Dauntless Captain Gay, the forgotten whaler

Press, 15 December 1979, Page 17

Dauntless Captain Gay, the forgotten whaler

By

GORDON OGILVIE

A Scottish-born, former British Merchant Service captain, Thomas Gav, is a forgotten man in the history of Canterbury whaling. And it is difficult to understand why. He was known by the ’ eariy settlers as a courageous, enterprising, and genial skipper. Gay’s robust presence in the early days of the province’s settlement, his dauntless adventures, deserve to be remembered with affection and respect, despite his melancholy end The rip-roaring davs of the Banks Peninsula whaling bonanza were well past by the time the Canterbury Association se'tlers arrived in 1850. But whaling off the Peninsula was to persist on a modest scale for some years afterwards.

A shore ’ation operated at Island Bay until about 1863, and another was in use at Ikoraki for a further 13 years. American, Australian and French whaling ships called in at Akaroa and Lyttelton, or

took shelter in the northfacing Peninsula bays, at intervals tnrough the 1850 s and 1860 s. Whales occasionally ventured into the Akaroa and Lyttelton harbours and were at various times found stranded at Gollans Bay, Quail Island, New Brighton, Waikuku, and the Rakaia River mouth. In January, 1860, a calf sperm whale came ashore by the moutk of Sait Water Creek and was despatched, after a messy struggle, by a picnicker calle' William Orchard

who was equipped only with a pocket knife.

One of the numerous whalers who could not resist settling on Banks Peninsula was Thomas Gay. Working from Pigeon Bay. Port Levy, and Lyttelton Harbour, he carried on his whaling activities right up till 1861. It is possible that Captain Gay was whaling off the Peninsula earlier than this, but his first documented appearance is on May 6, 1849. In his journal entry for that day, Charles Torlesse, the pioneer surveyor, mentions meeting Gay at Pigeon Bay where there were then three Hobart whaling vessels at anchor. Gay was captain of the Offley and the other two ships were the Sussex and the Cheviot. The second mate of the latter succeeded in selling Torlesse an opossum skin rug for £2. Gay and his colleagues were being entertained by the widow and family of Captain Francis Sinclair, who had been lost aboard the Jessie Millar three years earlier. (The Sinclairs lived at Holmes Bay on the western shore of Pigeon Bay, and their farm, Craigforth, stretched right to the heads and over the skyline to Port Levy.) Gay returned this hospitality the next day when the Sinclairs were invited back to the Offley and stayed aboard until 9.00 p.m. By the time Charlotte Godley mentions Gay in a letter to her mother in November, 1851, the captain had married the eldest Sinclair daughter, Jane. The Godleys visited the hospitable Sinclairs on their way back from a trip to ..karoa. Gay seems to have just returned from a nine-month voyage which took him as far as the Behring Straits. He arrived back at Pigeon Bay with plenty of Eskimo and South Sea Island souvenirs, but not a drop of oil. The Captain,

with his wife and child, then sailed to Hobart for a short holiday; probably to restore their morale. Captain Gay established a small farm at the north end of Holmes Bay, near Sinclair’s and Pigeon Bay became his firm base. As well as his whaling activities, he traded betweeen Australia and New Zealand and around our own coastline. On another occasion he paid a return visit to Scotland and voyaged back in command of a large passenger ship. James Hay, in his “Reminiscences,” mentions Gay briefly, saying he was one of the Lyttelton merchants who bought the firt steamer owned in this province. If this is so, the vessel was the Canterbury Steam Navigation Company’s 37-ton iron-clad Alma, built at Melbourne in 1855 and wrecked on the Sumner bar on January 9. 1856. She had been in service for less than a month.

