Ships' Graveyard, Isbisters Bay (Dunedin, Otago) Traditional Cache
Hidden : 6/21/2019
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:


Visit Isbisters Bay at low tide to see one of Otago Harbour's "Ships’ Graveyards". The boatramp in this bay was the harbour's first slipway, built by William Isbister in 1863 and operating through to 1920.

Find low tide at Port Chalmers from: LINZ Tide Predictions Port Chalmers

Looking out to sea, from left to right are the remains of the Prince Alfred (built 1861 – beached about 1887), the Moa (built 1849 – beached about 1910) and the Alpha floating dock (built 1868 – beached about 1880s). NOTE: these wrecks are protected archaeological sites.

Nothing is left of three other ships that also ended their days here - the Peninsula (1863 – 1892), the Reinauw Engelkens (1844 - beached about 1890) and the William Hyde (1830s – beached 1873).

There is space to park carefully on either side of the road, a water tap close to the cache site and a picnic table (although this is in the shade much of the year). The nearest public toilets are in Port Chalmers.

Prince Alfred, Moa, Alpha floating dock at low tide Isbisters Bay Ribs of Prince Alfred in foreground, Moa partly broken up, Alpha dock in background. Note caretaker's house by the road. Circa WW1


If you'd like to know some of the stories of Isbister's Bay:

Isbisters Bay is a quiet place now, but for the best part of a hundred years it was a busy part of Otago’s maritime industry. In March 1862 David Carey moored his boat to a forest giant by the creek here and put up a tent for his family. A few days later William Goldie and James Rennie decided to settle in the bay and cleared trees to build a jetty.

The bay’s present name comes from William Isbister (1820 - 1895), an experienced shipwright who arrived from Melbourne in 1862.

William & Jane Isbister

William was born in Stromness, in the Orkneys, and went to sea as a ships carpenter. He set up as a shipwright in Singapore, then moved to Adelaide and then to Williamstown, Melbourne. In 1854 he married Jane Clark from Gosport, England. By June 1855 his Williamstown Patent Slip was in good working order and the first of their five children was born.

Steamer Pirate departing Port Chalmers in 1860
William now ordered a Patent Slip from England capable of accommodating ships of 1000 tons. Isbister’s Patent Slip began operating on the Willamstown foreshore in November 1858 and was very well used, including carrying out a complete overhaul of James Macandrew’s 600 ton steamship Pirate before it began a Melbourne - Otago service.
THE STEAMSHIP "PIRATE" Otago Witness, 29 January 1859

But, in mid-1859 something went wrong with the slip, needing £1000 to get it in working order again. Melbourne creditors called in £3,300 owing and William went bankrupt. In January 1862 William was part of the team brought to Dunedin by Scott, a Sydney engineer, to attempt to refloat the beached steamship Victory. He saw the opportunities and sent for his family, who arrived in April 1862. William leased the foreshore and on 19 September 1862 the Provincial Council guaranteed a loan for construction of a slip.

Isbister’s Patent Slip (1863)

In 1862 the lack of repair facilities in Otago harbour, such as slipways and docks, meant that it was impossible to repair underwater damage to ships hulls. This sometimes resulted in vessels being condemned for relatively minor mishaps and of course it was a lost business opportunity. The July 1861 goldrush into Otago also massively increased the demand for small boats for lightering (carrying people and goods from ship to shore) and medium-sized vessels for coastal shipping.

At Isbisters Bay, William built the 250 foot long slipway with a 6% gradient which you can still see today. The cradle, pulley and winch system could draw a ship with 120 foot keel, broadside on, out of the water in four hours. Isbisters Patent Slip could take vessels up to 400 tons (the size of the Earnslaw) and 20 to 30 vessels were repaired each year. PORT CHALMERS PATENT SLIP. Wellington Independent, 8 May 1871

William also built boats in his shipyard here, from the local timber which still surrounded the bay in the 1860s; the ketch Cymraes in 1864, the Friendship and the sternwheel steamer Tuapeka. ODT 1863 New Ferry Tuapeka plies the Molyneux (Clutha River)



Torpedo boat Taiaroa on Isbister's slip - note a timber of the beached dry dock Alpha at left.


Captain William Jarvey

One of the ships repaired at Isbister’s Slip was the screw steamer Titania, which had a regular run Dunedin – Invercargill. Captain William Jarvey was master of the Titania in mid-September 1864, when the vessel was on the slip for regular maintenance. As the Titania was being hauled up Isbister’s slip, Captain Jarvey lost his balance and fell into the water. Apparently, when he was rescued from the harbour Captain Jarvey remarked “If a man is born to be hanged he will never drown”.

