NZ Professional Skipper Magazine

A gravestone almost buried in rubble and roots on the island of Rarotonga was Joan Druett's inspiration for her book Hen Frigates - Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail, published by Souvenir Press. The inscription was to the memory of Mary-Anne Sherman, the wife of an American whale ship captain.

Her book tells the stories of these 'Hen frigates' as they were called, based on their journals and letters. They reveal the colourful and often dangerous lives of these women, who described diseases, accidents, storms and shipwrecks.

"Yet, despite the risks, thousands of women preferred to join their husbands at sea, rather than remain safely alone on land," writes Druett. They endured pirates, seasickness, rats, and the hazards of bringing up children in cramped shipboard conditions. In the process they acquired a resourcefulness that few women could match today.

Rather than give a chapter to each woman, Druett breaks the book up into themes, such as children at sea, occupational therapy, medical matters, on shore in a foreign land, and sex and the seafaring wife. It must be remembered that ships masters were accustomed to being in absolute command in a situation where even muttered grumbling could be regarded as mutiny. The Captain is often called the King on board his ship, his word being law. Oddly, this apartness from the rest of the crew was a major reason why so many wives were carried to sea. A captain had to keep a dignified distance from everyone on board, up to and including the mates - even when he was eating at the same table - and so he reigned in rank-endowed loneliness, with no one to talk to unless his wife was aboard.

One wife, Mary Rowland, wrote in a letter in January 1873 that "I have occasionally hinted to him that my name is not down in his Ships Articles, even if I did promise to love and obey him some 20 years ago." Another time, Rowland's husband sent the cook to wake her. "I do not like the joke, for while he can go to sleep in a moment, I spend many nights listening to him snoring at the rate of 10 knots per hour."

Druetts hardback book is filled with similar, sometimes charming, but also sometimes horrific reminiscences, and is well illustrated with photographs, paintings, drawings and sketches. It is a lyrical narrative, meticulously researched, of the golden age of sail, told from a different point of view. Druett is the author of nine previous works of history and historical fiction. She is the winner of a Fullbright Fellowship. While much of her research is carried out in the United States, she lives in Wellington with her husband, Ron.

Hen Frigates - Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail, is available for $35, including postage and packaging, from VIP Publications Ltd, 4 Prince Regent Drive, Half Moon Bay, Auckland phone (09) 533 4336, fax (09) 533 4337, or e-mail keith@skipper.co.nz

Just before Christmas, Auckland's waterfront saw the launching of a very interesting-looking craft destined for the European canals of France, Belgium and Germany.

Liberte has been built for Dave and Janette Wylie, who are well known in the maritime industry for their boathauling business. Dave is pursuing a dream to spend six months of the year cruising the European waterways with friends and guests during New Zealand's winter months. He had looked at what was available in Europe and for the kind of money being asked he thought "I can build a far better ship than these relics, which will suit our needs much better. The European vessels all tend to have cramped living areas and a small deckhouse which are all right as day or weekend boats, but are really not suitable for extended cruising with guests aboard for a few weeks at a time. Plus we intend it to be our home for six months of the year, so we wanted some Kiwi boating comfort and not be faced with the problems of refuelling each week or topping up the water daily," said Dave Wylie.

Liberte, which means freedom, was designed by Max Carter of Marine Design limited in Auckland, who saw Wylie's wish list and the European canal barge requirements as a challenge. Carter's years of previous experience as both a wooden and steel boat builder allowed him the freedom to design a practical vessel which would meet both the owners and EU standards. "So often designers forget that someone has to build their ideas, so it is essential to keep the practical and cost element in mind" he said. This Carter design was then built by John Ross boat builders of Papakura to the standards of the European canal barge specifications. She has an overall length of 16m, a beam of 4.4m, a draft of 1m, a gross laden weight of 36 tonnes and a height above the waterline of 2.7m.

While there are many hundreds of barges of all sizes working the inland rivers and canals of Europe, the restricted height and smaller size was essential to allow Liberte the freedom to move unrestricted throughout the canal network, which has hundreds of low bridges and tunnels. The hull is built in 8mm mild steel up to the bulwarks and deck level, and the superstructure is of laminated marine ply. The rationale behind this move was ease of maintenance and the ply - foam sandwich construction will give better insulation when the frosts and snow is about, said Carter. John Ross specialises in constructing displacement steel yachts and launches from laying the keel through to finishing the vessel ready for the water. Liberte was an excellent challenge and a pleasure to build, he said.

