June 2011 (pdf) - Port Nelson

Port Nelson Limited report. June 2011. Page 12
looking back
Bully Hayes bought the two masted
sailing ship Black Diamond in
Sydney in 1864, to carry coal from
Newcastle to Nelson. At least
this was the story he told
the Sydney merchant who
gave him a mortgage on
the ship. Hayes met a
cyclone on his first trip,
and docked in Auckland
to have the ship repaired,
later slipping out of the
harbour without paying
his debts for repairs
and supplies.
He set sail for Nelson and put
in at Croiselles for three weeks
while the crew caulked seams
and loaded a cargo of firewood.
While there, Hayes borrowed a large
yacht that capsized and sank in a sudden
squall, drowning his wife and baby, her brother
and a servant girl. This tragedy publicised the
whereabouts of the Black Diamond, and the
mortgagee in Sydney instructed his agents in
Nelson to seize the ship and sell her.
Ship chandler and engineer William Akersten ‘a
small man who was not afraid to undertake big
jobs’ took on the task. With five special constables
he had a whale-boat towed to Croiselles Harbour
and rowed alongside the Black Diamond under
cover of darkness. Hayes was confronted but
wouldn’t pay up. He dared the party to seize the
ship, but Akersten simply ordered his men to
man the windlass, i.e pull up the anchor.
The Black Diamond sailed into Port Nelson
where court actions were brought against
Hayes and the ship was auctioned, passed
in and later sold to John Kerr (of the family
that set up the Lake Station run at St Arnaud).
Kerr used the Black Diamond to import beef
cattle from Taranaki to supply the markets
in Nelson and on the West Coast goldfields,
A Pirate’s Tale
Ar me hearties – this be the tale of Nelson’s connection with the famous pirate of the South Seas,
Bully Hayes. Named for the way he treated his crew, Captain William Hayes caused a sensation in the
tiny settlement of Nelson in the 1860s when his brigantine Black Diamond was seized at Croiselles
Harbour and subsequently sold from her anchorage near the foot of Russell Street.
but on a trip to Wanganui with a
load of timber from Havelock
she beached and was lost in
a storm.
Before the Nelson incident
Hayes had been involved
in several audacious
maritime frauds from
Fremantle to San
Francisco. After leaving
Nelson he sailed New
Zealand waters in
various craft obtained
by fraud and deception,
until in May 1866 he
bought the Rona and, with
another wife and children
on board, became a South
Sea trader and blackbirder,
kidnapping Pacific islanders to
work on Queensland and Fijian sugar
plantations. When this ship was lost he joined an
American blackbirder, Ben Pease, in the Pioneer,
which later returned to Samoa as the Leonora
with Hayes in command. In January 1874 Louis
Becke joined the Leonora in the Marshall Islands
and for several months cruised with Hayes, later
writing of his adventures in South Sea Tales and
ensuring Bully Hayes’ name would live on. Hayes
continued in his dodgy ways until April 1877
when he was killed in a fight with a sailor on
board a yacht. His body was cast overboard and
his murderer never brought to justice.
Notorious in every Pacific port, Hayes became
a legendary figure, first in Rolf Boldrewood’s A
Modern Buccaneer (1894), based on a Louis Becke
manuscript, and later as a principal character
in many of Becke’s own Tales of the South Seas.
Although uneducated, Hayes was resourceful,
plausible and was a rogue in the grand manner.
Sources: The Black Diamond, J. N. W. Newport, Journal
of the Nelson Historical Society Volume 3, Issue 3,
September 1977; Australian Dictionary of Biography
On-line.
OUR NEW CRANE
(continued from page one)
The first LHM 400 was bought in 1996, followed by a second in 2000.
The two older cranes will be retained to guarantee continuity of
service during maintenance.
PNL CEO Martin Byrne said the $6million cost of the new crane made it
a significant investment for a regional port: “The purchase of the new
crane demonstrates the commitment the company has to ensuring we
invest in sufficient infrastructure and plant to meet the ongoing needs
of our customers, and in turn the economic health of the region.”
PNL customers endorsed the purchase, with Steve Chapman, the
General Manager of Pacifica Shipping telling the Nelson Mail the
new crane would lift transport productivity and benefit the region’s
exporters and importers.
“Providing the Nelson region with more capacity and offering more
shipping options can only be good for manufacturers and producers
seeking timely and cost-effective transport options, not just for local
markets but global markets as well,” he said.
The Liebherr LHM 550 mobile harbour crane is larger than the existing
cranes, which should give it a longer life with reduced maintenance.
Infrastructure Manager Matt McDonald says the crane has the same
lifting capacity of 104 tonnes, due to the winch arrangements.
The new crane features a number of technology changes and
improvements over the two LHM 400 cranes and is powered by a
MAN engine compared to the existing Mercedes engines.