The Arrival of Steamships at Tauranga and the Challenges of the Mount Maunganui Channel

 Before the 1860s, visits by steamers seeking commercial cargoes at Tauranga were rare events. Between the 1840s and 1860s, the Tauranga-to-Auckland provisions trade had been dominated by local Māori waka fleets and Māori and Pākehā-Māori owned sailing ships. In March 1857, the little Auckland-based steamer Wonga Wonga made an exploratory visit to Tauranga with ‘sundries’ [1]. In February 1860, the SS White Swan visited while en route to Wellington [2]. However, steamers were not seen in Tauranga Harbour in numbers until the arrival of British and colonial troops in January 1864.

From the 1860s, the Bay of Plenty became an increasingly busy shipping zone, and despite the advent of steam-powered ships, it remained a hazardous maritime region. During Anglo-Māori tensions and fighting at Tauranga between 1864 and 1872, Imperial and colonial troops, stores, artillery and horses were landed from auxiliary-powered Royal Navy battleships and colonial government gunboat-steamers.

HMS Esk on guard duty in the Waitemata beside a prison hulk for Māori prisoners of war. Despite its auxiliary steam engine, the Esk ran aground on Stony Point Reef in April 1864.

The remarkable number of commercial steamers who accompanied them provided logistical support for the troops and, later, provisions, livestock and general necessities for the military settlers. They included the SS Storm Bird, Huntress, Lord Ashley, Clyde, Tauranga, Wellington, Taranaki, Go Ahead, Enterprise, Katikati, Egmont, Midge, Beautiful Star, Royal Alfred, Southern Cross, Rowena, and Glenelg [3]. 

Tauranga Harbour and the estuary ports, reefs, rocks and islands of the wider Bay of Plenty wrecked several of these steamers in later years. In the Bay, fog, sudden gales and longshore drift combined with narrow, shifting entrances, powerful tidal flows, limited navigational aids, and skippers anxious to ‘make the bar’, were to sink or wreck thousands of tons of shipping, both sail- and steam-powered.

Marked today by the statue of the sea god Tangaroa, Stony Point
Reef at the south end of the Maunganui Channel stranded and wrecked a variety
of sailing and steamships during the 1800s.

The first major step in providing regular steam-powered coastal transport to Tauranga came with the Bay of Plenty Steam Navigation Company. Formed locally in 1866, it deployed the newly built SS Tauranga. The New Zealand Steam Navigation Company placed the SS Storm Bird on the same Auckland – Tauranga – Ōpōtiki run soon after [4]. Critical maritime lifelines, they supported settler and Māori communities, and the expanding agricultural economies of the Bay of Plenty. A Tauranga Argus article in December 1866 emphasised the need for improved harbour facilities to support the regular steam services [5].

The long, open Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coastlines followed by steamers engaged in transporting troops and, later, commercial cargo between Auckland and Tauranga were beautiful, but deceptively dangerous. On calm days they could be struck suddenly by fierce easterly gales or heavy swells arising from storms occurring far out to sea. Meanwhile, beneath the surface, lay reefs, rocks and shoals. Steaming ahead during dense fog, the 443-ton SS Taranaki was wrecked on Karewā Island in 1878. Low-lying islands, like the Rurimas off Matatā, sank the SS Tasman during moderate weather in 1921. A hidden reef sank the 1,159-ton SS Manaia off Whakahau-Slipper Island during rain and mist one night in 1926.

On the 18 February 1879, the SS Taupō ran aground and was wrecked on Stony Point Reef.

Closer to Tauranga, the Mount Maunganui harbour entrance itself was a notorious trap, with the margin for error almost nonexistent. The outer bar shifted constantly, reshaped by tides, storms, and longshore drift. Steamers entering or exiting the channel were able to cross this bar without risk only when wind, tide and swell were suitable. Before dredging began, the channel twisted unpredictably, requiring steamer captains to align their approach with precision, despite poor visibility or while fighting powerful cross‑currents and winds, when approaching the channel entrance. 

Fierce, outgoing tides near Stony Point Reef, located near the base of Mount Maunganui at the southern end of the channel, temporarily trapped HMS Esk in April 1864 and wrecked the 464-ton SS Taupō in 1879. Attempting to negotiate the Maunganui Channel during a fierce gale in 1880, the 749 reg. ton SS Penguin was temporarily driven ashore on Matakana Island’s Panepane Beach.

The SS Penguin

Unlike sailing vessels, New Zealand’s coastal steamers were expected to maintain regular schedules, which helps explain why so many captains attempted the entrance when conditions were marginal. In fact, many post-wreck inquiries in this era reveal a common theme - pressure to maintain schedules. In 1921 for instance, the SS Tasman was ‘jammed for time to catch the bar at Whakatane,’ when it was wrecked at the Rurima Islands, a detail the subsequent Marine Inquiry highlighted as a contributing factor [6]. 

Similarly, the SS Taupō inquiry in 1879 censured veteran skipper Captain Hannibal Marks for decisions made under pressure, indicating how, strained by deadlines and fatigue, captains’ decisions could fail in a channel that allowed no mistakes [7].

