Column: Anniversary of Gisborne’s ghost ship visit

Grace Harwar, photographed in 1932 off Tiritiri Matangi Island, leaving Auckland for Port Victoria. Photo / New Zealand Herald Glass Plate Collection, Auckland Libraries 1370-442-09

James W. E. Ashwell has an undergrad and post-graduate degree in History from Victoria University of Wellington, along with a Master’s degree in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Bristol. He has always been fascinated by the sea, its creatures and man’s interaction with it through the ages.

This month marks the 125th anniversary of a visit to Gisborne by a most infamous ship.

In the pre-dawn glow of January 16, 1901, the silhouette of a large sailing ship stood just off Tuamotu, or Sponge Bay Island. At 2pm that afternoon, the steamer Fanny towed the stranger to her anchorage. The vessel, which was more wreck than ship, was the Grace Harwar, and she was late.

The Grace Harwar was a three-masted, iron-hulled, 1750-ton sailing ship, built in 1889.

In 1900, The New Zealand Shipping Company chartered her to carry a cargo of wool from Gisborne to London.

Gisborne farmers had provided a “fine show of wool” that summer, and 8000 bales of wool were ready to be loaded into the ship. The Grace Harwar was also the largest ship to have ever visited Gisborne at the time, and her arrival had been greatly anticipated.

The Grace Harwar’s delay had caused considerable anxiety in Gisborne, and some residents had worried that the ship might have been lost along the coast.

Upon her arrival, the crew revealed how the Grace Harwar had been hit by two gales off Hawke’s Bay, which had almost tipped her over, and which blew her as far north as East Cape, before she slowly made her way back to Gisborne.

Sadly, a young crewman was swept overboard during their ordeal. None of the crew ever expected to see Gisborne.

After extensive repairs and loading her cargo, the Grace Harwar set sail from Gisborne.

Such tragic voyages were not unusual for this ship, for she was always in trouble and tended to kill one of her crewmen on every voyage.

On her maiden voyage, one crewman was killed when part of her rigging was blown away off Cape Horn.

In 1907, her then captain’s young wife died aboard the ship. Wishing to return her for burial in Australia, rather than at sea, her body was kept in the hold for the rest of the voyage.

In 1910, just as her crew were celebrating a passage around Cape Horn without mishap, part of the rigging came crashing down onto the deck, killing one of the crewmen instantly, and casting yet another long shadow, on yet another long voyage.

In 1911, during a freak storm while anchored in a Chilean port, the Grace Harwar collided with two ships, causing extensive damage; another crewman was lost soon after.

In 1916, while in the port of Mobile, Alabama, a seaman was knocked overboard by a loose piece of rigging and drowned.

In 1929, Alan Villiers, the well-known sailor and maritime historian, sailed on the Grace Harwar with a good friend. They aimed to make a movie about the last commercial sailing ship carrying grain from Australia to Europe.

Despite her record of misfortune, the Grace Harwar was still sailing, and still killing people. By now, seamen the world over knew that she was a cursed ship, and many refused to sail on her.

Although also reluctant, Villiers and his friend did sail on her, and succeeded in making a movie about it: the 1930 film Windjammer. Sadly, though, Villiers’ good friend was the crewman the Grace Harwar killed on that voyage.

In 1935, the Grace Harwar was finally scrapped in Scotland.

Her terrible reputation as a cursed ship earns her a place among all those other infamous ships of the sea, including the Titanic and the Mary Celeste.

Although she may no longer be the largest or most famous ship to have ever visited Gisborne, she is certainly still the most cursed ship to have ever been in our port.