Carnley Harbour

Carnley Harbour
Carnley Harbour
	Carnley Harbour, looking eastward
Coordinates	50°50′15″S166°04′35″E / 50.8374°S 166.0763°E
Ocean/sea sources	Pacific Ocean
Surface area	72 km2 (28 sq mi)
Location

Last updated December 22, 2024

Carnley Harbour is a large natural harbour in the south of the Auckland Islands, part of the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Formed from the drowned crater of an extinct volcano, the harbour separates the mainland of Auckland Island to the north, from the smaller Adams Island in the south.^[1] The harbour is sometimes referred to as the Adams Straits.

Geography

Carnley Harbour is the flooded caldera of an extinct and eroded shield volcano that was active between 10 and 25 million years ago. Musgrave Peninsula is approximately the centre of the caldera. The area of the harbour is 72 km² (28 sq mi).^[2]

The harbour is undeveloped (the Auckland Islands are uninhabited), and has three major arms: North Arm, Musgrave Bay, and Western Arm.^[3] Of these, the first two are deep indentations in the coast of Auckland Island; the last connects with Victoria Passage to form a channel separating Auckland and Adams Islands.

Wreck of the Grafton

In January 1864, the schooner Grafton was wrecked in the north arm of Carnley Harbour. The shipwrecked crew waited for a year to be rescued, but eventually a group of 3 made the 450 km (280 mi) journey to Stewart Island in a dinghy. They then arranged a rescue of the remaining crew. Despite the difficulties, all the crew survived. The Grafton is the earliest recorded shipwreck in the Auckland Islands.^[4]

Anjou shipwreck survivors

Anjou was a French steel barque built in 1899 that was wrecked at Bristow Point on the west coast of Auckland Island on 5 February 1905. The crew of 22 made it ashore using the ships boats, and then travelled into Carnley Harbour. They discovered the castaway depot in Camp Cove and a notice that the depot received regular visits from the New Zealand Government steam ships. On 7 May 1905, they were rescued by Captain John Bollons and the Hinemoa. During their 3 month stay in Carnley Harbour the crew built shelters and survived using supplies from the castaway depot and local wildlife.^[5]

SS Erlangen

On 28 August 1939, just before the outbreak of WWII, a German cargo vessel the Erlangen left Port Chalmers in Dunedin to avoid the crew becoming prisoners. The ship was powered by a coal-fired steam engine, and was known to be low on fuel when it left the port. The Erlangen steamed south to the Auckland Islands and entered Carnley Harbour on 30 August, and anchored at the northern end of the North Arm. Over the next five weeks, the crew cleared around 1.2 ha (3 acres) of southern rātā forest, aiming to collect 400 tonnes of wood to fuel the vessel. New Zealand authorities suspected that the Erlangen could be in the Auckland Islands, and sent the cruiser HMS Leander to search for Erlangen. However, severe weather prevented Leander from entering Carnley Harbour, and the Erlangen was not discovered. On 7 October 1939, the Erlangen left her anchorage with only an additional 240 tonnes of wood fuel, but eventually reached Chile.^[6]^[7]^[8]

Wartime coast watching

Cape Expedition was the intentionally vague name given to a secret five-year wartime programme of establishing coastwatching stations on New Zealand’s subantarctic islands. One of the coastwatching stations was established at Tagua Bay in Carnley Harbour.^[6] The first group of coastwatchers arrived in March 1941, and the programme continued until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.^[9]

Related Research Articles

The Auckland Islands are an archipelago of New Zealand, lying 465 km (289 mi) south of the South Island. The main Auckland Island, occupying 460 km² (180 sq mi), is surrounded by smaller Adams Island, Enderby Island, Disappointment Island, Ewing Island, Rose Island, Dundas Island, and Green Island, with a combined area of 570 km² (220 sq mi). The islands have no permanent human inhabitants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auckland Island</span> Island off Southern New Zealand

Auckland Island is the main island of the eponymous uninhabited archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the New Zealand subantarctic area. It is inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list together with the other New Zealand Subantarctic Islands in the region.

