Marlborough Branch’s
Nautical Experience Sounds Wrecking Company 1952-1957 Words Tristan Winstanley Modern photography Linda Laing
Lined up under Cape Campbell Lighthouse.
A run to Cape Campbell lighthouse attracted 41 cars to traverse the dusty and steep gravel roads on a day with bright sunshine and no wind. The local residents advised they only have two calm days annually and this was one of them.
O
ur Club Captain not only thinks outside the square but appears to have divine intervention from the weather gods. Sunday 13 March he organised a day trip involving two launches, 84 enthusiastic mariners and a three and a half hour journey (each way) to the historic bay Wakatahuri. Wakatahuri is a deep water bay bordering Cook Strait, which during the 1950s was the scene of a ship wrecking enterprise established by Francis and Tom
Marlborough Branch club members arriving at Wakatahuri
Wells. It saw the acquisition of at least nine vessels, the largest around 1350 tons. The various ships were towed by launches to Wakatahuri, where the wooden ones were beached, any useful kauri timber removed, then the hulk was burnt to recover the non-ferrous metals. The Wells brothers collaborated with a Wellington based scrap metal dealer (strategically Wellington is 37 nautical miles from Wakatahuri), who had access to scrap metal markets in the Far East. Many tons of assorted scrap was loaded onto a coastal trader ship in Wellington – including the city’s old tramlines – then shipped to Wakatahuri. At Wakatahuri the scrap was loaded onto two of the Wells old steel ships, which had been stripped of mechanicals, for a journey to Hong Kong where it was to be sold. The two old hulks, Totara and Matangi, were towed to Hong Kong by a chartered Admiralty tug Bustler.
During the 1950s there was an embargo on the export of non-ferrous metal. However the Wellington scrap dealer had sealed 44 gallon drums full of non-ferrous metals and loaded them into the holds of the two hulks at Wakatahuri and then loaded the other, legitimate, scrap on top to avoid detection! Over nine years Francis Wells built a large launch, Valmarie, in the boatshed. The boatshed still exists and is currently being used to rebuild an historic wooden boat using traditional methods. Today Wakatahuri is a derelict site, still with tons of nautical (ferrous and non-ferrous) metals strewn around the property with much of it dumped into the tide. When approaching the bay the first rusting hulk one sees is the remains of a Ruston-Bucyrus 10RB dragline unceremoniously dumped upside down in the tide, possibly as a breakwater.
Wakatahuri.
Arrival view of the remains of a Ruston-Bucyrus 10RB dragline. Beaded Wheels 37