Maritime Longevity

By Russell Kennery

HMS INVESTIGATOR by Ian Hansen

The truism that product lifetime “ain’t what she used to be many long years ago” is underscored by the Navy’s decision to fork out an eye-watering $90++billion on subs having a service life only ten years longer than its build-time. 

In contradistinction to nowadays, in the late eighteenth century the Royal Navy bought a second-hand bulk coal carrier, renamed it HMS INVESTIGATOR, and despatched it in 1801 to find exploration’s holy grail, the long-fabled Terra Australis Incognita. It succeeded, and the world was never the same again. Under the command of Commander Matthew Flinders, the expedition proved that New Holland (Australia’s west coast) and New South Wales (Australia’s east coast) were parts of the same island continent, the Great Southern Land.

Matthew Flinders & INVESTIGATOR in a 1966 $1 Stamp.

After fourteen arduous months circumnavigating Australia, HMS INVESTIGATOR foundered back into Port Jackson on her last legs and condemned on the spot. The examiners reported, 

“The above being the state of the INVESTIGATOR thus far, we think it altogether unnecessary to make any further examination; being unanimously of the opinion that she is not worth repairing in any country, and that it is impossible in this country, to put her in a fit state for going to sea.” 

Eventually, HMS INVESTIGATOR was repaired in Sydney, and in 1810 sailed gingerly back to England. She then returned to the merchant service under her previous name, XENOPHON.

Seventy years after Matthew Flinders sailed her into Port Phillip Bay, XENOPHON aka INVESTIGATOR, entered the Rip again in 1872. After almost 80-years of old-fashioned value-for-money service life, a most significant ship in Australian maritime history was ingloriously broken up at Williamstown, Melbourne.

Williamstown circa 1870

Today, it’s interesting that sailors sometimes prefer the adaptability of wood, leather, and rope over plastics, graphite fibres, electric motors, let alone nuclear reactors (but not submariners, of course). Matthew Flinders would have be in furious agreement with legendary sailor Larry Pardey, who said, “If you can’t repair it, maybe it shouldn’t be on board. Don’t rely on new technology you can’t afford to toss away.” By the way, Pardey, who died only last year, circumnavigated the world twice in engineless wooden yachts.