save fuel. Mary-Ann Simms remained for all its operational life with Ben Simms, whose family first settled in the region in 1849, and was later adapted to work offshore with a wheelhouse and reduced rig. Now retired, it’s owned and restored by the Copper Coast Historic Vessel Association at Wallaroo as an important part of the region’s history.

Moani is a motor launch built in 1925 at the highly regarded Tasmanian boat builder Charles Lucas’ yard to a design by Ivor ‘Chips’ Gronfors. Gronfors himself built the vessel, for well-known businessman and a former mayor of Newcastle, John Reid of Lake Macquarie, NSW. Moani became the flagship of the Lake Macquarie branch of the Royal Motor Yacht Club when it was established in 1927; Reid was its first commodore. In 1929 he hosted the Governor General

It shows clearly the raked, sewn ends and other structure that was employed to shape these craft

Australian Museum’s Indigenous skinbark canoe, collected by anthropologist Walter edmund Roth around 1905. Notable are the raked, sewn ends.

Lord Stonehaven on board for a fishing trip during a vice-regal visit to the region. Four Australian Indigenous watercraft complete this quarter’s new registrants. Two are bark canoes from the Australian Museum’s collection. One is a quite rare example of a tied-bark canoe from the south-east Australian coastline, part of the museum’s early 20th-century Alexander Morrison Collection. The folds, pegs and ties that create the bow and stern shape are still clearly visible and provide a study of how the shape was formed. The Indigenous skinbark canoe from Northern Queensland was collected by anthropologist Walter Edmund Roth around 1905. Made from a single sheet of eucalyptus bark, it shows clearly the raked, sewn ends and other structures that were employed to shape these craft, features that were distinctive of the type used on the western and eastern sides of Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Queensland Museum has had two more of its collection listed. The Johnstone River Indigenous canoe was made by the Mamu people of north-east Queensland in the 1870s. It was collected in 1873 by explorer George Dalrymple, and later acquired by the museum. With sewn ends, it is a rare example of the type that was used in the Johnstone River area on the Pacific north coast of Queensland. The North-East Coastal Indigenous canoe was acquired in 1923. It is an example of a variant style of sewn-end canoe found in the Cape York Peninsula region, with relatively vertical ends rather than the raked bows of the skinbark canoes used in the same area. 

Nawi – Exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft, hosted by the museum over 30 May–1 June 2012, is the first-ever such conference and features many stories about these and all the other intriguing craft that are the original watercraft of Australia.

Short, sharp bursts of history

Shipwrecks of the Southern Seas by Craig Cormick. Published 2011 by Pier 9, an imprint of Murdoch Books Pty limited, Millers Point, Australia. Paperback with flap, 304 pp. ISBN 978 1 74196 787 6. RRP $34.99

Australian waters are the final resting place of more than 6,500 shipwrecks and this book by Dr Craig Cormick offers us a tantalising glimpse of a mere handful of them – just enough to whet the appetite for more. The author is billed as a science communicator with a PhD in ‘creative communication of history’. I like Cormick’s writing style – it’s so very easy to read, it’s engaging and the book is well researched. As he says, ‘there can be as many points of view on history as there are historians’. His book is one offering that really engages the reader via its consciously non-academic storytelling style.

There are 22 chapters leading us through the age of sail and steam from 1622 to 1890; from the first known European wreck in our waters, the British East India Company ship Trial, to the three-masted steamship Quetta –the latter referred to by Cormick as ‘the Titanic of Torres Strait’. The chapters are succinctly but engagingly written and ideal to read on the bus, train or ferry to work; or to catch a couple of chapters before bedtime. This is not an in-depth study of our shipwreck heritage, nor does it try to be. And this is why it is successful – it will draw you in and you will want to find out more!

This book covers not just shipwrecks but mutiny, piracy and castaways and their attendant stories of survival, courage, greed, cowardice, treachery, mystery and the absurd. There are some great engravings and illustrations to support the reader’s journey through these fascinating stories.

There are the ships and stories that are relatively well-known, such as the 17th-century United Dutch East India Company’s Batavia (remember when the replica stayed with us in 1999–2000?); the Bounty of mutiny fame in the

18th-century, and the 19th-century story of the ‘notorious celebrity’ Eliza Fraser who survived the wrecking of the Stirling Castle and being held captive by Aborigines. Rescued by a convict, Eliza told her story many times but in different ways each time – prompting the author’s query: ‘Was she a poor victim of savage treatment’ or a ‘compulsive lying psychochick’? And there’s the tragic loss of the Loch Ard in 1878 in Victoria where 52 lost their lives and only two survived.

