SAVING THE FOX

A pivotal player in Edwin Fox’s salvation, Chris Brown knows the ship’s history intimately. He also knows how close we came to losing her completely. Today he is still involved with the ship’s preservation and the museum.

“The real degradation began in the late 1960s when she was abandoned in Shakespeare Bay – beached in the mud and vandalised for her teak. She’d been in Picton for decades and no one knew what to do with her. Many thought she was just an eyesore – something to be removed and cut up.

“The Navy came up with the bright idea of refloating her and towing her out to sea for use as target practice. Fortunately, the divers who inspected the hull decided this wasn’t feasible because her back was broken. They were wrong – it was twisted, but not broken.

“Over the years there were discussions with all sorts of people – one group planned to tow her to Auckland for a full restoration. That fell over. Then the British began negotiations – they wanted the hulk returned home, as part of their maritime heritage. Luckily, that also fell over.

“I’ve always believed the ship was worth saving – she was significant for New Zealand. So I decided to see if she could be saved. I was a commercial paua diver and after inspecting her hull I reckoned she could be refloated. But we had to find the political will – and the money – to do it. I didn’t want to go to the trouble of refloating her without a permanent plan in place.”

Predictably, local opinion was divided. Many people wanted to save her – but others thought she was just an embarrassing derelict. There were endless discussions at the local council – most doubted she could be refloated – but even if she could, what were they to do with her? Doggedly, Chris prevailed through it all.

Sealing the hull for refloating took four months and many, many hours of diving. Volunteers helped to remove plenty of rubbish to lighten the hull – including coal and 400 tonnes of sand. “We refloated her on a king tide,” says Chris, “aided by a big diesel generator and pumps to keep the water at bay. It was a marathon – I went 60 hours non-stop without sleep.”

But having refloated her, the dithering continued. The authorities couldn’t agree about what to do with her, or where to berth her. “I kept her afloat for another 14 years, patching the leaks. Eventually, I pointed out that if we didn’t come up with a plan to build a dock, she would sink.”

Thankfully, the dock was built in 2000 – and it now has a roof to keep the rain at bay. Today the museum attracts around 10,000 visitors a year.