New Zealand newspapers repeatedly criticised the lack of proper wharfs, lights, and harbour facilities from the 1860s and claimed during the 1870s, that the port was expanding faster than its infrastructure. Before the 20th century, Tauranga had no lighthouse at the entrance, minimal buoys, no dredging and no updated charts of the ever-changing bar [8].

When attempting the channel in marginal conditions, sail and steam powered vessels also grounded or were wrecked on the 3km stretch of beach to the north of Matakana Island’s Panepane Point - a notorious wrecking zone.

While the port was established in 1873, dredging the harbour to accommodate larger ships did not begin in earnest until 1965, with the main entrance channel dredged in 1968. Further major capital dredging projects, such as deepening and widening the channel, were undertaken in 1992 and 2015 [9].

Despite the challenges of negotiating the exposed Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coasts and accessing a harbour with limited facilities, steamships transformed old Tauranga. A significant improvement over its old pre-1860s Māori and Pākehā-Māori commercial sailing fleets, they reduced voyaging times for passengers, stabilised schedules and made the delivery of exported products and local mail faster and more reliable. In short, steamships were a catalyst for Tauranga’s transition from an isolated coastal settlement to an important, interconnected regional port.

The dominance of steamships waned as roads and railways improved. The decisive moment came with the opening of the Tauranga–Hamilton rail link in 1928, which rendered the long‑standing steamer passenger service to Auckland obsolete. It was formally abandoned in 1929 [10].

References

[1] Van der Wouden, A; The Introduction of Steamships to the Bay of Plenty’, Historical Review, Journal of the Whakatane District and Historical Society Vol. 38, May 1990: 21.

[2] Hawkes Bay Herald, 18 February 1860: 2.

[3] New Zealand Herald, 3 November 1865: 4. Nelson Examiner, 9 April 1970: 2. Hawkes Bay Herald, 1 February 1861: 2.  Daily Southern Cross, 15 May 1868: 2.  Ibid: 14 November 1864: 2. Ibid: 22 March 18.

[4] Ibid: 24 November 1866: 2.

[5] Tauranga Argus, 1 December 1866: 2.

[6] Auckland Star, 6 June 1921: 7.

[7] New Zealand Mail, 8 March 1879: 21.

[8] Bay of Plenty Times, 27 May 1879: 3. 15 March 1872: 7.

[9] Mariana C. Cussiolil, Karin R. Bryan, Conrad A. Pilditch and Willem P. De Lange, ‘Dispersal of Dredging Plumes in Tauranga Harbour, New Zealand: Field Study.’ Australasian Coasts & Ports Conference, 15-18 September 2015, Auckland, mc204@students.waikato.ac

[10] Port of Tauranga. Port History to Modern Day, https://www.port-tauranga.co.nz›uploads›

 Illustration Credits

Hamley, Joseph Osbertus, 1820-1911; Williams, Edward Arthur, 1824-1898, ‘HMS Esk; stuck with the Maoris taken prisoner at Rangiriri, 1863-1865’, E-047-q-031, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington.

 Szirmay, Frank, ‘Tangaroa’ (1976), Port of Tauranga, Bronwyn Holloway Smith, Public Art Heritage, Aotearoa New Zealand, Tauranga City Council Art Collection.

 ‘S.S. “Taupo” as she lies on the rocks at Stoney Point, Tauranga Harbour. Photographed at low water on the afternoon of April 9th [1879], by Charles Spencer’. Tauranga City Libraries, Te Ao Marama. Ref. 05-445

 De Maus, David Alexander, 1847-1925: ‘Steamship Penguin at Port Chalmers’. Ref: 1/1-003381-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22384677.

 Panepane Point, Matakana Island, photo/file. Kiri Gillespie, ‘Matakana Island proposal: Panepane Point plan prompts encouraging level of interest’. Bay of Plenty Times, 27 August 2020.

The Wreck of the Cutter Oi on Panepane Beach, 1890

 

Panepane Point and Beach from Mount Maunganui, showing part of the narrow main shipping channel and the Tauranga harbour.

Populated for centuries by Māori iwi, and today mostly associated with Ngāi te Rangi hapū, Matakana Island is a long, flat barrier island 20km in length and about 3km wide. The island forms a sand barrier between Tauranga Harbour and the vast South Pacific Ocean. Since time immemorial Matakana’s dune-backed beach has been a landing and wrecking site for waka Māori, and before and following the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, a diverse range of Māori and Pākehā owned sailing vessels.

The name Panepane in 19^th century European sources referred to a specific southern section of Matakana Island close to Panepane Purakau or Panepane Point, not the entire ocean beach [1]. It was in fact a name for the southernmost three kilometres located across the channel from Mauao | Mount Maunganui.

Sailing craft, driven eastward during gales, were thrown bodily onto the beach where their crews attempted to leap clear into the surf, before their vessels began a deadly mast-shattering roll. Again, when sailing vessels of all sizes attempting to enter or leave the harbour during marginal conditions missed the channel by even a little, they, depending on conditions, either grounded temporarily or were rolled and wrecked among the breakers.