Little-known maritime disasters also appear. There’s the story of the 14-year-old French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier from the Saint-Paul, wrecked on the Louisiade Archipelago in 1857. He ended up stranded on Cape York, where he lived with the Pama Malngkana people for 17 years until forcibly removed through the good intentions of a European captain.

Have you ever heard of Barbara Thompson, the sole survivor from the cutter America, which was wrecked while salvaging goods from other shipwrecks in the Torres Strait? Barbara was rescued by men from Muralug (Prince of Wales Island) where she was recognised by the chief of the Kaurareg as ‘the ghost of his recently dead daughter, Giom’. So Barbara lived with them for six years until she was rescued by the survey ship Rattlesnake On board were explorer Owen Stanley

Read Barbara Thompson’s story and then decide whether an opera would be the most appropriate way to present her experiences

and marine artist Oswald Brierly, names we may be more familiar with.

Cormick’s style of writing may not suit all. Each chapter is written slightly differently. For example, the Trial story is likened to a soccer match – ‘over the centuries there has been fierce rivalry, and occasionally wars, between the English and the Dutch – still being played out in World Cup soccer matches’. He scores the 17th-century wrecks off the Western Australian coastline as ‘Holland 4, England 1’. For Barbara Thompson’s story he says ‘read her story and then decide whether an opera would be the most appropriate way to present her experiences to a contemporary audience’. He then gives us the story in four acts.

Shipwrecks of the Southern Seas offers its readers short, sharp bursts of history in a light-hearted but factual way, mixing well-known, lesser-known and some virtually unknown events that have happened around our coastline or in our region. Well-suited to this day of instant information, Cormick’s latest book will engage you in our seafaring past, and immerse you in some of the tales of tragedies and survivals that deserve being told or retold. 

l indsey Shaw, senior curator, maritime technology, exploration and navy

Readings

Rough as bags of pearl shell

RRP

Mark Dodd was a child of the 1970s who by age 24 was, as he describes it, ‘an art school dropout, full of seventies idealism’. Influenced by the adventurism of English journalist and author George Orwell, he took up blue-collar jobs hoping to ‘do an Orwell’ and transform himself in the process by ‘looking reality square in the eye’, and to ‘write about it just as bluntly’. Like many other restless young men before him, Dodd found himself heading to Broome in north-western Australia, searching for work on pearling luggers.

Dodd was inspired not so much by the ‘lure of the pearl’, but by stories of ‘tourists, hippies and four-wheel drivers’ who raved about Broome’s pristine Cable Beach and camping in the sand dunes, watching the sun set over the blazing orange Indian ocean. In the 1970s Broome was still a remote and eclectic township, isolated by hundreds of kilometres of outback dirt roads, full of rustic old buildings, colourful characters and an amazing ethnic kaleidoscope. Despite a decline in the pearling industry, the mainstay of the township for a hundred years, pearling was still a significant source of employment.

Dodd arrived in 1978, fell in love with the place and hatched a plan to try to find an increasingly rare and competitive job on the luggers, and to write stories about his experiences for newspapers. The stories didn’t happen until he left Broome some years later and in time became a successful journalist. The Last Pearling Lugger is his autobiographical account of his time at Broome working on the pearling fleet from 1979 to 1983. His book is significant for the Australian National Maritime Museum in a very important way. Dodd worked a season on B3 John Louis (pronounced Lewis), one of the museum’s historic vessels. Built by Streeter and Male in 1957, John Louis was one of the last timber-built luggers constructed. It was purchased by the museum in 1987 at the end of its working life, and has been kept in its latest configuration representing the end of the pearling luggers, one

of a handful to survive from fleets that once numbered in their hundreds.

Australia’s pearling industry has a well-known and florid history that has generally been the stuff of masculine frontier legends. The life of the pearl diver has been heavily mythologised as tough and dangerous. While of course it was, the other less-romantic stories of women, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Aboriginal workers, the discrimination they suffered and the complex multiculturalism that existed almost under the radar of the White Australia Policy, have had far less historical or literary focus.

