West Tamar - Gravelly Beach

Gravelly Beach, is another small riverside town.

These places have a lot of houses for the size of the town. They are close enough to Launceston that most people would go there for shopping and other services, or nearby Exeter for quick visits.

As you come into Gravelly Beach from the north, there's a long section along the river with newer houses, then the older ones and then this little shopping centre, if you can call it that.

There's a general store, which provides most of the local services, including the post office.






Opposite the shops, there is parking and the river.




Around the corner, there's a good park and playground, and the marina which is probably what brings most visitors, other than those driving through looking for somewhere to eat.

West Tamar - Deviot

On the long weekend just been, we went up to Deviot because there was a bunch of open gardens and a little market. Most of the photos I took are of the gardens, so not many to show.

Deviot is a little town on the edge of the Tamar, just below the Batman Bridge.


The first thing we noticed was a lot of houses for sale, almost every second one when we first entered. You'd think someone was going to build a pulp mill in the area or something.


There are a lot of older, turn of the 20th century houses,




and some representatives of each decades some. As far as I know, it's only been a resort town. For many residents of Tasmania, especially the female ones, its probably best known for this place. There's a bit of farming, a bit of fishing, and in recent years, a lot of vineyards.


Don't know what these are. I assume Pinot Noir, that's the common dark grape in the area, but it was only a small planting, so it might be something else.





It was only a small market, just a handful of stalls, but a nice selection of goods.





We left there about lunch time, and went through Gravelly Beach, to Exeter and then further up the West Tamar to Beaconsfield and Beauty Point.

Bees

Spent some time yesterday following bees around the garden. The bumble bee buzzed off after a short while, but the honey bees hung around. Annoying little buggers to focus on though.

They liked the yellow fennel flowers, which was handy because they were at a convenient height. I don't know which variety of fennel it is. I had bronze fennel, with long, red plumes of leaves, which is an attractive plant, if almost as weedy as the wild sort, I've also got a battered Florence fennel, the one with the swollen base, which somehow escaped the devastation that hit my potted plants in early January :( This flowering thing is tall and green. Either the seeds from one reverted back to the wild form, or it's a hybrid of the two.

The purple flowers are oregano, which is quite closer the ground and therefore is harder to get photos from.

Young Endeavour

Young Endeavour is the Royal Australian Navy's sail training ship, a bicentennial gift from the UK to Australia in 1988.

There's no launch date, but construction was started in May 1986 and the voyage to Australia in August, 1987. That makes her a few months older than Lady Nelson. Among the older of the "new" tall ships (One and All was launched in 1985, Leeuwin in 1986. Possibly I've overlooked someone.)

The leaflet I have gives specifications:

Hull is steel, deck is plywood & teak, masts are aluminium alloy, sails are polyester sailcloth, standing rigging is stainless steel wire rope, running rigging is stainless steel or synthetic fibre.

Design speed maximums, 14 knots under sail & 10 knots under power.

Brigantine rigged (there's a diagram below in one of the photos).







So we'll start at the bow and work aft.















Both masts.



Foremast





Lower foremast.





Lower mainmast


The thing that struck me the most, is the amount of empty space there between the masts. Not all that obvious in the photos. There's this expanse of wood with nothing on it.

George III

The ship slipped on quietly into the night. In the hospital the surgeon could hear the monotonous droning voice of the leadsman in the chains.

Then suddenly this monotonous droning became louder, with a note of warning. The sea had swiftly shoaled, with no apparent cause.

"Heave quick!" called the captain.

"A quarter less four," came the leadsman's ill omened answer. The water was shoaling fast. Yet the land was two miles away on the nearer side.

"Hard aport! Hard aport!" was the captain's next command.

"Hard a--", the helmsman began to answer as he feverishly leapt to swing around the spokes. He never completed that answer, for before he had time to do so the ship, with a horrid, tearing sound of timbers torn into protesting pieces was on the rocks.

"My God!" shrieked Captain Moxey. But no one heard him save the sea fowl and the convicts.

There had been nothing to mark that rock--no broken water, no greasy swirling of the sea, nothing at all.

(A. J. Villiers, Vanished Fleets, 1931)


George III (ship, 393 tons) departed the Downs on 14th December headed for Hobart Town, with a cargo of 220 men and boys. Under the command of William Moxey, she carried a crew of thirty, as well as twenty-nine soldiers from the 50th regiment, two surgeons and some women, mostly soldiers' wives.

"All went well with the ship til she neared the Line. Then someone went below to draw off spirits. It is probable that he carried a naked light, for a fire started which spread rapidly. ... For hours the fate of the ship hung in the balance for among her military stores were several copper drums of gun powder. The fire had almost reached these when two convicts, Hart and Nelson, braved the suffocating smoke, entered the powder store, seized the copper containers and removed them."

"The food was scarce and bad, the medical supplies scanty with the result that by the time the George III had picked up the Tasmanian coast after one hundred days and eighteen days at sea, she had passed sixteen poor souls over the rail and sixty more were down with scurvy. Of these, fifty were regarded as hopeless."

So it was, when Moxey gathered his officers and surgeon together, they decided to take the quicker passage along D'Entrecasteaux Channel, between Bruny Island and mainland Tasmania.

"Darkness had fallen but the moon was bright and in spit of passing showers visibility was good. Sail was shortened, the leadsman placed in the chains, the Third Officer took his station on the foreyard to look out for broken water. The wind was off the land and the ship passed safely between the dreaded Actaeons and the western shore. She had cleared the reef and her Captain was unaware of the uncharted rocks still ahead which were known only to the local whalers. There were sleeping and therefore showed no break to the Third Mate on the foreyard. Six feet o water cover this part of the reef.