However, it is Captain Gay’s association with the Corsair for which he was most renowned. There were still enough whales passing by the Canterbury and the Peninsula coastline for some profit to be made in whaling — at least, for the adventurous. In July, 1856, an American whaler Mount Woollaston visited Pigeon Bay with 2000 barrels of oil aboard. Six months later the Albion, from Fairhaven, called with a similar quality. The prospects seemed tempting indeed. So a company was formed to buy the 134-brigantine Corsair in Melbourne, and Captain Gay sailed her to Lyttelton; she arrived on December 21,' 1857. Built at Moulmein in Burma in 1834, she had already seen 23 years’ service.

The Corsair was re-rig-ged as a whaling brig and set sail from Port Levy on June 11, 1858 on her first cruise. The vessel had a

crew of 18, including some Port Levy Maoris. While sailing some 12 to 15 miles off the Waimakiriri mouth about noon that day, she fell in with a black whale and its calf. Captain Gay manned his boats immediately and gave chase for about six miles before making fast to the cow. He had a further zigzag tow of another half-dozen miles before the whale was killed. The Corsair then towed it back to Pigeon Bay but Gay refrained from cutting it up for several days so that visitors (including happy shareholders, no doubt) could enjoy the sight.

This whale produced 9 tons of oil worth $2BB and 8 cwt of bone worth $l2O Messrs J. T. Peacock and Co. arranged for the oil and bone to be shipped to Sydney aboard the 170-ton brig Mary Clarke. Peacock was a legislative councillor and leading Lyttelton merchant who had established his business there in 1855 and constructed the port’s second wharf. His choice of vessel for Gay’s consignment proved nearly disastrous for the Mary Clarke wrecked herself on a reef near New Plymouth. Though the cargo — most of it from Canterbury — was got ashore,

the greater part of it was damaged. The “Lyttelton Times” has no further reports of the Corsair’s activities during the rest of the 1858 season. The 1859 season got off to a drastic start in mid-june, with Captain Gay sending two boats after a whale and one of them getting stove in for its trouble. All hands were rescued.

But the whale then turned on the other boat and smashed it in also.

Before the seamen could be rescued one of them disappeared and another got entangled in the gear and was drowned. (Those who have seen the whale boat Swiftsure in the courtyard of the Canterbury Museum will not be surprised at the risks involved. The Swiftsure only 32 feet long and manned by six rowers and a steersman, was shattered and rebuilt five times during its career; but it was nevertheless responsible for a tally of 273 whales on the Marlborough and Kaikoura coast before its retirement in 1910). The Corsair was more fortunate three weeks later when on July 8, 1859 Captain Gay killed a whale off Lyttelton Harbour. Al! that night the brig could be seen emitting flame and smoke as the trying-out (blubber melting) process was carried out on deck. Gay returned to Pigeon Bay to report the details, then resumed cruising up and down the coast. A week later he killed another whale and the crew of the Corsair could again be seen cutting-in and trying-out. A third whale was secured shortly afterwards and the tryingout spectacle was observed from the shore once more. Fine weather and a whole series of

brilliantly moonlit nights helped considerably this season, which was Captain Gav’s best with the Corsair.

Before the 1860 season got under way Captain Gav was involved in a dramatic rescue operation. On March 21, a small vessel owned by Alex Montgomery left Pigeon Bay for Lyttelton but beached at Little Pigeon Bay in rough conditions. One man walked back to the head of the bay to get help,

but during his absence the boat refloated and drifted out to sea. Aboard were an old Negro and a highly pregnant Mrs Fletcher, from Akaroa.

Captain Gay took up the search in Corsair and found the drifiting boat two days later, near Motunau Island. The old Negro was nearly dead from exhaustion and Mrs Fletcher had gamely held on to the steering oar for two days and two nights. Soon after the rescue she gave birth to a baby and the “Lyttelton Times”

opened a subscription list for her.