Dodd reached Broome at a time of transition. The township still languished sleepily under sweltering skies, scattered with the decaying remnants of a oncebustling pearling town that had been part of a wider and very lucrative tropical northern pearl shelling industry. Since its beginnings in the 1860s it had evolved into a systematic operation of start-up businesses employing specifically designed pearling vessels that took teams of divers out to the extensive shell beds on the neap tides to gather, clean and bag the valuable mother-of-pearl shell at sea, returning to port during the spring tides. By the 1970s, after fluctuations in the pearl shell market due to the invention of plastics, World War II and several disastrous cyclones, the industry that Dodd encountered was in transformation.

It had been commonly believed that only Asian divers could work deep waters using the hard-hat diving system, developed in the 1880s and used up to the 1960s. The arrival of the hookah air-line and mouth regulator diving system in the early 1970s attracted European-Australian crews to the industry. The white divers demanded better working conditions, and one result was the raising of the luggers’ foredecks to create more forecastle space for the typically taller Caucasian stature – as seen on John Louis Yet Dodd makes an important and overlooked point. When these new white divers found their Indigenous and Asian

The Last Pearling Lugger: A pearl diver’s story by Mark Dodd.

Pan Macmillan Australia 2011.

Softcover, 240 pp,

ISBN 978 1 7426 1049 8.

$38.00

Museum vessel B3 John Louis sails on Sydney Harbour. Photographer J Carter/ANMM

above: Crew of B6 at sea, author Mark Dodd second from left.

left: The museum’s pearling lugger John Louis, 1960s, before the addition of its present raised forecastle and wheelhouse. Etruscan Vol 16 No 1 March 1967. Photographer and date unknown, ANMM Collection

The life of the pearl diver has been heavily mythologised as tough and dangerous ... and it was

crewmates receiving less money for the same work, they campaigned for a more equal rate of pay. In an extremely harsh working environment, the bonds between divers from different ethnic backgrounds were often quite strong.

Dodd’s account has many similarly surprising stories. I was expecting to read a nostalgic reminiscence of the end of the pearling era, and while Dodd bemoans the decline of the industry and the coming of the developers such as Lord MacAlpine and Alan Bond and a rapidly growing tourist industry, The Last Pearling Lugger offers insightful comments on racism, multiculturalism and industrial relations in particular. It’s not devoid of foul language and typically rough-as-guts Australian humour, and so will not quite be many readers’ cup of tea. Yet the

stories of long and legendary drinking sessions at the Roebuck Bay Hotel, the brawls and the lawlessness were a real part of Broome’s history and Dodd doesn’t shy away from telling it like it was.

Dodd’s recollections of Broome and the various pearling luggers he worked on between 1979 and 1983 fills an important void in the literature of Australian pearling: its decline and the unsustainability of traditional pearling methods. Dodd recounts how in those seasons, the newer and bigger vessels owned by Paspaley Pearls were not only better equipped, but were also gathering shell for what was to become the future of the industry – pearl farms. While the small-time operators from Broome were being forced to search wider and scour deeper for shell, Nick Paspaley in particular turned toward the cultivation of seeded pearl shells to create in abundance what was previously a lucky bonanza – the extremely rare pearl that formed naturally from an irritation inside the shell was now being scientifically cultivated.

Dodd’s account of life aboard John Louis adds an important layer of factual information about the conditions on the vessel, and its configuration.

At the annual Broome lugger sailing race across Roebuck Bay in 1982, for example, John Louis was relegated to being the starting boat as it had ceased to operate by sail by this time.

The place of the pearling industry in Australian maritime history has yet to be written in a manner that accounts for the effects of colonialism on the fringes of expanding settlement in the north and west. The complexities of simultaneous racism and multiculturalism in Broome in particular have not been adequately told. Nor has the gendered maritime frontier story been properly interrogated. Dodd’s account adds much to this and is a timely and important addition to the history of pearling. And in the hands of a hard-drinking and hard-hitting journalist, it is a rollicking story to boot. 

Dr Stephen gapps, curator, environment, industry and shipping

Tantalising first-hand glimpses from our past

The Art of the First Fleet

By lisa Di Tommaso.

Hardie grant Books, 2012. Hardcover, 112 pp. RRP $35.00

The British Natural History Museum has delved into the archives of its Australian collection and selected some superb and tantalising colour artworks for this new book. Through the eyes of First Fleet artists (plus one who arrived with the Second Fleet, to be a little more precise than the title of the book) we see our country from their perspective, as they encounter Aboriginal people, the landscape and the extraordinary flora and fauna for the very first time.