General Grant was a 1,005-ton three-masted bark built in Maine in the United States in 1864 and registered in Boston, Massachusetts. It was named after Ulysses S. Grant and owned by Messers Boyes, Richardson & Co. She had a timber hull with a length of 179.5 ft, beam of 34.5 ft and depth of 21.5 ft. While on her way from Melbourne to London, General Grant crashed into a cliff on the west coast of main island of the Auckland Islands of New Zealand, and subsequently sank as a result. Sixty-eight people drowned and only 15 people survived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adams Island (New Zealand)</span> Island off Southern New Zealand

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappointment Island</span> Island off southern New Zealand

Disappointment Island is one of seven uninhabited islands in the Auckland Islands archipelago, in New Zealand. It is 475 kilometres (295 mi) south of the country's main South Island and 8 kilometres (5 mi) from the northwest end of Auckland Island.

Dundonald was a British four-masted steel barque measuring 2,205 gross register tons launched in Belfast in 1891. It was involved in a wreck in 1907 in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Only 15 of its 28 crew survived; they were rescued seven months later by a scientific expedition.

Hardwicke is the name of a former agricultural and whaling community set up at Port Ross, a natural harbour on Auckland Island in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. The settlement was established in 1849 but was abandoned within three years.

Cape Lovitt is the western most point of New Zealand. It is located on the west coast of Auckland Island, one of New Zealand's subantarctic outlying islands, 3 kilometres north of the mouth of Western Arm, a channel leading into Carnley Harbour and separating Auckland Island from Adams Island.

A castaway depot is a store or hut placed on an isolated island to provide emergency supplies and relief for castaways and victims of shipwrecks.

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Grafton was a 56-ton schooner sailing out of Sydney during the 1860s that was wrecked on 3 January 1864 in the north arm of Carnley Harbour, Auckland Island, one of the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands, nearly 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the South Island. Her castaway crew waited a year for a ship to come to their rescue, which, it soon became apparent, would not come. Six months later, three men decided to set out in a dinghy and managed to cross a distance of 450 kilometres (280 mi) to Stewart Island, 30 kilometres (20 mi) south of New Zealand's South Island. They then funded a rescue mission to pick up their remaining companions. The crew spent a total of 18 months on the sub-Antarctic island and, despite their ordeal, all survived.

The Invercauld was an 1,100-ton sailing vessel that was wrecked on the Auckland Islands in 1864.

The Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition of 1907 was organised by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. The main aim of the expedition was to extend the magnetic survey of New Zealand by investigating Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands, but botanical, biological and zoological surveys were also conducted.

Anjou was a 1,642 gross register tons (GRT), French steel barque built in 1899. It was wrecked in the Auckland Islands in 1905.

Compadre was an iron barque of 800 tons that was wrecked in the Auckland Islands in 1891.

Thomas Musgrave was the captain of an Australian ship and later a lighthouse keeper, who was wrecked with the schooner Grafton in the subantarctic Auckland Islands, and cast away there for over 18 months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape Expedition</span> Wartime coastwatching stations on New Zealands subantarctic islands

The Cape Expedition was the deliberately misleading name given to a secret five-year wartime program of establishing coastwatching stations on New Zealand’s more distant uninhabited subantarctic islands. The decision to do so was made by the New Zealand Government's War Cabinet in December 1940, with the program terminating at the end of the Pacific War in 1945.

SS Erlangen was a German cargo vessel that escaped from New Zealand at the beginning of the Second World War.

References

↑ Gamble, J.A.; Adams, C.J. (January 1985). "Volcanic geology of Carnley volcano, Auckland Islands". New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 28 (1): 43–54. doi: 10.1080/00288306.1985.10422275 . ISSN 0028-8306.
↑ Neville Peat (2003). Subantarctic New Zealand: A Rare Heritage. Department of Conservation. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-47-822464-1. Wikidata Q124058424.
↑ "NZGB Gazetteer - Carnley Harbour". gazetteer.linz.govt.nz. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
↑ "Grafton wreck and Epigwaitt hut". Department of Conservation . Retrieved 21 December 2024.
↑ "A shipping disaster - Total loss of the Anjou". The Sydney Morning Herald . 17 May 1905. ProQuest 2524127639.
1 2 "New Zealand offshore islands maps". Land Information New Zealand . Retrieved 22 December 2024.
↑ Brenstrum, Erick (May–June 2015). "Danger isles". New Zealand Geographic (133). Retrieved 21 December 2024.
↑ "Auckland Islands". Department of Conservation . Retrieved 22 December 2024.
↑ Hall, D.O.W. (1950). "Coastwatchers: The Cape Expedition". Episodes & Studies. 2. New Zealand Electronic Text Collection . Retrieved 22 December 2024– via National Library of New Zealand.