North American
ships with NZ connections
(revised 31 March 2004)
At least 166
North American ships (sail and steam) came under New Zealand ownership up to 1950
and at least another 47 ended their days in NZ.
For a listing of these 213 ships refer to North American
list
For an independent web site listing Prince Edward Island
ships registered in NZ refer to http://www.islandregister.com/wattslist.html
Fuller information
is given below (in alphabetical order) for those of these ships for which I
have additional information not readily accessible in common sources or
information revising a common source. Refer to Heritage
ships within NZ for information about the Inconstant.
The Bertha Dolbeer
According to one
detailed account, the 242 ton three-masted schooner Bertha Dolbeer, ON(US) 3180
built in Fairhaven, California, in 1881, burned at sea near New
Zealand’s East Cape late in 1917 or early in 1918. However, Jim Gibbs in West Coast Windjammers (Superior
Publishing Company, Seattle, 1968, p 138) records her fate as “Burned, sank California Coast November 3, 1918 (lifeboat found N.Z.).”
Successive
editions of Ingram’s New Zealand
Shipwrecks (originally published in 1936) portray the fate of the Bertha Dolbeer as being earlier and much
closer to New Zealand
than indicated by Gibbs’ reference. Ingram cites a report dated February 9,
1918 that a 124-foot keel with attached flooring and lower planking had come
ashore at Te Araroa near East Cape, NZ with evidence of having been recently
burned at sea. Associated evidence indicated that the ship had carried a
benzene cargo. A hat with a San Francisco
brand mark and a newspaper dated 17 June 1917 were found. Other remains
including a mast came ashore considerably further south up to three weeks
later. On 19 March 1918 a report was received that a lifeboat and a buoy had
been washed ashore still further south.
Although one
observer formed the opinion that the remains were from a three-masted ship, the
remains were officially identified as the Bertha
Dolbeer. The registered length of the Bertha
Dolbeer in 1910 was 125 feet – consistent enough with the reported 124-foot
keel measured in sub-optimal circumstances. Such a keel length would have been
very small for that of a wooden three-masted ship surviving to so late a date.
Wooden three-masted ships were very few and far between by 1917* so it cannot have
been difficult to establish whether any were missing in NZ waters with a highly
flammable cargo. The mast remains should have left no doubt whether they came
from a square-rigger or a schooner. That one observer who was not involved in
maritime administration thought the remains came from a square-rigger, cannot
count for much against the other evidence.
* The Report
of the Commissioner of Navigation for 1912 lists around 40 American wooden
full-rigged ships and barques, not all of which survived to 1917 and only a
handful of which were small enough for their remains to be capable of confusion
with the Bertha Dolbeer. If it wasn’t
the Bertha Dolbeer that came ashore
in NZ in 1918 it was another schooner or barquentine of similar size. There
weren’t all that many other possible candidates among them either, though the
same also goes for Gibbs’ Californian coast reference.
A lengthy
account appears in New Zealand Shipwrecks
1795-1975, C.W.N. Ingram, A.H. & A.W. Reed, fifth edition,1977, pp
330-31 with a photograph of the keel and attached remains opposite page 280
(different pagination in other editions). The photograph of the keel shows the
stem and the position of the stern post.
These two
accounts of the fate of the Bertha
Dolbeer agree only in that she was burned at sea and that a lifeboat was
found in New Zealand.
If all dates are correctly printed, one or other identification must be
incorrect. If Gibbs intended to print 1917 rather than 1918, the years would
match but the remains found in New
Zealand could not have drifted there from
the Californian coast so at least some part of Gibbs’ reference must be
incorrect. The cited NZ records provide no evidence for the specific date
quoted by Gibbs.
Can any reader
with better access to American records clarify the source of Gibbs’ information
or provide any evidence of the existence of the Bertha Dolbeer after November 1917, the confirmed final departure
date of the Bertha Dolbeer from San
Francisco or any other report of a ship burned off the Californian coast on the
date Gibbs cites that could have been confused with her? An American newspaper
report around the date cited by Gibbs that was superseded by subsequent
evidence is a possible explanation for the contradictions.
The Columbia
The 584 ton four-masted
schooner Columbia,
ON(US)
127369 built in Washington in 1899, ended her
days in New Zealand
without ever being British-registered or listed as a NZ shipwreck. She arrived
in Napier (NZ) with a load of timber in 1926 and was purchased by the Devonport
Steam Ferry Company for use as a hulk in Auckland. The
Harbour Board allocated her hulk moorings in 1932. She was later converted to a
floating dance hall known as the “Show Boat” and moored at Mechanics Bay,
Auckland, in
December 1935. In 1938 the hull was condemned and burned at Rangitoto Island.