Some of these paintings and drawings were published in Bernard Smith’s 1988 landmark study, also called The Art of the First Fleet. Smith’s book, however, published many of the images in black and white, unlike the full-colour reproductions of this attractive volume. The new book credits Sydney historian Keith Vincent Smith’s work Bennelong and his 2006 exhibition Eora 1770–1850 at the State Library of New South Wales, which borrowed some of these artworks.

With a special relevance to the Australian National Maritime Museum, one image – An Aborigine spearing fish whilst his wife fishes with hooks and lines by Thomas Watling – has recently been borrowed by the museum’s curators and is hanging in the current exhibition Fish in Australian Art. This is one of several works in the book showing Indigenous canoes and scenes of fishing that are of direct relevance to the museum’s important conference Nawi – Exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft, held on 30 May–1 June this year.

Author Lisa Di Tommaso, assistant librarian at the Natural History Museum, has a special interest in early Australian images. As she writes in her introduction, this ‘extensive collection of art created … during the establishment of the colony ... provides a fascinating and informative insight into the natural history of the land, the Indigenous population and the events that marked these initial formative years’.

The profound influence of the botanist Joseph Banks is evident throughout the book, with its many vibrant images that were the first to capture the colony’s flora and fauna. Banks had collected plants while accompanying James Cook on Endeavour, on the voyage that launched his subsequent career as President of the Royal Society and adviser to King George III on the management of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

It was Banks who had recommended Botany Bay for the penal colony because of its fine aspect, vegetation and water. He was keen to acquire its seeds and plants to grow at the Kew gardens, and he instructed the officers to note down their observations and make as many drawings as they could, to become the ‘recorders, artists, diarists and observers of the new land’. Banks lobbied the British parliament to appoint Captain Arthur Phillip to lead the expedition. Tommaso describes Phillip’s cabin on HMS Sirius, ‘as a small greenhouse cultivating coffee, oranges and figs’.

As John McDonald further explains in his Art of Australia Vol 1, ‘For Banks, the establishment of a colony would ensure a steady supply of such exotic specimens for the Royal Society to examine and classify. But thousands of wretched exiles would have their reason to curse his enthusiasm’.

Tommaso found the art produced en route and in the new colony was uneven in quality. For her book she chose George

A fascinating and informative insight into the natural history of the land, the Indigenous population and the events that marked these initial formative years

Raper ‘who drew mainly for pleasure, depicting fauna in an expressive style’; various works attributed to the unknown artist or artists who have come to be known as the Port Jackson Painter; and the convict artist Thomas Watling, who arrived on the Second Fleet in 1792. Watling’s detailed paintings were so highly regarded he was pardoned in 1797.

Some of the stand-out images include Raper’s watercolour of the First Fleet in Rio de Janeiro harbour (the only known depiction of the entire fleet), two of the vessels in Port Jackson harbour, the wreck of the Sirius off Norfolk Island, various Aboriginal warriors and fishermen, the fragile buildings of the early colony, the fantastic kangaroos, and detailed, incredulous depictions of many of the plants, birds, mammals, fish, snakes, insects and spiders encountered here.

Tommaso writes, ‘The growing interest in natural history as well as the increased opportunity to publish proved an important motivation to the First Fleet artists.’ She links this to ‘new systems of scientific classification, for example Carl Linnaeus’ system based on the sexual characteristics of plants, [that] came to dominate by the end of the l8th century’. These works occupy the second half of The Art of the First Fleet.

In Port Jackson the First Fleet artists encountered the various tribes including Cadigal and Cammeraygal who were known collectively by the British as the Eora. Tommaso describes the Eora

as a healthy people who fished on the harbour and in the nearby waterways, until smallpox decimated their numbers. Governor Arthur Phillip wanted to learn more about their culture, and frustrated at his efforts kidnapped the warriors Bennelong and Colebee. But when they escaped and Bennelong invited Phillip to Manly, a misunderstanding or ‘payback’ ensued and Phillip was speared in the shoulder. Tommaso includes both Watling’s paintings of Bennelong and Phillip rowing to meet one another, and the spearing at Manly beach.