A Freudian slip perhaps? About 15th September Captain Jarvey had asked dispensing chemist Bernard Isaacs for rat poison to kill rats on board the ship while it was on Isbister's Slip. He was sold a mixture of corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride) and strychnine, but returned saying the poison did not answer and only made the rats sick. So, on 23rd September Mr Isaacs sold Captain Jarvey a drachm of pure strychnine. Catherine Jarvey died on 25th September 1864.

At the end of December 1864 Captain Jarvey’s eldest daughter returned from her service position at the Dunstan and made a statement to police that almost the last words her mother said to her were “tell everybody your father has poisoned me, for the woman with the big hat and coat”.

Death mask of William Jarvey, hanged 24 October 1865
The first trial was inconclusive, but the jury at the second trial found Captain Jarvey guilty of murder. He was hanged at Dunedin gaol 24 October 1865.

Links to the trial reports are given in logs below.
Other background information:
- Inquiry into death of Mrs Jarvey: Otago Daily Times, 2 January 1865
- THE ALLEGED POISONING OF MRS. JARVEY. Otago Witness, 14 January 1865
- Summary of trial: LAW AND POLICE., Otago Daily Times, 18 September 1865
- Trade Tokens and the Story of Jarvey the Pawnbroker
- Otago’s Four Executed Murderers ODT 30 October 2017

Later shipbuilding

When William died in 1895 SUDDEN DEATH AT PORT CHALMERS, Otago Witness, 12 December 1895, his sons carried on the business. In 1910 the Otago Harbour Board took over the slipway lease and continued to use the slip until 1916.

The Harbour Board slip caretaker was local identity Captain "Harry" Welch, then in his 80s, living in the "Slip House". He had stories to tell about his life at sea SHIPMASTER’S MEMORIES, Evening Star, 15 July 1922 and enjoyed a few too many drams (a prohibition order was taken out against him when he was aged 90). Harry died in 1930 aged 100 OBITUARY, ODT, 11 July 1930.

The slip was finally closed in 1920 but boats continued to be built here by the Isbister family. William Isbister’s grandson Steve Carey built the fishing vessel Pansy at this slipway in 1923 and went on to build another 16 boats, the last being the Dawn in 1951.


THE WRECKS

Alpha floating dock (built 1868 – beached about 1880s)

Alpha floating dock remains at low tide
Isbister's slip was a great asset but Otago harbour still lacked a dock or slipway to repair ships over 400 tons. A syndicate of shipbuilders from Port Chalmers built the cheapest option, a floating dock. The Alpha was built on the Beach St foreshore from local rimu with Swedish iron bolts, and was launched on 3 August 1868 LAUNCH OF THE FLOATING DOCK AT PORT CHALMERS. ODT 5 August 1868. The first ship to use the Alpha was the Eleanor, 411 tons, on 29 August 1868. The 500 ton floating dock was the first of its kind in New Zealand and could accommodate seagoing ships with draughts of up to 13 feet. At 170 feet long, 42 feet wide and 16 feet deep the Alpha was the largest marine structure in Australasia at the time.

On 28 - 29 June 1869 the dry dock had an unusual occupant - it was used to exhibit a 49 foot long right whale, caught by Maori whalers off Matanaka on 25 June. Special ferry trips from Dunedin cost 3/6d including the entry fee. Large crowds turned up "notwithstanding an unpleasant smell of blubber". ODT 28 June 1869 Afterwards the whale was floated off on the evening tide and boiled down at the kaik in Otakou, producing about 10 tuns of oil.


Taranaki in Alpha floating dock moored off Careys Bay 1871 American brig Emma in Alpha floating dock


"Gratitude" drawn up on Isbister's Patent Slip.
Alpha Floating Dock in foreground.

Once the Provincial Government completed the Port Chalmers graving dock (the classic type of dry dock) in 1872, the floating dock became less important. It was moored at Careys Bay and continued to be used for smaller vessels. Eventually William Isbister bought the Alpha cheaply and beached it next to his slip, partly for dismantling for the timber and party as a breakwater.



