Sailing on the Enterprize
Jan. 15th, 2016 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranCome with me this time on a short cruise on the Enterprize, a replica of the ship which first brought settlers to Port Phillip Bay to found the city of Melbourne.
We'll board the ship at Geelong, on the shores of Corio Bay on the western-side of Port Phillip Bay.
As you can see, the replica was launched in 1997. It took six years to build using traditional techniques and recycled timber.
The ropes are made from natural fibre hemp from Holland. (All except the modern safety line in the upper right of the picture.)
And the rigging is coated with layers of Stockholm tar.
Ready to depart? Fortunately, she also has an ahistorical motor to help us pull away from the pier.
Some of the volunteer crew preparing the sails. They are clipped on to modern safety lines like the one we saw earlier, in case they fall. The sails are hand sewn from flax cloth imported from Scotland.
The Enterprize is rigged as a "top-sail schooner". The "schooner" part means that each mast has a sail with a boom behind it, just like on the little Mirror that Liem and I sail. The "top-sail" part indicates that there are square-rigged sails above them. The sails with the booms are supported by wooden gaffs (again, just like our Mirror). Here you can see the rearmost gaff being hauled up, dragging the aft sail with it.
Hsiu Lin, meanwhile, helps to raise the headsails (smaller triangular sails at the front of the boat, analogous to the single jib on our dinghy).
The headsails flying. By now, the motor has stopped and the ship is sailing along happily in a light breeze.
Here you can see both the square-rigged top sail and the big gaff-rigged sail behind the foremast. Note that the square-rigged sail has been turned so it is side-on to the wind, to help it generate more lift.
Time to kick back and listen to a few nautical tunes on the harmonica...
Or if you prefer, you can have a go at climbing the rigging...
Corio Bay is calm and flat this morning. Once these waters were plied by clippers bringing wool from the newly-rich colony of Victoria to the rest of the world. But when the original Enterprize reached Port Phillip Bay in 1835 it was a very different story.
It began with a boy called John Fawkner, who was transported with his convict father to the short-lived penal colony at Sullivan Bay, on the other side of Port Phillip Bay. Long-time readers may recognize this as the same place William Buckley escaped from. After the Sullivan Bay colony failed, John and his father were moved to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), where John's father received a pardon and John eventually became a successful businessman in the city of Launceston. His business ventures included a bakery, a hotel and even a newspaper and he was eventually rich enough to purchase the original Enterprize, which had been built five years earlier in Hobart.
With the boat, he intended to establish a new colony back in Port Phillip Bay, but before he could leave, his plans hit a snag. His creditors were apparently a little shy of letting him sail off into the sunset on a fully-provisioned boat and they forced him to stay behind while the expedition left without him.
Once across Bass Straight, the Enterprize scouted for potential locations for the new colony, passing through the treacherous rip without a pilot and eventually reaching the Yarra River, near the present site of William Street in modern Melbourne's central business district. There they landed a small complement of settlers and the city of Melbourne was born.
Not long after this, a rival expedition from John Batman's Port Phillip Association also arrived at the same site. John Batman had already reached the same site on an earlier voyage and obtained a "treaty" with the local Wurundjeri people, which he used to justify his settlement to the Crown, but it is not clear that the Wurundjeri really understood what was going on. In any event, by the time the second expedition arrived, Fawkner's settlers were already established and the two groups were forced to share.
John Fawkner would go on to be a prominent citizen and politician in the new city of Melbourne, and you can still find his name in various places around Melbourne (although John Batman is more commonly acknowledged as the city's founder).
But now our voyage is almost over, and we're heading back to the city of Geelong...
Soon, it's time for us to leave, and another set of passengers to board. After lunch, we catch another glimpse of the ship coming back in as we walk by the hills near Geelong's Eastern Park. It's easy to imagine what it must have been like for the the original Enterprize, when it was once literally the only ship in the whole of Port Phillip Bay...
The new colonies of Melbourne and Geelong quickly became successful based on agriculture, but then just fifteen years after Melbourne was founded, the Victorian gold rush had begun and the new colony of Victoria was suddenly one of the richest in the world. A vast amount of gold flowed into Melbourne and out through the narrow Rip and it was suddenly obvious that all this wealth needed to be protected. And that takes us back to Queenscliff, for the last part of this story...
We'll board the ship at Geelong, on the shores of Corio Bay on the western-side of Port Phillip Bay.
As you can see, the replica was launched in 1997. It took six years to build using traditional techniques and recycled timber.
The ropes are made from natural fibre hemp from Holland. (All except the modern safety line in the upper right of the picture.)
