The News, Culture and Practice of Sailing woodenboats
in Australia, New Zealand & The South Pacific.

HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Tracing One Warm Line

Rogers’ song refers to Sir John Franklin, one of the best known of the explorers as, having led two missions to try and find the passage, he set out on a third journey with two vessels the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus in 1845. The ships were last seen in Baffin Bay, and in spring 1847. There are later accounts stating that Franklin died in June 1847. As you can imagine, the crews of two ships that had seemingly vanished into thin air captured the imagination of many at the time.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Boat Building Capital of the World

The Center will house one of the nation’s most important private collections of materials and photographs related to wooden boat and ship design, construction, and history. Photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz has contributed his entire slide collection, comprising a staggering 155,000 images spanning 1979 to 2005, to the Friend Memorial Public Library's Maritime Research Center.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Eighteen Engagements

No single museum can offer what Maritime Museums of Victoria can – eighteen museum sites with something for everyone, from detailed exhibits and restored vessels to entire villages with amazing lightshows.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

AMAZON Wreck News – Astounding!

There was little indication of what was to come over the next few weeks. The swell was so high that the treacherous, unrelenting waves were smashing onto the coast providing no access to the foreshore. The AMAZON wreckage was swept 60 metres to the east where it settled but over the next few weeks, in the bed of the eastern outlet of Wreck Creek it ‘slid’ a further 7 metres where it is now partially imbedded

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Magistrate Wickham at Moreton Bay – Master of all he Surveyed

Wickham and Anne took up residence at Newstead House along with three Galapagos tortoises called “Tom”, “Dick” and “Harry” (later re-named “Harriet”) which Charles Darwin gave Wickham on his second voyage on the Beagle. Upon Wickham’s 1860 departure from the District, Harriet lived in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, and much later Australia Zoo, for another 150 years.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Magistrate Wickham before Moreton Bay – the Beagle and the Tortoise

It is one thing for modern day master mariner travelling through Patagonia or the South Tasman Sea – in a modern one hundred thousand tonne plus cruise or commercial ship, viewing from enclosed bridge – to navigate and marvel at the ferocity of a Southern Ocean gale. It is quite another thing to command from an open deck a ninety  foot long two hundred tonne timber hulk, tasked with the safety of the vessel and sixty crew.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Flinders Adjuncts

Sixty years after entering Port Phillip Bay [under Flinders in 1802], INVESTIGATOR returned with cargo for the Victorian Gold Rush. After 77 years of service, she was finally sold in Williamstown. Ironically, the ship that put Australia on the map [literally] finished up a coal hulk in Melbourne. In 1872, her register closed with the comment broken up.” It was a dreadful end to arguably Australia’s most historically significant ship.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Flinders in Flinders

“It was 3am on 25th March when Flinders, Bass and William Martin rowed the over-laden little boat out through the heads of Port Jackson. They audaciously hauled directly offshore to clear the confused seas inshore and to catch a sea breeze.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

The Mignonette

Discussions on survival ensued until on about 23 or 24 July Dudley suggested that it was better that one of them die so that the others might survive. He suggested that they draw lots, but Brookes refused to take part. Dudley then suggested to Stephens that the obvious person to die was Parker.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

still watching over treacherous coastlines

"When you are out at sea for months on end and you don't get to see your family, it's also like a nice warm beacon that reminds you that civilisation is just on the coast right there. It gives them a feeling we are there to look after them and help them get on with their journey safely.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

HDML 1321 - The End?

"It shouldn't just be a small organisation in Darwin trying to save this vessel, it should be the Australian government looking after the heritage of their military history." Mr Brokenshire said the vessel was "sacred" to a lot of military people.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

An Entire Shipyard

Williamstown, a seaside village in Melbourne’s west with a historic waterfront and city views, is a highly desirable residential location. AV Jennings has built apartments across the road from the shipyard, but the site is likely to remain industrial for the foreseeable future.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

a Pre-Viking Vessel Rises Into View

The story of the mass suicide has been regarded as potentially factual since the late 1700s, when three tunnels were bored into the burial mound, revealing nails, animal bones, a bronze cauldron and a seated skeleton with a sword.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

HOANA, One Hundred

My partner is convinced that my demanding mistress has a mind of her own. When told the engine needed removal, she said, “Of course! She wants new Bling; her big birthday is coming up!” After letting that statement settle into its rightful place on the astral plane, I informed her of my horsepower foible. “Safety First,” was the cut through response.

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

Council keeps Cook

"It gives us an opportunity to move forward as a nation and as a community … By not creating those opportunities for those conversations, we stay in the status quo."

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HISTORY Mark Chew HISTORY Mark Chew

The Stupidity of it All.

“All too often, we expect history to be definitive, to pass judgement and announce a verdict. But understanding Cook is about much more than apportioning praise or blame.”

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