As well as these important documents of visual reportage, there are a number of more detailed watercolours by the Port Jackson Painter that depict the style of the bark canoes, men fishing with spears, women in canoes using lines, with an array of fishing instruments, weapons and other artefacts displayed around them. Such works have become invaluable ethnographic sources. The Indigenous librarian at the State Library of NSW, Ronald Briggs, commented on seeing these: ‘It’s valuable to have these designs as there are so few traditional implements left from the Sydney region … The images are very well presented with the artists’ notes and notations included, which is unusual. It would be wonderful if the original artworks could be returned to Australia …’

The Art of the First Fleet is a handsome and important book, which helps us glimpse ‘first contact’ and the amazing story that was to unfold on our continent. It has over one hundred colour paintings and drawings, most of them full page, with Lisa Di Tommaso’s informed comments on each work. 

Reviewer Margaret Smith is a Sydney writer and filmmaker. Her latest film North of Capricorn tells the story of northern Australian’s sea contact with Asia.

Clockwise from opposite:

The book cover shows warrior Balloderee, who resisted the First Fleet’s presence. All images by the Port Jackson Painter, reproduced courtesy of Natural History Museum

A partial view of Sydney Cove taken from the sea side, before the Surgeon General’s house

An aboriginal family paddling a canoe, and artefacts including a fish-gigg, or pronged harpoon, and a water bucket.

Annette Kellerman

The mermaid from Marrickville

An early 20th-century cigarette card – even more collectable now than it was back then – depicts the mesmerising Australian swimmer and star of stage and screen, Annette Kellerman. Curatorial assistant Nicole Cama was inspired by the card to explore this aquatic actor who took her world by storm.

When you think of the macabre images associated with cigarette packaging today, they couldn’t be further removed from this photograph of the famous Australian swimming star, Annette Kellerman. It appears on a cigarette card featuring a promotional still of Kellerman in her leading role in the 1916 film, A Daughter of the Gods. With her confident pose and revealing costume, it captures some defining elements of Kellerman’s celebrity status. Much has been written about the mystique and heroism of the star who was christened the ‘Diving Venus’, ‘Neptune’s daughter’ and ‘the perfect woman’. This image reinforces these labels, but it underplays her important contribution to women’s swimwear, health and fitness.

Annette Kellerman was born in Darlinghurst, Sydney in 1886. She spent part of her childhood in Marrickville before catching what she called ‘mermaid

fever’ when she learned to swim at Cavill’s Baths in Lavender Bay, North Sydney. As a teenager, she won her first NSW championship in 1902 and performed swimming demonstrations in Melbourne Aquarium, inspiring one journalist to proclaim, ‘she will become the rage of the town’. She moved to England with her father in 1904, swimming the Thames, the Danube and the Seine and becoming the first woman to attempt the English Channel. In 1906 she went to the USA where she performed a range of diving and swimming techniques for audiences in Chicago and Boston. The media interest she attracted fuelled her ambition to take her aquatic talents even further, to a stage career in vaudeville theatres and then in silent cinema where she performed a range of roles including the mythical mermaid, mysterious beauty and assertive heroine.

Tobacco cards like this one from our collection emerged in the mid-1870s and were used as cardboard stiffeners for paper cigarette packages. By the 1880s they had evolved from this basic function to become an important promotional medium for a nascent advertising industry. An early version of ‘product placement’ in reverse, they appealed to the human collecting impulse to build brand loyalty. The images they featured ranged from British architecture to boxing champions and even poultry. Cigarette cards, today highly collectable though still a little quaint, are examples of the way popular culture manifested itself in everyday consumer products.

This brings us to the early 20th-century tobacco card featuring Kellerman at the height of her fame, as the exotic beauty Princess Anitia in A Daughter of the Gods. Although the film itself has not survived, at the time it was the most expensive

Images such as the one on this cigarette card demonstrate how Kellerman responded to the social and cultural values of her day

film ever made and it is today considered to be the first movie to feature a major star – Kellerman – in the nude.

Media reports during Kellerman’s career reflect her flourishing celebrity status. Described as the ‘wonder woman of the water’, journalists praised her ‘versatile’ and ‘original’ performances. Dr Dudley Sargent, a lecturer at Harvard University, famously concluded she was physically ‘the perfect woman’ and ‘a good model for young women’.

Despite the media hype, Kellerman’s mermaid routine waned in popularity. One reviewer cynically described her film Queen of the Sea (1918), as ‘rather poor entertainment’ and an ‘impossible fairy tale’ designed to display Kellerman’s aquatic talents which were, by that point, outdated and earned no more than ‘a wan hand’. But as Kellerman would go on to prove right up until the late 1920s, there was still ‘none more shapely or talented than Annette’.