"The first indication of danger was given when the leadsman called, 'Five fathoms.' The ship was moving at about one and a half knots. The next call was, 'A quarter less four.'

"Captain Moxey ordered the helm, "Hard a port." But the ship struck and began to bump and pound. The quarter boat was put over to take soundings and got three and half fathoms. In a short time her masts were over the side and her rudder was up through the poop. The poor wretches locked below were screaming to be let up and were naturally trying to breakout. The military guard was placed round the main \hatch with loaded muskets to prevents the convicts from reaching the deck. In the meantime as the gig was being lowered the forward tackle jambed. She reached the water stern first and scattered her passengers. The Third Officer in the quarter boat picked them up. As this boat was now overcrowded the officer set out but could not find any landing place, so continued up the Channel to Hobart Town. By this time many of the sick below were drowned and others who were strong were trying to reach the deck. But the guard round the hatch threatened to fire on them."

"By now the main deck was almost under water and the boatswain was trying to launch the long boat. This was washed right across the deck and soldiers on guard left their stations round the hatch and boarded her. Many prisoners then reached the deck and about thirty were carried by the sea through the bulwarks and drowned. Captain Moxey was carried over the among the broken spars. Fortunately the long boat had floated after she had been swept through the broken bulwarks and some of the people who had crowded into her dragged the Captain on board."

When the overcrowded boat got free of the wreck, they found a little bay up the coast a way and unloaded. The captain takes the boat back to the wreck and picks up another load of "women, children and invalids and as many others as the boat would carry". On his second trip back, the schooner Louisa appears, and takes off the remaining survivors.

"There were 134 lives lost in this sad wreck. They were all convicts with the exception of two of the crew, a sergeant's wife and three children."

"Dr Wyse in his evidence [at the later enquiry] said that he went below to his charges when she struck. They put their hands through the gratings and seized his hands saying, "You promised to stand by us". The Doctor had answered, "I shall remain." The Doctor continued, "The rocks were tearing through her bottom and the water rising rapidly. Two of the most deserving person got through an opening they had made but Corporal Bell ordered them back. The guard was standing around the hatchway with muskets levelled. I went to the hatchway and requested Corporal Bell to allow the two prisoners, Hart and Nelson, to come up with me. ... Out of forty boys on boards twenty were lost."

There were allegations that the soldiers had fired on the prisoners. An enquiry was held but "the evidence about the shooting was conflicting. The military, with the exception of Corporal Bell, said the shots were fire to draw attention to the wreck."

Corporal Deveril: A shot was fired but not at the prisoners. One shot only was fired down the hatchway. Soon afterwards the prisoners were up to their middles in water and they then came up.

William Nelson, prisoner: Heard shots fired but saw no one wounded.

Robert Hart, prisoner: Saw soldiers level their muskets against prisoners and one shot fired. Saw prisoner Robert Lucker fall. He was nine or ten feet away. Never saw him again.

James McKay, prisoner,: Saw prisoner Yates fall after a shot had been fired.

James Elliott, prisoner: Heard two shots fired. The first killed Robert Lucker. Saw another man fall a few minutes later. Was knocked down the hatchway and fell on Lucker's body.

Corporal David Bell: Said two shots were fired down the hatchway. Heard a cry that a man had been shot.

The Coroner and the jury made their way down to South Port where they exhumed the bodies that had been washed up on the beach for signs of being shot. Given the state of the bodies and that only two or three out of 134 had possibly been shot that, they strangely enough didn't find anything.

There's a monument to the wreck on Southport Bluff, and another one with an anchor from the wreck in either Southport or Dover. (A quick Google tells me that I thought it was in Dover.)

Not a lot of information on the web that I can find.

There is an oil painting though, by Knut Bull, 1805.
The wreck of the 'George the Third'

Also there's the book Book: An Imperial Disaster: the wreck of George the Third by Michael Roe.

Quoted sections are from Wrecks in Tasmanian Water: 1797-1950", by Harry O'May

James Craig

James Craig aka Clan McLeod, iron barque, built 1874, and used for general cargo. In the 1920s, she was sent off to end her days as coal hulk in Recherche Bay, although soon after that she was abandoned and beached. There's a photo from that period on the Sydney Heritage Fleet website, along with more information. She was rescued in 1972, restored and then relaunched in 1997, and now lives Sydney. Something of a special ship, because there are very few from that era still in regular work, if carrying passengers rather than cargo.

Interesting that the 'Facts' page gives the original crew as "Master, his wife, 16 crew including 3 apprentices", I wouldn't have thought that 16 was enough.


These photos were taken at the 2005 Wooden Boat Festival in 2005 (obviously an ocean-going ship). These are my first "sailing ship" photos so there's not as many as usual :) and I can't remember many of the details, so most of them don't have captions unless I can tell what they are from the photo. Also, the camera doesn't like dark-hulled ships.



"Fo'c'sle Deck" the sign says.



Galley



Cabin for crew





Quarterdeck









Looking from the quarterdeck.



That looks familiar.


Seem to recall that this deck is a later addition, and this was all part of the hold. Which makes sense, but then the tables below couldn't have been there.





This leads up into the cabin area. See the information panel on the left which gives the layout of the ship, which I didn't bother to get a photo of because I thought I could find it elsewhere?

The next few photos are given in the order taken, to help put them in context because I can't remember any details.



From the top of that ladder, looking back to the deck/hold. If the deck didn't exist, then access to the upper deck would have been via the ladder (photo below), and the companionway (further down).











In the saloon.



>

Master's cabin, bed is on the left.



Bath off master's cabin