When the 1860 whaling season started in June, Captain Gay cruised up and down the coast for 10 days in vain. A French whaler General d’hautpool and a Sydney schooner Camelia were also off Canterbury. experiencing as little luck. Gay was hopeful that with the first full moon and a change of weather he would have more success, but there are no reports of any whale catches for the rest Of that season. Gay's luck was beginning to run out. On April 23, 1861 Corsair was anchored peacefully off a little bay west of Lyttelton when a strong sou’westerly gale sprang up. The 789-ton steamship Omeo (one of three operated by McMeekan. Blackwood and Company which were engaged in a regular service from Melbourne round the South Island) had finished loading up at Peacock’s Wharf the day before and was anchored nearby. At the height of the

gale the Omeo dragged her anchors and fouled the Corsair. In working off the steamer’s anchors fetched up the Corsair’s cables and her

propeller snapped the brig’s chain and hawser. The Corsair drifted helplessly on to the rocks. She was surveyed the next day, condemned, and sold as she stood. The hull realised £lOO and the sails, spars and rigging £215. Most of the proceeds went towards paying off her crew. The bay where all that happened now bears the

Corsair’s name — a lasting reward for this intrepid little vessel’s contribution to Canterbury’s early history. The Corsair was subsequently salvaged, sailed back to Melbourne, reregistered, and survived until May 1874 when she was wrecked 20 miles north of Twofold Bay.

Mrs Sinclair and her family decided in 1863 to leave New Zealand and find a more spacious home elsewhere. So they bought the 300-ton barque Bessie, and with Captain Gay in charge sailed to British Columbia. “We shall miss . . . the honest grasp of Captain Gay,” remarked the “Lyttelton Times” in its report of the Sinclair party’s departure. After trying Vancouver where they found the climate too severe, and visiting Los Angeles, they gave the Hawaiian Islands a chance and liked them. There are Sinclair descendants in Hawaii still.

Gay, after unloading the Sinclairs and their effects, brought back a cargo of mules to Auckland, hoping to dispose of them there, as well as the Bessie. Unfortunately, a crew member also disposed of Captain Gay.

On their arrival at Auckland, Thomas Gay and his brother William, who acted as mate on the Bessie, were both charged with the serious crime of assault on the high seas. The seaman who brought the charge against them was Charles Boyle whom the “Lyttelton Times” described quite bluntly as “a clever, designing, and unscrupulous man.” Evidently, Boyle and William Gay had not got on at all well durng the voyage. On one occasion Boyle became very abusive and pulled a knife on the mate. Captain Gay, who was now called to the scene, succeeded in talking Boyle into giving up the knife. But Boyle then started cursing the captain. As a result, the two brothers manhandled Boyle with some force into the ship’s lazarette, twisting his arm and striking him in the mouth with an iron bolt or bar in the process. Once in custody Boyle became even more excitable and fcrulmouthed and in the finish, after due warning, the Captain gagged him. The Auckland magistrate found both brothers guilty of assau't. He said there was much to excuse .heir rough handling of Poyle but no legal justification for it. The Bishop of Christchurch (Henry Harper) and the Superintendent of Canterbury (William Bealey) both Wiote testimonials vouching for Captain Gay’s humanity and hitherto blameless record. An old friend of Gay’s, the Hon. W’Liam Montgomery, took up to Auckland in person a petition signed by numerous Peninsula settlers. But in vain.

Thomas Gay was sen-

tenced to five months imprisonment “in the common gaol” at Auckland, and William, who was deemed to have played a secondary part, got three months. The sentences seem to have been unreasonably harsh. Another ship’s captain, convicted of a much worse assault three years earlier on a ship at Lyttelton, had suffered a mere £5 fine. But he had thumped an Arab rather than an Irishman.

After his release Captain Gay decided to return to the Islands via Australia but died at Newcastle, north of Sydney, before he could be reunited with his family. Mrs Gay lived on until 1916 when she died in her 87th year. Today, no trace of Captain Gay’s house at Holmes Bay survives. His small farm is now part of Mr B. C. Aitkens Craigforth property and the Aitkens, with some sense of history, have established a regular contact with Gav’s descend-