Castaways and coracles 

This souvenir from the Museum’s collection of postcards is from Carmarthen in Wales. It shows two coracle fishermen beside the River Tywi (Towy) and each carrying a lightweight fishing vessel on their back.

Coracles are small boats used in an ancient traditional method of river fishing in Carmarthen. Their use dates back over 2000 years and they are still in use today. Romans wrote about the ‘skin-covered boats’ when they invaded Britain in 55 BC. Shaped like a basket, a coracle is a simple small boat made of lengths of ash and willow woven to form the boat’s frame. Willow is known for its pliability; ash is resistant to rotting in wet conditions. An outer skin is stretched over the frame to make the vessel watertight.

Knowledge of coracle design was the saviour of the Dundonald castaways shipwrecked on Disappointment Island south of Aotearoa in 1907. The survivors were 8 kilometres away from the nearest island with a castaway depot. With extremely limited resources they made makeshift coracles to reach lifesaving supplies.

Canterbury Museum 1952.137.2

In March 1907 during a freezing gale the Dundonald was shipwrecked on Disappointment Island, a small uninhabited rocky speck in the ocean. Sixteen of the 28 people on board survived the wreck. One died 12 days later.

They survived through the clever use of a few resources – canvas and rope salvaged from the ship, and colonies of seabirds and sea lions provided food, skins and bones for making tools. After being marooned for 5 months, the men were desperate. They knew that their survival relied upon reaching a castaway depot on Auckland Island, which was 8 km away across open water.

There were no large trees suitable for boat building on the island. However, inspired by the Welsh coracle fishing boat design, the men lashed together gnarled branches of Hebe shrubs using stranded hemp rigging, wire and twine made from grassy vegetation. The framework was then covered with a tight canvas skin. Much of the canvas salvaged from the ship’s sails had been cut up for blankets and clothing. It had to be sewn onto the coracle frame in sections, like patchwork.

It took more than one attempt to reach the depot. Initially three men paddled the 8 km only to return 10 days later empty handed. Determined, the castaways built two larger craft each able to carry four men. One of these successfully made the crossing but it was wrecked on arrival. After 5 days of searching, the four men found the castaway depot at Erebus Cove in Port Ross. Along with survival supplies it contained a small boat, which they used to bring the remaining stranded men across to Auckland Island.

The castaways were eventually rescued by a passing government steam ship. They returned to Disappointment Island to recover their original coracle, which was gifted to the Museum along with tools and clothing items the survivors had made.

Canterbury Museum 1952.137.2

Castaways had to be resourceful, making use of the animals and material they had to hand to be able to feed themselves and keep warm. A colony of Hooker’s sea lions was a good source of meat and their skins were used for making clothing and footwear.

One of the survivors of the Dundonald shipwreck, a Finnish sailor called Michael Pul, made these shoes from seal skin using a traditional technique and design commonly used in Finland.

Canterbury Museum 1907.55.9

When the castaways reached the Erebus Cove depot store on Auckland Island, they found supplies packed in airtight zinc rolls inside wooden boxes. George Ivimey, a deck boy from Southampton, used the strips of metal to create a picture of the Dundonald and the rocky cliffs of Disappointment Island by punching outlines with a nail. The decorative technique of tin-smithing in England dates back to the seventeenth century; it grew in popularity in the 1800s when tin sheet was more available.

The punched inscription on the plaque reads:

DUNDONALD WRECKED MARCH. 7. 1907.

12 DROWNED. 15 SURVIVED. MATE PERISHED FROM EXPOSURE.

IVIMEY. SOUTHAMPTON

Solid text over the top of the plaque explains in shorthand that the castaways survived on a diet of albatross (mollymawks) and seal, and they used the ship’s sails to make tent shelters and make the coracle watertight. It reads:

FORE TOP GALLANT SAIL MADE CANVAS TENTS, LIVING ON MOLYHAWKS AND SEALS, MADE CANVAS BOATS

Canterbury Museum 1907.55.12

Castaways had to be resourceful, making use of the animals and material they had to hand to be able to feed themselves to make clothing. Nesting and fledgling seabirds were a source of food, and their bones were used to make tools such as needles and awls.

The awl pictured here was made by castaways of the Dundonald using a wing bone of a petrel. The awl was used for making holes in canvas or skins so that they could be easily sewn. Twine made from grass was lashed around the centre of the awl would have helped the user to maintain a grip when piercing holes.

Canterbury Museum 907.55.13

The castaways of the Dundonald wreck made use of the natural materials available on Disappointment Island to stay warm and dry. They used the ample supply of tussock grasses to cover temporary shelters and make wind breaks.

The photograph shown here, which was taken when the men were finally rescued by the NZGS Hinemoa, shows two of the surviving men standing in front of one of the grass-covered huts they had built.

Laid on the ground outside the hut is a feathered bird skin rug. The castaways relied on a colony of White-capped Albatrosses nesting on the island for their survival. The birds provided meat, feathered skins, and their bones were used for making tools.

Canterbury Museum 1982.103.13

The New Zealand government placed castaway depots on several of the sub-Antarctic Islands south of Aotearoa. Food, clothing and wax matches were basic life-saving provisions for those who found themselves marooned.

Pictured here are tins of preserved beef and artichokes from the depot on Antipodes Island recovered from the depot after it had been decommissioned.

The New Zealand government placed castaway depots on several of the sub-Antarctic Islands south of Aotearoa. Clothing, food and wax matches were basic life-saving provisions. Pictured here is a patterned tweed waistcoat recovered from a decommissioned depot on Snares Island.

To deter sealers and other potential thieves from raiding the stores, the clothing was often made from a distinctively patterned material, easily recognisable to officials. One government official left a warning message at one of the depots to deter looting, it read: “The curse of the widow and fatherless light upon the man that breaks open this box, whilst he has a ship at his back”.

Acc. 1948.46.3

During the period that ships used the Southern Ocean south of Aotearoa as a passage to the UK, government ships, which were tasked with servicing lighthouses and coastal patrols, would also visit the sub-Antarctic islands in search of survivors of ships lost at sea.The photograph shown here is from a small album of 10 images taken in 1919 during one of NZGS Hinemoa patrol voyages. On this trip the Hinemoa visited Auckland Island and Snares Island.

The photograph shows the outside of the Erebus Cove castaway depot at Port Ross, Auckland Island. On the wall there is a government notice prohibiting sealing and a large sign that reads "Boat in house for castaways only’".

The boat inside this depot and the NZGS Hinemoa were the saviours of the Dundonald castaways in 1907. When four of the castaways paddled 8 km in a makeshift coracle to reach the depot of supplies, they used the boat they found there to bring the remaining eleven castaways on Disappointment Island over to Auckland Island. A month later in November 1907 the crew of the Hinemoa discovered and rescued the 15 men, who by that time had been shipwrecked and stranded for 8 months.

The 1919 album of photographs has been on quite a journey. It was discovered some years ago in an antiques shop in Denmark and gifted to a New Zealand-born woman living in Denmark. The owner, now in her eighties, wanted to see the album return to Aotearoa within her lifetime. On hearing a close friend was travelling here, she put the album in his care with instructions to ensure it found a safe home at a museum. The album, which complements our items from NZGS Hinemoa, the Dundonald survivors and the sub-Antarctic castaway depots, found a home at Canterbury Museum in 2023.