(Refer Auckland Harbour Board “Hulks Book” p 86, NZNMM.) Some three-quarters of
the bottom of the hull survived the burning. A substantial section of keel and
flooring timbers survives. For further information including a recent
photograph refer to http://www.arc.govt.nz/arc/environment/cultural-heritage/maritime-heritage/rangitoto-ships-graveyard/
NZ records do
not indicate the purchase of the Columbia as she
was not registered in NZ. Jim Gibbs says she was “sold British” in 1928 (West Coast Windjammers, Superior
Publishing Company, Seattle, 1968, p 140). NZ shipping statistics show that a sailing
ship of precisely 584 tons arrived in Napier from overseas during the 1926
calendar year - the last ever to the port after 1921 - and did not clear from
Napier for an overseas port. This record evidently pinpoints the Columbia’s arrival.
The Forest Home
The 4-masted
schooner Forest Home (763 tons,
ON(US): 121149 ON(Brit.): 121397, built in 1900 in Oregon) arrived in
Wellington with lumber from British Columbia in April 1922 and was seized and
sold for debt. She was acquired by Wellington’s
Holm Shipping Company and renamed Holmwood.
She made a number of passages under sail but was eventually downgraded to a
coal hulk in Wellington.
She was disposed of in 1940 to a resident of Port Underwood (Marlborough
Sounds) and beached where some remains survived into the 1970’s according to
Allan A. Kirk’s history of the Holm Shipping Company Fair Winds and Rough
Seas. The Story of the
Holm Shipping Company, A. H. & A. W. Reed, Wellington, 1975 (pp 43-45). Jim Gibbs in West Coast Windjammers, Superior
Publishing Company, Seattle,
1968 (p. 144) gives her fate as sunk by a German raider in the Pacific in 1941.
Gibbs confused her with the Holm Shipping Company’s steamship Tees which was renamed Holmwood in 1940 and met the fate that
Gibbs describes. A later motor vessel was also given the same name by the
company.
The Othello
The Othello was built in Fairhaven, Mass.,
in 1853 and made two extended whaling voyages from 1853 to 1863. She was then
put into the China trade but
turned up little more than a year later owned and registered in Australia. She
came under New Zealand
ownership in 1883 and ultimately became a coal hulk. In 1927 she was towed to Stewart Island for use as a landing stage. Now only her
outline below low water remains. She was sold abroad too soon to be allocated
an American official number. Her British official number was 49281.
The Othello is extensively covered in Stewart Island’s Kaipipi Shipyard and the
Ross Sea Whalers, J. P. C. Watt, 1989 and 2000, 270 pages. Pages 179 to 183
cover the Othello including several
photographs and there are other references on pages 8, 20, 42, 43, and 56. The
2000 edition of the book was priced at NZ$77 (roughly US$50) and is sometimes
still available locally. A scheduled
reprint is slightly cheaper. Contact me if you want assistance in obtaining a
copy.
The M.A. Doran
The brigantine M.A. Doran, ON(Brit.) 72713 built in Nova Scotia in 1875, came under NZ ownership in 1896 and
was hulked in Auckland
in 1914. In 1916 the hulk was towed to Matiatia
Bay on Waiheke Island,
stripped and burned. A portion of keel of several metres in length remains at
extreme low water line but given the substantial local variation in tidal range
is accessible only briefly on one or two days of each fortnightly tidal cycle.
It is unlikely that what remains could contribute much to marine archaeology
unless a project is desperate for fragmentary comparative samples of wood, iron
or copper with few alternative sources anywhere else in the world. (Recent
appraisal based on personal observation in 2002.)
The Retriever
The 547 ton
barquentine Retriever, ON(US): 110507
built in Washington in 1881, was abandoned in
the South Pacific on 15 March 1920 and subsequently towed to Auckland (Jim Gibbs, West Coast Windjammers, Superior Publishing Company, Seattle, 1968,
p. 156). She was hulked in Auckland
but condemned and burned on an upper harbour mudflat in 1923 (Auckland Harbour
Board “Hulks Book” p 43, NZNMM) although it seems that some remains survived
until destroyed about 1990 (fragments only may still survive). As she was never registered in NZ she does
not appear in Watt’s Index and as she was not wrecked in NZ or its territories
she does not appear in Ingram’s New
Zealand Shipwrecks either, but she assuredly ended her days in Auckland.
To return to main
Maritime menu click
here