However, Liberte should not be confused with the narrow boats which travel on the English canal system, where the locks are only 7ft or 2.13m wide and barges are restricted to 6ft 10 inches width overall.The headroom throughout the interior is a repectable 2.1m, so although there is an overall height restriction of the vessel, this in no way restricts the open-air feeling between decks. Liberte sleeps six in three double cabins, with a separate en suite servicing the master cabin. The other two cabins share a separate head and shower. To keep the vessel environmentally friendly she is fitted with large holding tanks. A 130hp John Deere marine diesel provides an economical service speed of 8 knots. " Although the speeds in the canal network in Europe are restricted to 4 knots, the speed on most rivers is 7 knots, and 8 knots is useful when shifting between canal networks which require short coastal passages, such as across the Baltic Sea to Sweden," says Wylie. "This reserve speed ability means the engine is not working hard in the canals, and power is available when punching any canal or river flow where the 4 knot speed over ground may be effectively maintained." Wylie says he chose the John Deere because there are literally thousands of them in use throughout Europe as tractors, so servicing and maintenance should not be a problem.

Liberte's large propeller and rudder and underwater configuration is the key to her manoeuvrability in the tight confines of a canal

"Although the large propeller is reasonably protected, the canal systems have a notorious reputation for their weed and rubbish, and if you happen to foul the prop, you would not want to have to take a swim." To combat this occupational hazard, Liberte is fitted with a 250mm tube and watertight hatch with an extended hull fairing plug directly above the propeller, which provides good access to enable the propeller to be cleared from inside the lazarette. Inverters provide 230 volt power to run the refrigerator and the microwave when the vessel is not connected to shore power. "The idea was to keep it simple," says Dave Wylie. The interior decor uses domestic household decorating materials, and the saloon is being fitted out utilising domestic furnishings, with cane chairs and canvas director's chairs, plus the mandatory Kiwi barbecue. There is a bench seat around the table. "The rationale behind this thinking is to provide flexible seating arrangements and to make it easy to refurbish in the future."

The exterior is finished in two-pot marine paint by Altex Coatings. Below the waterline the hull is coated using epoxy tar, in keeping with European standards, plus a top coat of ABC 3 antifouling for the three months or so that she will be in New Zealand waters this summer. The Wylie family intended to use this time to enjoy the sheltered waters of the Hauraki Gulf as a shakedown cruise. Once in the canal system in Europe she will only need to be hauled out for servicing every four years. An addition to be fitted once the vessel reaches Europe will be the fitting of the large duck board which is designed to carry cycles and Wylie's motor scooter which are essential means of transport for all barge owners to get around the many cities and towns and are ideal for the visitors and keeping fit. Her barge design gives Liberte a huge surface buoyant area, which allows her to carry three tonnes, or 3000 litres of water and the same amount of fuel. One of the reasons for carrying so much fuel, besides providing ballast, was that three tonnes should last an entire season of cruising in the canals. Once in Europe the price of fuel will vary significantly, so Wylie says he can take advantage of cheap fuel deals, and not have to worry again until the next season. Additional concrete ballast was poured into the pre-prepared steel hull for'ard, which has also helped to deaden any water slapping or underwater noises.

Liberte met and exceeded expectations for her cruising speed and design during the sea trials which followed her launching. She is a very stable vessel and has proved to be highly manoeuvrable. She can turn virtually in her own length, as well as maintain a straight course with the wheel amidships. But like all displacement vessels she tends to be heavy to stop. "So I have had a steep learning curve in the art of anticipation," says Wylie.

Crane is part of Wellington's heritage

by Jason Lambourne,

with information supplied by John Ackrill

A part of the history of Wellington and its port survives in working order today.

The Hikitia, one of probably only two floating heavy-lift steam cranes, now privately owned, remains in operational condition to serve the port she was built for, and to amaze passersby with her unusual design and the historical interest she generates.

The Hikitia was built by Fleming and Ferguson of Paisley, Scotland in 1926. The ship measures 48.58m (160.1ft) in overall length, with a beam of 15.95m and a moulded depth of 3.44m. The crane weighs a large 310 tons.The compound marine steam engines, of Fleming and Ferguson's own design, were direct drive, and were supplied by a coal-fired scotch boiler with two furnaces. This was replaced in 1963 by an oil-fired boiler, which was replaced again in 1980 by her modern package boilers which are still in use.

The crane itself, built by Sir William Arrol and Company of Glasgow, was built to lift 80 tons at 15.22m radius. But when tested it bettered this by 25 percent. Indeed, while undertaking the last lift on the Wahine wreck site, the crane is estimated to have lifted 140 tons.