This cigarette card represents, in microcosm, celebrity as the packaged commodity. It is a pocket-sized image of a famous screen goddess, easily accessible and strategically marketed to the early 20th-century gentleman. There are a range of photographs of Kellerman in her numerous guises, usually emphasising her athletic prowess. This publicity still depicts Kellerman at her most direct, confident and sensual, staring unflinchingly at the viewer. Despite her sensuality, such promotional images were also designed to appeal to women. Kellerman was proposed as the physical standard for all women, and what she wore was an important aspect of her publicity machine. Kellerman encouraged this exposure, commenting in a 1910 interview: ‘I believe in being original … People used to stare and laugh – but they paid attention’.

Provocative images of Kellerman acquire even more significance within a social and cultural context that espoused

moral decency, propriety and a tightly defined femininity. Kellerman played a significant role in objecting to what she termed ‘prudish and Puritanical’ ideas about women’s swimwear. She criticised ‘Dame Society’ and the ‘pseudo-moral’ restrictions placed on women, and advocated more practical swimsuit designs. Her customised ‘union suit’ and the one-piece men’s swimsuits she promoted, embodied the clash between traditional values and the spontaneous drive for individuality. Early in her career, she tapped into a market teeming with women who she claimed were ‘mad on the beauty question’, and lectured on women’s health and fitness. In 1918 she published two books, Physical Beauty and How to Keep It and How to Swim. While often selfreferential and self-congratulatory, there are other messages to be gleaned from their pages centring on the importance of women’s health.

Though not quite a rebel, Kellerman created her own vocation and spoke to her audiences in a way that confronted real issues for women. She acknowledged the fickle nature of the film industry and the necessity to reinvent herself and what she called her ‘vogue’. This carefully fabricated image was fed by the print media disseminating the mythology that surrounded the swimming star. One widely reported myth is that Kellerman was arrested at a Boston beach in 1908 for indecent exposure. There is no recorded evidence of the arrest, even though newspapers reported – well after the event allegedly occurred – a ‘shocked howl … went up and down the land’ and made ‘world-wide headlines’ resulting in Kellerman being ‘denounced as a wanton’. Given the sensationalism it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. Perhaps the reports demonstrate the same strategy behind this tobacco card: as Kellerman herself suggested, ‘every little bit helps when you’ve a name to make for yourself’.

Though undoubtedly a talented swimmer, Annette Kellerman was the consummate performer, morphing into many personas to suit the context and audience. She captured the mystery of the female form, which she used to her advantage through revealing costumes and clingy swimsuits. Underneath the surface, however, were messages about women’s health and the need for practical swimwear designs. Images such as the one on this cigarette card demonstrate how Kellerman responded to the social and cultural

opposite: Cigarette card with photograph of Annette Kellerman in costume from the film A Daughter of the Gods (1916). It was one of a series of 50 ‘beauties’ being distributed with this brand of cigarettes. ANMM Collection below: Studio portrait of Annette Kellerman, about 1907, wearing a one-piece Canadian-style costume, headscarf, arm jewellery and anklet. The reverse is inscribed ‘love to my dear Paula’, autographed by Annette Kellerman. ANMM Collection

values of her day, and how she sought influence in ways that were available to her. Whatever the truth or fiction behind the persona, one fact remains clear: Kellerman challenged social and cultural boundaries.

For her, swimming fed the ‘imagination’ and allowed her to escape and ‘forget a black earth full of people that push’. Through various media, she displayed how the streamlined swimsuit or the exotic costume represented freedom and vitality. This tobacco card exhibits the intensely commercial nature of the movie star and, in an ironic way, the product it promotes contradicts the messages of health and fitness that Kellerman endorsed. But more than just a symbol of the cult of celebrity or a relic from an era when smoking was a glamorous pursuit, the card remains a lasting tribute to the mermaid who made waves of her own. 

Currents Museum Moments competition winners

Last year when we were celebrating the museum’s 20th anniversary of opening (on 29 November 1991) we launched a photographic competition inviting visitors to share their museum moments from the past 20 years. Thank you to everyone who participated! Assessing the entries on the basis of photographic skills, interest of subject matter and uniqueness, the judges were ANMM director Kevin Sumption, ANMM photographic manager Andrew Frolows, and editor of Australian Photography magazine, Robert Keeley.

Overall best photograph and winner of the contest category ‘From your archives –photographs from 1991–1999’ was Jacob Roskam with his view 200 Degrees of Darling Harbour taken from the main mast of the visiting Dutch East Indiaman replica Batavia, in December 1999. His prize was a Canon digital SLR 5D MK11 camera, valued at $4,000.

