Vandals wreck lighthouse near Timaru

Press, 13 February 1981, Page 2

Vandals wreck lighthouse near Timaru

Timaru reporter The destruction of bulbs and equipment at Bloody Jack’s Point lighthouse, 3km south of the Port of Timaru, could have had far-reaching consequences. Vandals, climbed a 2m high fence to get into the lighthouse enclosure, forced their wav into the building by- smashing 406 mm by 228 mm windows high up the tower, removed four 32-volt bulbs-from-their sockets and crushed them, took the spare bulbs (there were no spares available in the district) from a container and destroyed' them, and either smashed or damaged the fittings, instrument parts, and rectifier equipment.. .

They smashed the instrument panels,’ sprayed cleaning fluid over the walls, and ripped off the roof guttering whibh they threw-away.

Shipping could have been imperilled had it not been for a member of the Timaru Municipal Electricity Department who on Wednesday night converted bayonet points to screw points to allow the beacon to work. The- Timaru police are investigating. The Timaru Harbourmaster (Captain A. Grieve) and Senior-Sergeant D. T. Crowe described the action of the vandals as “deplorable.” The vandals had seriously damaged a vital navigation aid, they said. The lighthouse protects shipping from Patiti Reef, on which the freighter Treneglos ran aground in 1964. Bloody Jack’s' Point, variously described in the past as Paparoa (Jack’s Point), and Point Tuhawaiki, has connotations of violence and

bloody-mindedness. It was named after Chief Tu Hawaikitiki who. as revealed in the field books of Samuel Hewlings, was drowned at Paparoa. the site of the lighthouse, and named from the circumstance; Tu Hawaikitiki was no ordinary chief. In 1833 he was a member of the band ol southern Maoris who ambushed Te Rauparaha in Marlborough. In previous years, Te Rauparaha had virtually exterminated the Canterbury Maoris at Kaiapoi and on Banks Peninsula but after his humiliation at the hands of Tu Hawaikitiki he left South Canterbury and Otago alone. In 1835 tu Hawaikitiki became a paramount chief. His authority extended over the whole of Canterbury and Otago. .