Following her trials, the Hikitia left Glasgow on September 29, 1926 under the command of Captain J Fullerton. The voyage was made in four legs: Glasgow to Porto Delgado in the Azores, Colon and the passage through the Panama Canal, Balboa to Papeete (Tahiti), and then directly to Wellington, where she arrived at 0355 hours on December 21, 1926. Coal bunkers, water and stores were taken on board with the least amount of time wasted on port. This voyage of 82 days has been accepted as a record distance sailed by a vessel of this type with her jib up. She started work almost immediately after reaching Wellington, and for over 70 years she has been a familiar sight on the harbour.

She has done jobs as diverse as wharf construction to demolishing the wreck of the Wahine, and the Norna. During the Second World War the Hikitia assisted the United States forces, discharging war material and combat loading.

She also saved Wellington in 1947 when the John Davenport caught fire and was in danger of exploding.The Hikitia was sold to her present owners, Hikitia Heavy Lift, on April 12, 1990 for preservation. On July 30, 1992 she was tested on an 88 ton lift and regained her full lifting certificate. Since that test she has performed some 160 commercial lifts, and has been restored by thousands of hours of voluntary work. The work of keeping Hikitia in working condition is considerable. Much time has been spent chipping rust and repainting steel work, of which there is plenty. Her engineers also spend a considerable amount of time maintaining her aging, but very effective steam engines.

Restoring and maintaining such a ship is not for the lighthearted, but the Hikitia deserves the support of all New Zealanders, for she represents a rare example of a steam harbour service vessel, and she is part of Wellington's heritage.

Square rig training set for a resurgence by R D Bird QSM, MCIT Director, Training and Operations Maritime Heritage Division Waterfront Training and Consultancy Services (South Pacific) Limited

In the early days of sail, officers and crew learnt the hard way under sometimes trying conditions. Training was very much picking up skills by doing. As sailing vessels became more complex, training schools and ships were established and courses, examinations and certificates of competence compiled and recognised.

In 1936, in his preparation for a passage around Cape Horn, Captain Irving Johnstone undertook his own training programme of fitness, including climbing rotten power poles to simulate the skills required on the swaying spars of a tall ship. He also filmed the training session undertaken by the master of the vessel the Peking, who taught his dog to bite the last person to a particular halyard or sheet pin rail position - rugged stuff.

With the demise of sail as a means of power and the advent of steam, the requirement for these certificates in the merchant fleets also diminished. But a handful of countries still recognised the value of sail training as a requirement before going to sea.The construction in the mid-1960s of English sail training vessels, with other countries acquiring European vessels, some as a prize of war, saw a resurgence in sail training. In Australasia this resurgence arrived in the early 1970s, with vessels being converted or constructed for sail training, and youth programmes were compiled for each organisation or vessel.

Officer training was not formally addressed until the mid-1980s. Australian legislators have maintained the square rig qualification, while New Zealand removed it from the statutes. Readers may be aware of the work currently underway by the Australian Marine Safety Committee to standardise the qualifications for operators.

When Maori voyagers sailed from the Cook Islands to New Zealand around 1350 AD, a distance of some 2000 nautical miles, it was the furthest distance ever travelled by a vaka (canoe) since the forefathers of the Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian races left eastern China in 1000 BC. These skills have also seen a revival over the past ten years or so. In December 1999 the twin-hulled voyaging canoe Te Au O Tonga lay in the America's Cup Village in Auckland, having made her second journey to New Zealand for two events. This vaka, along with many other smaller ones from all over the Pacific, gathered in the Cook Islands in 1992 for the Maire Nui festival. They sailed for 120 miles with the Tole Mor (built to the same hull design as the Spirit of New Zealand), as the mother ship.

The Kingdom of Tonga also built a large sailing canoe for the new millennium. In 1973 the Spirit of Adventure was launched, and a further vessel, the Spirit of New Zealand, joined her and sailed to Sydney in 1988 for the Australian bicentenary. The Spirit of New Zealand Trust Board has assisted many of the Australian sail training organisations over the years, including the Ji Fung in Hong Kong. In 1979 a replica of the Bounty was constructed and launched in Whangarei. During sailing trials a team of young people were trained using original information compiled in England in the 1700s and a copy of Bligh's log book. Some of these crew members went on to take part in a remake of the movie Mutiny on the Bounty in Tahiti in 1983 and the delivery voyage to the United States. Many tall ships sailed to New Zealand in 1988 after the Australian celebrations, including the Soren Larsen, which has made her home in Auckland.

Following a military coup in Fiji in 1988, the old Governor General's vessel, the Ramarama, was converted to a square rigged sailing vessel and operated by Captain Cook Cruises (Fiji) Limited as a tourist vessel for those who did not want or like an air-conditioned tour of the Yasawa and other local islands off western Viti Levu. This company was eventually sold to Captain Cook Cruises (Australia), which purchased the Spirit of Adventure in 1997 and renamed her the Spirit of the Pacific.