Winner of the category ‘New memories –photographs from 2000–2012’ was Sophie Mueller with a study of the museum’s Endeavour replica firing a canon to salute the sail trainer Leeuwin upon her arrival at Fremantle on 13 October 2011, during a circumnavigation of Australia.

Sophie won a $250 camera store gift voucher, a photographic session with the ANMM photographer, and a year’s subscription to Australian Photography

Mitchell Kerr won the prize for the ‘Kids only!’ category for photographs taken by children 16 years and younger, with his 2011 photo A view of the artillery on HMAS Vampire.

Judge Robert Keeley, editor of Australian Photography, complimented overall winner Jacob Roskam on the high level of technical skill required. ‘Climbing into the rigging of the Batavia replica established a different perspective,

emphasised by a wide-angle lens,’ he said. ‘Stitching this series of shots together took Jacob several years, because when he made the images, the highly developed software required wasn’t available. In recent years he succeeded in matching up the intricate rigging and lines.’

Keeley called Sophie Mueller’s entry: ‘A nice, sharp image, with an element of action to it that lifted it above the ruck of simply being a record shot … with extra punch taking the shot at exactly the moment when the ship fired its cannon. That type of luck usually comes hand in hand with good preparation and a welldeveloped sense of anticipation.’

‘Young photographers’ fresh eyes can come up with different ideas,’ said Keeley. ‘Mitchell has seen the pattern in the gun turret of this ship, and used his camera to crop in on that and isolate it. Simplicity is an underrated element of photography.’

Australian Maritime Museum Council

The survey of heritage vessels was the most pressing issue when over 60 delegates from around Australia attended the Australian Maritime Museum Council’s 2012 conference meeting in March, hosted by Sydney Heritage Fleet and the Australian National Maritime Museum. The conference delivered a clear focus on the smaller organisations that are the vast majority of Australian museums and hold some our finest collections. There were presentations on their achievements, workshops on exhibition development and managing archaeological collections. Sydney Heritage Fleet’s iron barque James Craig carried delegates on a tour of Sydney Harbour, and its 1940s workboat took us to Spectacle Island where the Royal Australian Navy preserves its extraordinary collection in a munitions store built in the 1860s.

The issue of the moment is the regulation and annual survey of historic vessels, to ensure they are seaworthy and meet construction codes in order to be licensed to carry passengers or operate commercially. In some states heritage craft are subject to the same survey rules as modern passenger vessels, and often must be substantially modified to meet modern safety regulations ... alterations that change the original fabric of the craft and detract from their heritage values. Surveyors trained to manage modern motor ships may need to survey vessels such as iron barques, Murray River paddle wheelers or steam tugs with riveted iron boilers. There have been cases where proposed modifications would have made vessels less seaworthy.

AMMC believes it is possible to achieve safety and preserve heritage values, and not to compromise one for the other. Heritage craft are rare today but once operated as mainstream shipping, surveyed and insured; the evidence is that they provided safe transport. The vast majority (over 85%) of accidents are due to the way vessels are managed, not the way they are built.

New South Wales and South Australia have introduced systems of survey specifically for heritage vessels.

They recognise that the best knowledge of historic vessels often rests with heritage organisations. They call on them to produce vessel management plans which identify where vessels do not meet current safety measures in the universal shipping laws, and propose how those will be resolved. They look to management solutions rather than engineering solutions, for example by restricting the waters in which the vessel works, restricting its operating hours or reviewing the number and skills of its crew. Those approaches have proved to be effective and the Australian Maritime Museums Council has been meeting with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to discuss a new national system of survey being introduced from 2013. 

Kevin Jones, director of the SA Maritime Museum, past president AMMC

top: ANMM volunteers gathered to farewell Duyfken as she prepared to leave the museum after more than a year as our historic-replica-in-residence, while Endeavour was sailing around Australia.

The replica of the Dutch scout ship that visited Australia in 1606 is returning to her home port Fremantle, WA.

Photographer J Mellefont/ANMM

above: Delegates of the AMMC conference participated in a workshop on the conservation of shipwreck artefacts at the Australian National Maritme Museum’s Terrace Room.

Art of the First Fleet

Captivating watercolours, washes, ink and pencil drawings created during our ealiest colonial years, from london’s Natural History Museum collection. It depicts both the natural history and events from those initial years, as seen through the eyes of european settlers.

