Coasting days
TALISMAN, PEARL, KASPER, Portland, Te Aroha. Motu, Wakanui, Gale, Poroto, Echo are some of the small coasters with some ex-sailing scows I remember still earning their keep after WW2 into the 1950s.
This was back when I was at sea, before realising the coastal trade would be ended by improved roading and trucks, plus the new Cook Strait roll-on roll-off ships.
The history of the Anchor Shipping Company, from its Pioneer days through to fine modern coastal ships, gives an insight into the vital part coastal shipping played in the development of New Zealand. Great stirring tales and true. Good management and good ships, but the writing was on the wall for all coastal shipping and the well run, smart black and white ships disappeared from our coasts. A way of life disappeared with the small coasters.
On sunny days workers often wandered the Wellington waterfront with their lunches as loading was stopped. The old Talisman with her rigging often attracted attention, but one sunny lunchtime she had attracted a large, sniggering, mixed-sex crowd. She had a figurehead sitting on the stump of the sawn-off bowsprit attached to the forestay named Hongi a Tekoteko. He was dressed in a rope yarn cloak and skirt with a sailor’s hat nailed to his head. He held his spear at the ready, peering ahead with open eyes.
The crew of Te Aroha were the suspects for the placing of a large, suitably carved carrot between Hongi’s legs protruding well out from his skirt. I was told by the skipper to remove the carrot, which I did with red face to applause from the crowd.
Later, in a close encounter at sea, we had our revenge, pelting our rivals with rotten eggs and cotton waste balls soaked in sump oil. All met in port at the Coasters Pub for a laugh.
There was fairly friendly rivalry for cargoes. No one liked cement but large cases of tobacco from Motueka were easy to load and clean. Apples and butter were great. One day in Wellington the skipper sauntered back to the ship with a cheery grin: “An interesting cargo for us, boys!” We hoped it would be a quick one to load as we were hoping for a weekend in Nelson.
Then two police officers arrived, one taking up position on the wharf and the other by the hatch. A couple of senior port officials appeared. The first trucks of our special cargo arrived and the careful loading of whisky, wine, gin, brandy, rum and hundreds of cartons of beer began. It was an enormous amount of booze to keep the city of Nelson from going dry, destined to be added to the local brew that made hard drinking Northerners fall over after a couple of glasses. Almost half the hold was full of expensive beer and top-shelf grog; the rest was general cargo.
“It’s all been counted to the last bottle,” a fierce wharfinger said, looking hard at us. Hatch beams and boards were carefully placed and covers were put on and wedged into place when, goodness me, another unusual cargo for the old ship arrived: several bags of Royal NZ Mail as we were expected to do a fast trip that night to Nelson. These were locked in the skipper’s cabin locker. Although the crew found their way to shore pubs for refreshments, all that was ever drunk aboard was tea, coffee, water or orange juice. This was so even in port for us.
Half-astern port as we backed out, then full ahead starboard and full astern port as we swung around to head out and then no mucking about: full ahead both and finish with engines rung down. There we were with our precious cargo at 6 knots heading out of Port Nick [Nicholson]. Around 2am saw us coming abeam of Titi Island near the entrance of Pelorus Sound when one engine shut down. The report from Chiefy was he could fix the problem, but it could take a long time. Like many hours…
The skipper wasn’t going to attempt French Pass on one motor so we made our way into the shallow water at the entrance of Forsyth Bay and dropped anchor. There was a scented manuka, light land breeze. Some slept, apart from anchor watch, while a hard-working engineer and assistant in the engine room spent the time making a new pipe to replace a broken one, or so I was told. Then there was breakfast and nothing for the crew to do except fish.
As Talisman with her valuable cargo had disappeared, authorities were wetting themselves visualising hijacked cargoes and goodness knows what. On the humming powersucking ZC1 transmitter, the skipper got the news through that all was ok but he didn’t know when we would arrive. This gave the postmaster stomach cramps of anxiety.
About midday we were back to two engines and, with a feed of snapper, we headed for French Pass and Tasman Bay in fine, calm conditions. We arrived in Port Nelson about 5pm and were directed to the berth right behind the Nelson-wellington ferry where there was a gathering of publicans, worried post officials, and the much loved local wharf cop.
As the hatch boards came off a local hard case pulled the cover back and shouted, “The bloody hold is empty!” Of course there wasn’t a bottle out of place and a local publican donated a carton to the gallant crew.
“These are good boys. I never doubted all was ok,” added the old wharf cop. We hopped on our push-bikes for home to get ready for the Saturday night “Swing and sway the boat house way” dance...
Sunday evening we sailed for Motueka and then Golden Bay again.