Alison Spiers, Bronwyn Tyson holding Jessica Rose Spiers, Michael Head, Val Harding and David Bamford
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The VicTARS Midwinter Dinner was celebrated early and in style on Friday the second of June at the Village Green Hotel in Mulgrave. Our special guest was Bronwyn Tyson, a TasTAR, over the water for a nursing course. She was joined by the Allens, David Bamford and Val Harding, Michael Head, John Giddy, Martin and Alison Spiers with Ship's Baby, Jessica Rose (we missed Ship's Boy, Bradley, who didn't have shore leave this time) and Nancy Endersby. The theme of the night was Peter Duck. Apart from feasting, pencil games kept us entertained, testing both our memories and our powers of communication! A telegram exercise produced the following results (as a group we chose random letters of the alphabet and each used them to write a Peter Duck telegram using the letters to start each word — not easy!):
First selection of letters: T, W, U, P, R, A, S |
|
Martin: |
The Wildcat Underway Prolonged Range [by] Allocating Stores |
Nancy: |
The Wind's Up. Peter Rig All Sails |
John: |
The Waterspout Upset Pirates Removed A Sail |
Nancy: |
Treasure Was Under Palm. Rollick And Sing |
Jan: |
The Wreck Under Palms Reinvented As Shelter |
Bronwyn: |
Time Will Unite People Right After Storm |
Second selection of letters: D, B, F, I, M, O, H |
|
Martin: |
Didn't Bill Fall Into Middle Of Harbour ? |
Bronwyn: |
Desperate Bill Fell In Man Overboard Helped |
And the pièce de résistance: |
|
Jan: |
Downing Bacon Fat Is Making Ourselves Heave ! |
(Nancy Endersby)
On the 25th of June an interested group from AusTARS met on the quayside at Waterfront City in Docklands in Melbourne to join the queue of people visiting the replica Seventeenth Century Dutch trading ship Duyfken.
The original of this ship was the first ship to be recorded as making a landing on the Australian continent, on the coast of Cape York Peninsula. This year is the four hundredth anniversary of that landing.
Those present included Nancy Endersby, Peter Yule, Martin and Alison Spiers, ship's boy: Bradley and ship's baby: Jessica Rose, and John Giddy.
The tour of the ship was eye–opening when one realises that a crew of about twenty men, plus the Captain and the Trader were crammed into this very small vessel for voyages of a year or more. I believe that the average height of people in those days was considerably less than today, but even so, they would have spent much of the time crouched down to get into any of the below deck spaces. One is left in awe of the stamina and fitness of those seamen.
The replica has been built, as far as practicable, exactly to the original plans, using European Oak from Latvia, and making use of wooden fastenings nearly everywhere. (I was told that there are a few stainless steel bolts in strategic places, but these are to satisfy modern safety regulations, and were unavoidable, as were the auxiliary engine and propeller.) David Bamford tells me that the wooden fastenings are called 'trunnels' a word derived from 'tree–nails'. They are thick wooden dowels, roughly twentyfive millimeters in diameter, and are locked in place with wooden wedges driven into their ends.
The whole construction uses very large pieces of oak, with the grain carefully chosen for greatest strength in the variously shaped pieces. The rigging is all done with natural fibre ropes. It is altogether a masterly piece of work.
David has also added: "Duyfken [translation: 'Little Dove'] is generally regarded to be a 'Jacht', and I have seen her described elsewhere as a 'Flute'. Her purpose was to visit islands of the Indonesian archipelago which probably hadn't been visited before, and to seek out new spice sources. In this respect, she was intended as a vehicle of exploration; small and nimble, to be able to navigate uncharted and coral–strewn waters. She should be compared with the much larger Dutch reproduction ship Batavia. This was a true trading ship, intended as a load–carrier, to take the spices back to the Netherlands."
Following the tour of the ship, the group had a nautical meal of fish and chips on the waterfront, after which Nancy and John attended a most interesting lecture by Prof. Victor Prescott, arranged by AusTAR Dr Peter Yule who is an historian of some note. The lecture very succinctly set forth many compelling reasons why the Chinese didn't have the whole world mapped in the fourteenth century, as claimed by Menzies in his recent best–seller.
Altogether it was a most enjoyable day, as we have come to expect whenever AusTARS gather.
(John Giddy with welcome contributions from David Bamford, and critical proofreading by Nancy Endersby)
The watercolours and pastels on these pages are by David Bamford, AusTARS Convenor. Copyright 2006
Artistic Design Consultant: David Bamford |
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