REGINALD M at Flagstaff Hill Warrnambool in 2010

Images(2)

Reginald M

Vessel numberHV000562

Previous owner Mt Lyell Railway

Previous owner Queenstown Navy League

Vessel type Coastal Trading Vessels

Date1922

DimensionsVessel Dimensions: 26.55 m (87.1 ft)

DescriptionREGINALD M was built by its first owner John Murch at Birkenhead in Port Adelaide in 1922. It is a very simple flat bottom, single chine ketch with a double-end hull-form, both stem and stern have straight frames, raked forward and aft respectively. It was built for the South Australian coastal trade. The shallow draft allowed it to come close to shore to anchor or tie up at a wharf, but the flat bottom was ideal for occasions when it could be beached on sand, drying out with the large tidal range. Goods were then shipped ashore or out to the vessel by horse and cart across the sand. It was ketch rigged, and does not appear to have ever been fitted with a motor.

Murch and his family retained ownership until 1970 when Reginald Murch sold the vessel to the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. It was used as an explosives barge by the company in Macquarie Harbour Tasmania, before the Queenstown branch of the navy league took it over for an intended sea cadet training vessel on the same harbour and renamed it MACQUARIE.

This did not eventuate, and a similar proposal by Melbourne owners also failed to make any progress, and in the 1975 it was taken over by the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village in Warrnambool. It came to Warrnambool via Port Fairy. Ronald Stewart and a crew sailed it from Melbourne to Port Fairy and moored it in the river outside my his house where he restored it. He then sailed it back from Port Fairy to the Warrnambool breakwater where it was lifted out onto a truck and moved the short distance up to Flag Staff Hill. Once it was in the musuem's lagoonStewart did the final touches to the restoration.

REGINAL M is now on display inside their lagoon that forms part of the historic village complex.

SignificanceREGINALD M is a coastal trading ketch from South Australia built in 1922. It is one of very few sailing coastal trading vessels still extant, and its flat bottom, single chine shape illustrates a very simple but robust method of construction, compared to other round bilge examples of trading vessels.

Vessel Highlights