Moa (built 1849 – beached about 1910)

Ribs of Prince Alfred in foreground, Moa mostly complete, Alpha dock remains behind
The Moa was the largest vessel built in NZ for many years – a 219 ton brig built by Henry Niccol in Mechanics Bay, Auckland in 1845 with kauri planking and pohutukawa ribs. After ten years in the timber trade to Sydney she was used by the Royal Navy as a supply ship during the New Zealand Wars. In 1873 she was abandoned at Kakanui but was recovered, repaired in the Port Chalmers dock and put back into the timber trade.
The brig Moa clearing Sydney Heads

In December l884 Port Chalmers businessman and coal merchant John Mill bought the ship, probably an unseaworthy hulk by this stage, and used her for coal storage. The Moa was probably hauled up in the bay before the First World War and dismantled over the years. Its figurehead was taken to Auckland and placed on a naval shed in Devonport.


Prince Alfred (built 1861 – beached about 1887)

Bow of Prince Alfred at low tide
Prince Alfred remains at low tide
The Prince Alfred was a paddle steamer, built in Adelaide in 1861, coastal trading out of Auckland and then Lyttelton. The Brunner Coal Company later used her as a coal hulk at Dunedin.

In the 1880s the Prince Alfred was moored a quarter mile off the Dunedin jetties and abandoned. The hulk was set on fire at 1 am on 1 January 1888, to the great enjoyment of New Years’ revellers, and consumed to the water's edge. Some time later it was hauled up in Isbisters Bay. Otago Witness, 6 January 1888


William Hyde (1830s – beached 1873) – no remains

The William Hyde was a barque of 533 tons, possibly built in the 1830s. She had carried stock from Australia to Lyttelton and Bluff before grounding on Tiwai Point about August 1856. Two years later she was refloated and brought to Port Chalmers where she served as a storage hulk. In 1873 the Jackson Brothers converted her to a floating dock, but this proved unprofitable and William Isbister bought her in 1873. Parts of the hull were used in the construction of his second slip and some of the timber was turned into ornaments, which sold at a great profit at a Dunedin Queen Carnival.


Reinauw Engelkens (1844 - beached about 1890) – no remains.

The Reinauw Engelkens was built in Holland in 1844 and was usually referred to as "the Dutch Galliot". Unusually, she could be either sailed or rowed. She sailed from London to Melbourne in 1853 with a cargo of wooden houses and brandy. Six years later came over to Otago to be part of David Carey's fleet of lighters.

Hulk of Reinauw Engelkens moored Isbisters Bay 1885
After many years as a lighter in the harbour trade she was fitted up as an accommodation ship in March 1874 to house the young men of the immigrant ship Scimitar, which had been put into quarantine. She was moored off Goat Island. By the early 1880s she was already a fixture, anchored off Athfield's Point (the point on the Deborah Bay side of Isbisters Bay). The hulk's romantic air made it a regular subject for artists, as the painting from local schoolteacher Mary Sinclair shows. Her remains were described as "rotten and water-logged" in 1892. She was beached just south of Isbister's slip.


Peninsula (1863 – 1892) – no remains

The harbour ferry Peninsula was the first iron vessel built in Dunedin. James Arnett constructed her at his Carron Iron Works in George St and the paddle steamer was launched on 12 December 1863. She ran for the Peninsula Steam Boat Company until that business folded, and was then bought by John Jones's Harbour Steam Company.

In 1870 she was cut in half and lengthened for the carriage of wool from Dunedin to Port Chalmers. The Provincial Council then bought the ship for towing punts in connection with reclamation works in the Upper Harbour and for servicing Quarantine Island.

Port Chalmers merchants, Thomson Brothers, acquired the ship in 1879 and completely refitted her as a Port Chalmers - Portobello ferry and for excursion trips. On 18 July 1883 a paddle box caught under the wharf at low tide and, unable to rise with the tide, the vessel sat on the mud with only the funnel showing above the water until it could be refloated. ODT 20 July 1883

Around 1892 the engines and boiler were removed at Port Chalmers and installed in the first steam gold dredge to be built in Australasia, the Dunedin, which started work at Alexandra in 1883. It appears that the hull of the Peninsula was taken to Isbisters Bay. On 5 November 1917 Andrew M.N. Miller sought permission to "blast the hull of the old hulk lying near the Harbour Board slip", probably for the scrap iron... so no traces remain.



Background information: sources listed in pre-publication log notes below.

There is plenty of room in the log book to put in the date that you sign it. Because the date can be important for some challenges, logs without a correct date may be subject to deletion. I will use my common sense and discretion as we all make genuine mistakes at times.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Unatvat va xbjunv gerr, pybfr gb Fgrir.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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