And the rigging is coated with layers of Stockholm tar.
Ready to depart? Fortunately, she also has an ahistorical motor to help us pull away from the pier.
Some of the volunteer crew preparing the sails. They are clipped on to modern safety lines like the one we saw earlier, in case they fall. The sails are hand sewn from flax cloth imported from Scotland.
The Enterprize is rigged as a "top-sail schooner". The "schooner" part means that each mast has a sail with a boom behind it, just like on the little Mirror that Liem and I sail. The "top-sail" part indicates that there are square-rigged sails above them. The sails with the booms are supported by wooden gaffs (again, just like our Mirror). Here you can see the rearmost gaff being hauled up, dragging the aft sail with it.
Hsiu Lin, meanwhile, helps to raise the headsails (smaller triangular sails at the front of the boat, analogous to the single jib on our dinghy).
The headsails flying. By now, the motor has stopped and the ship is sailing along happily in a light breeze.
Here you can see both the square-rigged top sail and the big gaff-rigged sail behind the foremast. Note that the square-rigged sail has been turned so it is side-on to the wind, to help it generate more lift.
Time to kick back and listen to a few nautical tunes on the harmonica...
Or if you prefer, you can have a go at climbing the rigging...
Corio Bay is calm and flat this morning. Once these waters were plied by clippers bringing wool from the newly-rich colony of Victoria to the rest of the world. But when the original Enterprize reached Port Phillip Bay in 1835 it was a very different story.
It began with a boy called John Fawkner, who was transported with his convict father to the short-lived penal colony at Sullivan Bay, on the other side of Port Phillip Bay. Long-time readers may recognize this as the same place William Buckley escaped from. After the Sullivan Bay colony failed, John and his father were moved to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), where John's father received a pardon and John eventually became a successful businessman in the city of Launceston. His business ventures included a bakery, a hotel and even a newspaper and he was eventually rich enough to purchase the original Enterprize, which had been built five years earlier in Hobart.
With the boat, he intended to establish a new colony back in Port Phillip Bay, but before he could leave, his plans hit a snag. His creditors were apparently a little shy of letting him sail off into the sunset on a fully-provisioned boat and they forced him to stay behind while the expedition left without him.
Once across Bass Straight, the Enterprize scouted for potential locations for the new colony, passing through the treacherous rip without a pilot and eventually reaching the Yarra River, near the present site of William Street in modern Melbourne's central business district. There they landed a small complement of settlers and the city of Melbourne was born.
Not long after this, a rival expedition from John Batman's Port Phillip Association also arrived at the same site. John Batman had already reached the same site on an earlier voyage and obtained a "treaty" with the local Wurundjeri people, which he used to justify his settlement to the Crown, but it is not clear that the Wurundjeri really understood what was going on. In any event, by the time the second expedition arrived, Fawkner's settlers were already established and the two groups were forced to share.
John Fawkner would go on to be a prominent citizen and politician in the new city of Melbourne, and you can still find his name in various places around Melbourne (although John Batman is more commonly acknowledged as the city's founder).
But now our voyage is almost over, and we're heading back to the city of Geelong...
Soon, it's time for us to leave, and another set of passengers to board. After lunch, we catch another glimpse of the ship coming back in as we walk by the hills near Geelong's Eastern Park. It's easy to imagine what it must have been like for the the original Enterprize, when it was once literally the only ship in the whole of Port Phillip Bay...
The new colonies of Melbourne and Geelong quickly became successful based on agriculture, but then just fifteen years after Melbourne was founded, the Victorian gold rush had begun and the new colony of Victoria was suddenly one of the richest in the world. A vast amount of gold flowed into Melbourne and out through the narrow Rip and it was suddenly obvious that all this wealth needed to be protected. And that takes us back to Queenscliff, for the last part of this story...
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no subject
Date: 2016-01-16 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-16 07:45 pm (UTC)It looks like there were only about nine or ten settlers in the first expedition (most of the internet articles seem to reference the same list of names).
From wikipedia:
"On board the Enterprize as it departed the Tasmanian port of George Town were Captain John Lancey, Master Mariner (Fawkner’s representative); George Evans, builder; William Jackson and Robert Marr, carpenters; Evan Evans, servant to George Evans; and Fawkner’s servants, Charles Wyse, ploughman, Thomas Morgan, general servant, James Gilbert, blacksmith and his pregnant wife, Mary, under Captain Peter Hunter."
no subject
Date: 2016-01-17 09:40 pm (UTC)The tar is for waterproofing, yes? Is there anything particularly special bout Stockholm tar?
no subject
Date: 2016-01-18 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 08:51 am (UTC)