Old visitor and maritime survivor James Craig rises back from the dead

22 Sep 2024, 03:00 by Mike Scanlon · Newcastle Herald

The authentic square rigger James Craig seen abandoned in Tasmania in 1973 with insets of Peter Lucas and the restored ship celebrating her 150th anniversary this year. Main picture: Sydney Heritage Fleet. Artwork by Lyn Scanlon

THE barque James Craig is a rare ship that's come back from the dead.

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After an eventful maritime career long ago, the graceful 19th century sailing vessel remains one tough, stubborn survivor with more lives than a cat.

And the ship has a very special, if now almost overlooked, link with Newcastle Harbour. She visited here 32 times between 1901 and 1920 alone.

But with the James Craig's working life apparently all over by the 1930s, she had a hole dynamited in her stern to make sure she died. She was scuttled in the shallow, icy waters of remote, if sheltered, Recherche Bay, about 100 kilometres south of Hobart, Tasmania.

And here, the abandoned iron barque built in 1874 gradually became derelict. She stayed in her watery graveyard for 40 years, her hull plates slowing becoming fretted and rusting.

Explosives had left a gaping hole in her stern to prevent the 70 metre-long vessel drifting off to become a shipping hazard. Much later there was graffiti on her hull and she'd been vandalised. More holes had also been blasted in her hull.

To add to the indignity, her stately masts had gone and her pine decks had completely disappeared, stripped and burnt for firewood by visiting fishermen to keep warm.

It was a sad fate for a cargo workhorse who famous maritime author Alan Villiers once fondly described as "tacking like a yacht and running like a greyhound" under billowing sailcloth.

She was a sorry sight then when would-be Aussie rescuers charted a boat in 1972 to get to the desolate site, surrounded by forest and framed by the snow-capped peaks of the Tasmanian wilderness.

For after so long, it was now an unlikely race against time with a well-funded competitor. The San Francisco Maritime Museum was also eyeing off this once magnificent windjammer in her last resting place to restore her to its former glory. Recoverable wrecks were a rare item world-wide.

A tiny, struggling Sydney maritime museum got first option on the historic James Craig and set to work examining her to see if the hull had warped on the sandy bottom of the Tassie bay. Luckily she hadn't, which was the group's first stroke of good luck.

The whole recovery operation initially looked like mission impossible. But any iron barque which had faced mountainous seas and fended off icebergs off the tip of South America a staggering 23 times in her heyday was worthy of a second chance at life.

But to get an intimate look behind the scenes at the rescue and restoration of the windjammer, we have to turn to Peter Lucas, 73, a recent guest speaker at Merewether Historical Society.

A volunteer at the Sydney Heritage Fleet (or SHF which owns the saved ship), Lucas said the successful salvage to create and maintain an ocean-going floating museum rather than a static display has spanned more than 30 years. The restoration may also have cost up to $23 million, excluding volunteer help and the SHF still relied heavily on public and corporate donations to continue.

"The ship was built in England and originally named Clan Macleod," he said.

The vessel has had seven owners and celebrated her 150th anniversary last February.

"Has the restoration been worth it? Yes, this saved barque is only one of four 19th century sailing vessels in the world (out of thousands) still sailing. She is also the only one existing in the Southern Hemisphere.

"She really is an amazing, historic relic," he said.

Lucas said the three-masted iron barque was renamed James Craig by her new owner, J.J.Craig in December 1905. He seemed to name his ships after his family members.

The James Craig, as we now all know her, has also had a very varied career. Besides hauling coal around the notorious Cape Horn and carrying timber on the return voyage, she then made 35 passages on the Trans-Tasman run until 1911.

The old square rigger was later stripped and converted into a copra storage hulk in Port Moresby. Her career, however, was far from over.

With ships desperately short because of submarine warfare towards the end of World War I, she was re-rigged to enter service as a supply vessel.

Much later, in 1926, she was de-masted and reduced to being used as a humble coal hulk in Recherche Bay for the local mines. Retirement loomed.

"She was then beached in 1932 and sat in the cold waters of the bay which preserved much of her metal, unlike old steel ships. The first question for the rescuers in 1972 was, 'could she be saved'," he said.

"The isolated site was at first a real problem. It was 20km from the nearest town and from the nearest power source. A camp would have to be set up and all the work have to be done by volunteers," Lucas said.

These volunteers stood in the water patching up holes in the ship's skin as best as they could with pieces of timber and steel plates. The hurdle of the gaping hole in the ship's stern was solved by using a sandbag cofferdam, before a salvage tug with giant pumps pumped the hull dry.

"There were over 1000 holes, many small, in the hull which needed repair. The ship was re-floated at 5am on October 24, 1972, then towed to Hobart In May 1973," Lucas said.

More problems followed. The ship then later sank while moored at Hobart's Powder Wharf. Eight years work followed before the James Craig was finally towed into Sydney Harbour to a rapturous welcome in January 1981. Her official re-launch (with masts fitted) would have to wait another 16 years until February 1997.

"The restored James Craig is now sailing the ocean again (with two backup diesel marine engines hidden away) but we still require hundreds of volunteers," Lucas said.

"The ship has 21 sails, or 1100 square metres of sail when fully rigged and 19kms of rope. To get her sailing again has been a magnificent effort. There are a lot of unsung heroes.

"Today we need abut 40 crew, including trainees, for a sail day out about 10 nautical miles at sea. Originally (in 1874) the barque sailed with the ship's master, and most unusually his wife, plus a crew of 17," Lucas said.

To mark the centenary of the James Craig first visiting Newcastle in 1901, the harbour played host to the authentic square-rigger back in July 2001. Then, in a symbolic gesture, she again carried 1.5 tonnes of Catherine Hill Bay coal from the port.

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