Many sailing vessels have featured in the European settlement of the South Pacific, in particular the Cook Islands. More recently the Soren Larsen, the Bounty and the Picton Castle have paid one or more visits to the main port of Avatiu on the capital island of Rarotonga. The Picton Castle was built in the 1920s in Cochranes' yard in the town of Selby in Yorkshire, England as a steamer, but was later converted to a square rigger. She visited Avatiu in 1998, departing a week later as a Cook Islands-registered vessel, proudly wearing the colours of this small nation.

Command qualifications. On February 20, 1986, the Nautical Institute held a seminar in London on command qualifications for sailing ships. Papers were presented by Captain M Willoughby, Captain M W Kemmis Betty, Kaptain H B Schwarz, Captain H F M Scott, Julian Parker and Martin Lee. With the Bounty project and the construction of the two sail training ships and the R Tucker Thompson (the smallest vessel in the First Fleet re-enactment voyage) in New Zealand, renewed interest was shown in the traditional skills associated with this type of vessel. Following a discussion with Ross McLean from Sydney, held appropriately enough on the topsail yard one night while setting the topsail on a night sail down the east coast of the North Island, another avenue of approach became available, the Nautical Institute certificate process. From 1982, and after many discussions with Captain Ken Edwards of the American Maritime Safety Authority in Sydney, some New Zealand polytechnic institutes and the NI in London, a meeting was held and arrangements made for the first square rig course to be held in Auckland. This was run in December 1977. Captain Edwards travelled to New Zealand to conduct the examination of these candidates, including one from Tasmania. Two reports compiled and submitted to the NI and Captain Edwards are available.

A further course has been run on similar lines, and a third was planned for Auckland last November.

Square rig certificate Discussions have been held with the New Zealand Maritime Safety Authority to recognise some form of square rig certificate. When the Maritime Rule Part 32, made under the New Zealand Maritime Transport Act 1994 was introduced, under Section 32.32 of this rule, Sailing Vessels, it states that the Director (of the MSA) may endorse an applicant's certificate of competency with a sailing vessel endorsement. The requirements are prescribed in Rules 32.4 - 32.7 (deck ratings), or Rules 32.9 to 32.19 (combined skipper/engineer certificates, bridge watchkeepers, mates and masters.) The New Zealand Qualifications Authority, through the various industry training organisations, has compiled a unit standard system of gaining qualifications. Maritime Qualifications New Zealand, which is part of the Engineering ITO, has compiled units of learning covering many maritime qualifications, and these are available from the Internet for those interested in viewing them.

At about the same time, the United Kingdom introduced National Vocational Qualifications, which is a similar system. The Australian system is also similar.The Maritime ITO, the New Zealand Maritime Safety Authority and, who knows, the AMSA, may accept a formal joint proposal from Australia and New Zealand on presenting the square rig endorsement in this format. Following a visit to the Nautical Institute in London in May 1999, they have requested that:the course and qualification assessment be presented in line with the United Kingdom's NVQ system for both master and mate endorsementthat a syllabus be compiled for Master - square rig endorsement and Mate - square rig endorsement, and that a log book format be created.

New Zealand representatives at the 2000 Australian Sail Training Association conference in Port Adelaide expressed a hope that a joint working party be established to format the master and mate square rig endorsements into Units of Learning, NVQs, or whatever the various countries' educationalists call them, to ensure that young people coming through the schemes could gain recognised qualifications which formed part of their education system. Some old shellbacks may find this system a little difficult to take on board, but we need the experience of these people, combined with interpreters who can put this into the format required for registration with the various national educational authorities.

Currently the maritime safety authorities in Australia and New Zealand have a working party on recreational boating (New Zealand's female representative is the holder of Master - square rig). The Australian Standards Association and Standards New Zealand have a joint standard on risk and hazard management - AS/NZ 4801, so why can't a similar system be established for sail training and square rigs? The outcome of this work could be used by the maritime division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Suva as part of their training of seafarers in the 22 Pacific Island countries they work with. The Nautical Institute is currently waiting for the outcome of its request.

It is a big responsibility for those who follow in the wake of present-day qualifications, a qualification for 2000 based upon the sailing ships of the 1700s. The input of all those who are interested in the topic and others who will wish to be involved is vital and necessary, as this represents many thousands of years of sea time and experience. Both New Zealand and Australia have a proud maritime background, and it is hoped that this move will assist with providing skilled and qualified staff.Details of the square rig course are available from the Maritime Heritage Division, Waterfront Training Services, PO Box 1003, Auckland.

The minimum qualifications are Inshore Master (for Mate square rig endorsement), and Offshore Master (for Master square rig endorsement.)