In the heart of Coromandel town, there is a ship – in a bottle. It’s a monument that’s a funky re-imagining of history by local, but Irish-born ceramicist and multi-media artist Rebekah Pearson.
The sculpture was commissioned by the community to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the arrival of the H.M.S. Coromandel in Coromandel Harbour on the 14th of June 1820. The ship remained in New Zealand waters for nearly a year, trading for Kauri logs with the local Maori, the logs being prized as ships spars and keels. Having been built in 1798 in Calcutta, India the ship was naming Coromandel after the Coromandel Coast the south eastern region of the Indian subcontinent.
The ship is the HMS Coromandel. She first visited the region in 1820 to collect kauri trees for Royal Navy spars. Local Māori, apparently, were enthusiastic supporters of the enterprise – there was good money to be made. Also with the trading of flax and pigs – mainly for muskets in those early days.
But the Coromandel wasn’t the first ship in these waters. The Te Arawa canoe – an oceanic voyaging waka – arrived from Polynesia in the 13th century. And then came Captain James Cook and the Endeavour crew in 1769. Others followed – the Fancy under Capt’n Dell in 1795, and the Dromedary just before the Coromandel in 1820.