The future history

A Museum vessel would be able to tell the truth about the East Coast Pearling Luggers in context, upon the stage of a restored 1938 Torres Strait /Japanese built /conscripted Army Lugger, which went on to become a mother of pearl shell harvest and broadcast live shell carrier. The vessel also featured as the flagship LUGGER in the 1953 Rafferty / Robertson film classic ‘King of the Coral Sea’.
The Cairns Maritime Museum Inc is looking forward to a 2020 visit by the Australian National Maritime Museum ‘Endeavour’ scheduled to visit Cairns and Cooktown to celebrate the 250 year anniversary of the original ship’s visit.
In order to achieve this ambition
the vessel has to comply with an AMSA Safety management system for heritage vessels survey.
I have researched the NSCV (National Safety Commercial Vessels) documents and need to engage a surveyor with Heritage ship experience to complete this task.
Having had experience with the ‘Duyfken’ Heritage vessel management and Tourism industry product,I need to consult with surveyor and the vessel must be taken out of the water for inspection.
The vessel was the first Lugger, by design, to feature an auxiliary engine, a significant step in WHS for the Pearl Divers of the East Coast.
The vessel presents today although 80 year old, as new, since work began in 1993 to restore the fabric of the hull,engine, superstructure and traditional Gaff rigging right down to hand made ‘baggy wrinkle’.

Ropes and rigging, sail handling, steering and plotting a course are real experiences within reach of all participants, regardless of age and ability, yet only available in Capital cities through Maritime Museums with Heritage ships.

My hope is that this iconic pearling vessel can safely remind us all of the intrepid multicultural maritime industry and ‘hard hat’ diving reality of the pearl diving pioneers in the Far North.
For many years a collection of Maritime artefacts has been growing in storage in Cairns curated by the Cairns Maritime Museum Inc.
Ports North Corporation has been supporting the CMM Inc with storage capacity in a Wharf shed and quite recently 2 shipping containers.
At present the CMM flagship vessel has been providing support to the Reef Restoration Foundation Coral nursery at Fitzroy Island near Cairns.
Volunteer crew have been supervised by experienced hands since December 2017

These last few years I have been able to help students of the Duke of Edinborough Awards with Cairns Inlet sailing experiences, as part of the experience check-lists for their awards.
The vessel has harvested plastic waste and flotsam/jetsam from Barrier Reef Islands and beaches with volunteer crew assisting the Tangaroa Blue organisation.
In order to continue this work and improve safety and meet AMSA guidelines into the future, l am conscious of the obligations of maintaining an up to date SMS manual.
It has always been my hope to engage with the community who would not have access to the experience of sailing about the harbour and nearby Coast of the Far North Queensland Port of Cairns aboard this type of vessel.
I have to consider the forgoing elements to continue to grow interest in the development of a cultural tourism feature experience in this region.
I expect that the sight of the 1938 Flagship Pearl Lugger from the East Coast offering the opportunity to sail and learn the ropes and the history would make a compelling visitor experience.

Collection in containers

Moving day ANZAC Spirit Tony and Rob and Iris and Jon
Squeezed the museum into 2 containers . Planning in place to move the boxes to Tingira Street to pop up now and again

Maritime Museum values its collection , and with Ports North valued and long standing support the collection has been distilled into two shipping containers. With imagination and further research a number of chapters in the maritime history journey of our contemporary culture in Far North Queensland can be revealed.

Promise of wealth in the pursuit of Pearls and growing  a Cultured Pearl , harvesting natural raw materials and  discovering fields of Gold , luring the early pioneers.

Shipwrecks of which less than 3%  have yet to be  discovered lure divers and the wreck of the Adelaide Steamship Yongala , “Australia’s Titanic” is acclaimed as the best wreck dive today.

The Maritime Museum is the pop up portal at present.

Movement at the Station


We find in Cairns the Wind farm components laid out in Portsmith destined for Tolga’s Mt Emerald wind farm.
As MER takes HB back
to Port Douglas for repairs after 3 months at sea supporting The Reef Restoration foundation effort 2017-18.

1936 straits strike a changed HB

The story of the 1936 Maritime workers strike.
Until that time the East coast pearling industry had had a most casual approach to its almost suicidal diving work practices.
So many fatalities so many lives risked, such that it resulted in a maritime strike in 1936.
The strike was to lead to the formation of the first council of the Torres Strait Islands region. The meeting saw to standards of practice introduced to protect and support the occupational diver participants and the regional resources of sea country in 1937.
In that year began the lofting out of a longer larger live well Pearling Lugger to become the first engineered motorised sailing lugger.
This HB was constructed in 1938, by Shotaro Tachibana a Japanese migrant shipwright for H.Bowden Pearling Co. Ltd. Launched in 1938 HB was conscripted in 1939 and through WWII the vessel served as an Army Lugger AL253.
Post war HB engaged in East coast wild harvests and broadcasts , sailing the SE wind, returning with harvest and chicken shell to broadcast locally helping to restock the pearl oyster home beds .
The 1950-60’s saw a boom like that of the 1860’s a century earlier when Captain John Banner reported to Sydney Town the “Goldfields” of Pearl shell to be found in the Torres Straits.
The lugger boat numbers grew into hundreds of vessels once again searching the home grounds.
Mother of pearl shell including Trochus species, these were the target for the Pearl button contracts with European and NYC buyers who directed prices.
1960’s high end demand, limited supply was to drive up prices until immitation plastics replaced the raw MOP material.
Today the demand for Mother of Pearl remains secure in the manufacture of products which feature this bespoke, natural and beautiful artefact.

Coral trees an underwater foundation


Christmas Tree planted at Fitzroy Island
It has come to this a
Reef Restoration stategy to account for the environmental cost of doing nothing about greenhouse gas emissions. Planting trees will it keep temperatures from rising 2 degrees?
Or are we toasting marshmallows in the breeze? See www.reefrestorationfoundation.org for more.