Quakes and big tides work for wreck spotter

3.00pm

A man whose life has been spent spotting shipwrecks on Kaipara's rugged west coast knew that recent earthquakes would force the Tasman to spit out some secrets from its maritime graves.

Extreme spring tides have been exposing up to 200 metres more of the beach than usual in some places along the coast, and the quakes, combined with that extreme level disturbed sand settled for decades.

It exposed a treasure trove of historical finds for maritime historian and wreck spotter Noel Hilliam including the outline of a shipwreck he had been seeking for 30 years near Baylys Beach, 12km west of Dargaville.

The ship last emerged in 1973 for a tantalising glimpse before being buried again.

Mr Hilliam had been told about the wreck by the late Les Kean who had seen the wreck uncovered in 1909. Mr Hilliam saw its outline - a mere shadow in the sand spotted from his light plane - during the 1973 sand and tide shift.

Using a state of the art metal detector last week, Mr Hilliam was able to pinpoint the hull's outline under metres of sand.

In waist deep water and armed with 400 metres of wire rope, a large winch and a sand pump, Mr Hilliam and a keen support crew were able to retrieve some of the wreck's scattered parts, most of it pieces of "rock" that to the uninitiated look like rust coloured concrete lumps.

They included a length of anchor chain, lodging knees, mast bands and mast steps, all heavily disguised by concretions.

Then an even more exciting discovery occurred. The metal detector yielded a 1.5 metre cast iron cannon - more correctly called a carronade, used to lob rather than shoot shells.

The carronade is now undergoing an extensive conservation process which could expose identifying marks, hopefully leading to the wreck's identity.

While the carronade sounds the more exciting find and gave "everyone a bit of a buzz", Mr Hilliam is just as passionate about a base broken off a small glass bottle which could have been made between 1860 and 1865.

Other clues to the wreck's identity include a piece of huon pine - a Tasmanian tree that was once used for shipbuilding in Australia.

Mr Hilliam and his equally driven team of beachcombers are keen to take advantage of the beach conditions for more wreck spotting.

There are 110 officially recorded shipwrecks on the Kaipara and Ripiro Beach coast, but Mr Hilliam knows of 153, including 17 which are unidentified.

Only holders of special licenses issued under the Antiquities Act can collect or take relics from a beach.


- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/marine