See pages 58–59 for our review.

$35.00 Members $31.50

HMS Ark Royal

An amazing look at the life and times of the mighty Royal Navy aircraft carrier, now languishing in Portsmouth since cuts to the uK defence budget. This well-illustrated book by a former senior officer from the ship, Cdr Alastair graham, and naval expert eric grove, is a wonderful piece of history to record her life from cradle to grave. A massive 368 pages.

$79.95 Members $71.96

Super Yacht Bible

The ultimate photo book for those who appreciate luxury – or would like to! It features hundreds of stunning images of the most luxurious yachts against perfect oceanic backdrops. Take a dip into an exclusive world that offers exhilarating adventure as well as sybaritic relaxation.

$130.00 Members $117.00

A Banksia Album

With their bold flowering and fruiting spikes, banksias remain a favourite among artists and gardeners alike. Features over 90 full-colour reproductions of over two centuries of botanical illustrations: watercolours, pencil and sepia-wash drawings, colour prints, engravings and lithographs from the National library of Australia. From Sydney Parkinson 1770 to Celia Rosser in 2007.

$38.00 Members $34.20

P&O at 175

Commemorating the 175th anniversary of one of Britain’s most famous shipping companies, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Bringing together the full company history from its roots in the Shetland Isles to current P&O operations under the ownership of Dubai Ports, it includes P&O Cruises and P&O Ferries operations today. Richly illustrated with many magnificent photographs in colour and black & white.

$69.95 Members $62.96

P & O Cruises – 175 years

In 1843, P&O placed the first cruise advertisement in The Times Celebrating 175 years in style, this is the official history of P&O Cruises. Today, the company will embark and disembark a record 30,000 passengers in Southampton this July.

$69.95 Members $62.96

The Titanic Remembered

This luxury commemorative edition tells the complete story, with extracts from first-hand accounts of Titanic designers, builders, passengers and crew. It comes with a specially designed presentation case, an audio CD, 40 beautifully reproduced facsimiles of Titanic memorabilia and a DVD featuring footage of this ‘unsinkable’ ship.

$99.95 Members $89.96

Olympic Titanic Britannic

A celebration of the world-famous Olympic-class sister ships designed to provide luxury and safe, reliable service rather than record-breaking speed. unseen pictures, passenger diaries and deck plans illustrate Olympic’s career and the premature ends of her two sisters.

$69.95 Members $62.96

Titanic – A Century Later

What happened on that cold and inky night 100 years ago has haunted and entranced us ever since. This oversized, deluxe book is visually splendid and every page is exciting. It includes archival photography, past reporting in LIFE magazine and the modern-day explorations of Robert Ballard and others that inspired the James Cameron film.

$55.00 Members $49.50

A Night To Remember

‘There is no danger that Titanic will sink ... unsinkable … nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers,’ said White Star line VP Phillip Franklin. On 15 April 1912 more than 1,500 of them drowned. Walter lord’s classic bestselling history of the voyage, the wreck and the aftermath is a tour de force of detailed investigation and the upstairs/downstairs divide. He provides a vivid, gripping and deeply personal account of the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic’s descent.

$25.00 Members $22.50

Hundreds of books something for everyone from key rings to ship models and boating clothes friendly service mail order Members discounts!

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Signals

ISSN 1033-4688

editor Jeffrey Mellefont

Staff photographer Andrew Frolows

Design and production Austen Kaupe

Printed in Australia by Pegasus Print group

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Jeffrey Mellefont 02 9298 3647 signals@anmm.gov.au

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Museum sponsors

Major sponsors Austereo

Blackmores ltd

Nine entertainment

lloyd’s Register Asia

Olbia Pty ltd

SBS

Sydney Catchment Authority

Project sponsors

ACP Magazines Take 5 APN Outdoor

Coral Sea Wines

Orion expeditions

Qube logistics

Rova Taxis

Silentworld Foundation

Sydney by Sail

Wilhelmsen Investment group

Foundation sponsor ANZ

Founding patrons

Alcatel Australia

ANl limited

Ansett Airfreight

Bovis lend lease

BP Australia

Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation

Doyle’s Seafood Restaurant

Howard Smith limited James Hardie Industries

National Australia Bank

Pg, Tg & Mg Kailis

P&O Nedlloyd ltd

Telstra

Wallenius Wilhelmsen logistics

Westpac Banking Corporation

Zim Shipping Australasia

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