A Tauranga-owned and -based cutter, the Oi became a common sight on Tauranga Moana during its three-year working career - likely named, in part, after the common nautical haloo in use at the time, “Oi, ahoy!” Kauri-built cutters were much favoured by Tauranga’s small maritime entrepreneurs though they never outnumbered schooners. Interestingly, their single owner-operators also styled themselves master mariners though their crews might number only one or two.

On 16 January 1890, the Oi left the little Bay of Plenty port of Maketū. Crossing the Kaituna River outlet through heavy surf, it began the short 27km (14.6 nautical sea mile) voyage up the coast to Tauranga with a cargo of flax. Information on the cutter’s tonnage is not available, probably because it was unregistered. Regardless, the provisions and coastal timber trade on the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty coasts between the 1870s and 90’s was often handled by sailing cutters of 8-30 tons.

A gale had sprung up a day before the Oi’s departure from Maketū, but the captain and crew, later identified as ‘Messrs W. Turner and W. Cinnamon’ undertook the voyage regardless. The Oi cutter was last seen on the same day by people near Mount Maunganui around midday. It was then battling heavy seas just off Motuotau | Rabbit Island and Moturiki | Leisure Island and heading towards the Tauranga Harbour entrance [2].

 There were soon grave fears at Tauranga for the safety of the Oi and its crew, and two days later, despite the gale which was to last for a week, an intrepid search party comprising ‘Messrs Moss, C. Faulkner, C. Spencer, Allely, Maxwell, and Cotter’, was organised. First crossing by boat to Pilot Bay below the Mount, they were informed by the crew of another cutter that had just safely passed through the Mount Maunganui Channel, that they had seen wreckage of another vessel on Matakana Island’s Panepane beach.

The old Auckland-based, gaff-rigged cutter Jesse Logan. Note the long bowsprit which, without making their masts taller, increased the sail area of cutters while allowing the sail plan to be broken down into smaller, more manageable headsails.

Crossing the channel to Matakana Island and Panepane Beach, the search party found the remains of the Oi lying literally smashed to pieces above the high-water mark.

The mast was broken off to a stump, the bowsprit was completely wrenched out, and the timbers had all parted at the stern, leaving a great gap. Her hatches were off, and the hold was swept of everything. Her rudder was found broken in two places, and her sails were found on the beach double reefed. No trace of the crew was discovered, and there is little doubt that these unfortunate young men have found a watery grave. It is difficult to say what caused the catastrophe [3].

The following day, the same party began another search along the full length of Matakana Island’s ocean beach on horses hired from the Island’s Māori residents. Half way towards Tauranga Harbour’s northern Katikati entrance ‘they found broken oars, part of a hat belonging to Cinnamon, and parts of an accordion’[4].  Footprints on the beach initially gave some hope and the cutter Eleanor and several other local boats continued the search as the gale abated. The police also searched Mount Maunganui’s forested slopes but the Oi’s crew were never found [5].

 The loss of well-captained, shallow-draught, local vessels like the Oi had disruptive as well as tragic outcomes for the Bay of Plenty’s coastal communities. From December 1887, for instance, the Oi had transported much needed cargoes of provisions and sundries twice per month from Tauranga to the settlements of Katikati and Te Puke on the Uretara and Kaituna Rivers respectively, ‘cash on delivery’. In one instance, the cutter had sailed the inner harbour route from Tauranga to deliver, to the Uretara River bridge at Katikati, sacks of potatoes, flour, sugar, oatmeal, seed, ‘maize by the bushel’, and boxes of tea, soap, candles, jam and golden syrup for the new settlers there [6]. 

A beach-wrecked ketch or sloop at the high-water mark.

The Oi was by no means the last Pākehā or Māori owned sailing craft to be wrecked or temporarily stranded in the wrecking zone on Panepane Beach. In May 1893, just three years after the Oi’s loss, the wreckage of an unidentified ketch was found on Panepane Beach following a gale. The violence of the wrecking had broken off the 25-foot mast at deck level. Again, the bodies of the crew were never found [7].

References

[1] Panepane Purakau, Western Bay of Plenty District Council,https://www.westernbay.govt.nz ›community› projects

[2] Te Aroha News, 23 April 1890: 4.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Bay of Plenty Times, 9 December 1887: 3.

[7] Grey River Argus, 9 May 1893: 2.

Image credits

Panepane Point, Matakana Island, photo/file. Kiri Gillespie, ‘Matakana Island proposal: Panepane Point plan prompts encouraging level of interest’. Bay of Plenty Times, 27 August 2020.

 ‘Jessie Logan, circa. 1880s. Restoration of NZ’s Oldest Surviving Yacht’. Image courtesy of Keith Pine, New Zealand Prosthetic Eye Service, info@prosthetic eye service.

 Abandoned maritime wreckage. Stocktake royalty free images https://www.freepik.com › free-photos-vectors