Reporter’s diary

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Saving a ship A 109-YEAR-OLD iron sailing ship, that was a familiar sight at Lyttelton and other New Zealand ports last century, has become a multimillion dollar restoration project for the Sydney Maritime Museum. The museum is anxious to find photographs of the barque James Craig, and to hear from anyone who served in her, the descendants of sailors who served in her, or anyone who was otherwise connected with the ship. Anyone who can help may write to P.O. Box 149, Drummoyne, New South Wales 2407, Australia. The James Craig was built in Sunderland in 1874 as the Clan Macleod. During her maiden voyage the captain’s wife gave birth to a son — a good omen for what was to be a long and eventful career. In the 1880 s and 1890 s she carried New Zealand produce to New York, Boston, or London, returning with cased kerosene and general merchandise. A typical cargo included 3300 bales of wool, or 17,000 cases of kerosene. She was almost lost off Cape Horn in 1877. She put into Rio de Janeiro with her rudder loose, boats and spars washed overboard, hatches burst, and cargo heated. The first mate was lost overboard during the storm. In 1900 she was bought by J. J. Craig, of Auckland, for the intercolonial service between New Zealand and Australia, and was renamed the James Craig after a member of the family. In the 1920 s she was cut down to serve as a coal hulk in Tasmania. She became redundant in the 1930 s and was abandoned in Recherche Bay, Tasmania, where she lay until 1972, when the Sydney Maritime Museum found her, raised her, -Shd towed her to Syd-

ney for a $4.5 million restoration. Research has unearthed such minutiae as the menu for the barque’s crew on her maiden voyage. Every Tuesday, the sailors could look forward to one pound of bread, one and a quarter pounds of pork, and a quarter of a pint of peas. Labour-intensive MR HUGH FLETCHER, the managing director of Fletcher Challenge, Ltd, apparently does not have much confidence in the Labour Party’s plans to encourage development that will provide more jobs. He told a Federated Farmers conference in Wellington this week that Labour’s answer to a “think big” aluminium smelter was a whitebait filleting industry. Tramway roads AN ITEM in the “Diary” on Tuesday about the Ellesmere County Council’s problem with Tramway Roads — it has five of them — may have left readers wondering why the roads were so named. The many tramway roads in Canterbury never carried a passenger tram. According to Mr lan Dalton, the Ellesmere County planner, the rails were used to transport logs. In Ellesmere’s case, native timber from Banjos Penin-

sula was floated across Lake Ellesmere to Timber Yard Point, now the Lakeside Domain, then hauled by rail to the Rakaia River, via the main Tramway Road from Ellesmere for distribution in Mid-Canterbury and points further south. The other Tramway Roads were merely for distributing logs locally. I ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan SEATTLE’S . Museum of Flight is expecting a visit from Douglas (“Wrong Way”) Corrigan to mark the forty-sixth anniversary of his famous solo flight from New York to Dublin; famous, because he had said that he intended to fly in the opposite direction to California. Corrigan will help to dedicate the museum’s Curtiss-Robertson Robin, the type he flew on his historic voyage. Corrigan, now aged 77, took off from New York on July 17, 1938, having told friends and the authorities that he was flying to California. Twentyeight hours later he landed at Dublin’s Baldonnel airfield. “I’m sure ashamed of that navigation,” he said, after becoming the eighth trans-Atlantic soloist to follow Lindbergh. Corrigan insisted that he had misread

his compass and followed the wrong end of the magnetic needle, flying east instead of west. But sceptics recall that he had flown non-stop from Los Angeles to New York a few days before, and had been denied permission to try to cross the Atlantic in his rickety, single-engine Robin, that he had picked up at an auction for $9OO. Recently, “Wrong Way” Corrigan was asked if he really had intended to fly to California. “Sure,” he answered. “At least, I’ve told that story so many times that I believe it myself now.” Non-nuclear THE “BAN-THE-BOMB” lobby may have made a major breakthrough across the Tasman. Among the items in the window of a Sydney army surplus store is a boomerang. Military wine? AFTER PUTTING much work and money into their Giesen Wine Estate, opposite Burnham Military Camp on the Main South Road, the three German brothers, Giesen, are about to launch their first vintage. As well as German-type wines with German names, there will be a special label called "Bumham private bin.” Perhaps they thought it would appeal to the rank-and-file soldiers across the road ... —Peter Comer