Mahia Ship Wreck History.

The Pirate 1897.

A Scow was a humble flat bottomed ship, built mainly of heavy kauri timbers with centerboards , they were workhorses in the early days around NZ, able to easily cross bars and navigate up the tidal rivers to deliver items and were often used to cart the kauri logs and sawn timber.

Most scows carried their load on the deck and logs were loaded by parbuckling chains and often extras were carried hanging over the side partially in the water presumably to keep the point of balance.

They carried all manner of cargo from sand to coal, timber etc

Many were built by Meiklejohn and later Darroch at Omaha and GT Niccol at Devonport was responsible for building large numbers also.

In 1895 the longest of all at 130’ the Pirate, was built by Niccol and was rigged as a three masted topsail schooner, she traded for a while on the NZ coast and then was put on the NZ Australia trade, mainly taking kauri across the Tasman Sea and bringing Australian hardwood timber back. The Pirate was a hold scow meaning that she had holds for stowing cargo where as most were deck scows.

Owned by William Matthews & George Niccol, she was wrecked on Portland Island off the end of Mahia 14th April 1897, loaded with coal from Newcastle in NSW bound for Gisborne,and after sailing thru Cook Strait and being buffeted by big seas and strong winds which blew their sails out, the wind dropped whilst under the lea of the island and she was swept ashore over rocks at 5.00am and came to rest on a papa ledge with her back broken.

Earlier in this rough voyage the first mate, Mr C Moiberg had his leg crushed by floating debris on the deck and then soon after the ship crashed ashore an AB, Karl Berner, a german by birth dropped dead on the deck presumably from a heart attack. The Capt Mr EA Steinbock and other crew got Berner into the ships boat and took him ashore. Also injured was the cook Mr G Watkinson whom dislocated his shoulder whilst getting ashore.

Another of the crew scrambled up the steep cliffs and went to the light house for help and they were treated with the utmost kindness by the keepers and were taken off the island soon after by a passing steamer the Anglican whom was signaled by the lighthouse people and on sending a boat ashore to take the crew off, the remaining crew were landed at the Port of Gisborne.

Over the years the light house keepers and many locals were responsible for gathering up the good quality abandoned coal which lay about on the large papa shelf surrounding the wreck

Will Coop from Mahia and Jim Bright of Auckland (Jim built the scale model which is located in the Museum at Dargaville) flew across to Portland in a light plane recently and spent the day there searching for any Pirate remains and were successful in finding numerous iron knees and a few pieces of timber which were remnants . Re located to the landing for many years was the cabin that stood on the stern of the Pirate, it housed the keepers boat for nearly 100 yrs but sadly has almost all rotted away now but we were able to see what massive kauri timbers she had been made of.

We eventually located Karl Berners grave amongst the scrub and were able with a slasher to clear much of it away, the headstone was replaced by the lighthouse keepers about 1950 and repaired in 1988 by Will, so was in reasonable order apart from the fact that the sea is seriously encroaching and the grave is only 1.5 metres from a 5m bank so something may soon have to be done about moving it further inland which will involve Dept Internal Affairs, Maori owners etc.

Mahia is the scene of 28 shipwrecks although it seems that little if anything remains of the early wooden craft that perished all those years ago.

We had an interesting day and were able to see where the Alexander Newton was wrecked in 1895 and Bull Rock where the Tongariro struck in 1916.

Will Coop 08/06/2010