Southern Cross is the name given to each of a succession of ships serving the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church and the Church of the Province of Melanesia. [1] The first ship having this name succeeded the Undine, a 21-ton schooner built at Auckland and in service from 1849 to 1857.
Southern Cross 1 was a schooner of 100 tons, built by Messrs. Wigram of Blackwall Yard, England in 1855; for £1,500. She arrived in New Zealand on 19 July 1855, and she was wrecked on 18 June 1860 at the mouth of the Ngunguru River, New Zealand, during an easterly gale. The first Southern Cross was funded by subscriptions provided by supporters of the Melanesian Mission. These included Charlotte Mary Yonge, who contributed the profits of her book The Daisy Chain. [2] [3] [4]
Southern Cross 2 was a 93-ton yawl-rigged brigantine, which was built at Southampton and was in service from 1863 to 1873. This ship carried Bishop John Patteson to Nukapu where he was killed, His death was followed by the punitive expedition to the island in 1871 and 1872. [5]
Southern Cross 3 was a three-masted, two-topsail schooner of 180 tons with auxiliary steam power of 24 H.P.. She was built in Auckland at a cost of about £5,000, of which £2,000 was contributed from a fund collected by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in memory of Bishop John Coleridge Patteson. This ship was in service from 1874 to 1892.[ citation needed ]
Southern Cross 4 (British Registry Official Number 98988) was a three-masted schooner, foremast, square-rigged, main and mizzen, fore-and-aft rig. 240 tons with auxiliary steam. The ship was built in Wivenhoe, Essex, England by Forrest & Sons in 1891 at a cost about £9,000, which was contributed by Bishop John Richardson Selwyn and others. This ship was in service from 1892 to 1902. When this vessel was sold, her engine was removed, and she operated as a cargo vessel around Australia and New Zealand until being lost with all hands off King Island, Tasmania in 1920. [6]
Southern Cross 5 was a steel three-masted schooner with an auxiliary steam engine. This ship was built in Newcastle upon Tyne by Armstrong Whitworth & Co., with £1,000 towards construction contributed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London. She was launched by Bishop Cecil Wilson in 1903. Her officers in 1914 included: William Sinker R.N.R. (Captain), H. Burgess R.N.R. (Chief Officer), R. Gardner R.N.R. (Second Officer), W. Pitcher (Chief Engineer) and J. Murray (Bosun).[ citation needed ]
Southern Cross 6 was steamer of 500 tons. The ship was wreaked in November 1932 on its first voyage into the islands. She was caught in a squall and driven onto a coral reef near Aneityum island of Vanuatu. [5] [7] [8]
Southern Cross 7 (also known as Akanina, “the ship of all of us”) arrived in Tulagi harbour several months after the loss of Southern Cross 6 and her cargo, due to the immediate action by the Melanesian Mission Secretaries in both England and New Zealand. She was a twin-screw diesel powered ship, with a length of 110 feet and a breadth of 28 feet. [9] She was 298.33 tons gross. She was sold in 1955. [2] [5] [10]
Southern Cross 8 arrived in Honiara, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands from Australia after 1955, and she was wrecked soon after during a storm at Maravovo on the north west coast of Guadalcanal. [10]
Southern Cross 9 was built in Australia in 1962 at the request of the Bishop of Melanesia, Alfred Thomas Hill. She is currently in service after refurbishing and rededication in 2005 by Archbishop Ellison Pogo.[ citation needed ] As of late 2009, the ship was based at the Taroaniara Anglican Mission Station on the Nggela Islands. [11]
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and maneuverable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Brigs fell out of use with the arrival of the steam ship because they required a relatively large crew for their small size and were difficult to sail into the wind. Their rigging differs from that of a brigantine which has a gaff-rigged mainsail, while a brig has a square mainsail with an additional gaff-rigged spanker behind the mainsail.
Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-1600s. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.
John Coleridge Patteson was an English Anglican bishop, missionary to the South Sea Islands, and an accomplished linguist, learning 23 of the islands' more than 1,000 languages.
The Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACoM), also known as the Church of the Province of Melanesia and the Church of Melanesia (COM), is a church of the Anglican Communion and includes nine dioceses in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The Archbishop of Melanesia is Leonard Dawea. He succeeds the retired archbishop George Takeli.
Thomas W. Lawson was a seven-masted, steel-hulled schooner built for the Pacific trade, but used primarily to haul coal and oil along the East Coast of the United States. Named for copper baron Thomas W. Lawson, a Boston millionaire, stock-broker, book author, and president of the Boston Bay State Gas Co., she was launched in 1902 as the largest schooner and largest sailing vessel without an auxiliary engine ever built.
When launched in 1853, Great Republic was the largest wooden ship in the world. She shared this title with another American-built ship, the steamship Adriatic. She was also the largest full-rigged ship ever built in the United States. She was built by Donald McKay for trade on his own account to Australia.
Cecil Wilson was an English county cricketer and Anglican bishop. He was born in Canonbury; died in Perth, Western Australia. He was the third missionary Anglican Bishop of Melanesia from 1894 to 1911, and subsequently, the second Bishop of Bunbury from 1918 to 1937.
R. Tucker Thompson is a gaff-rigged topsail schooner based in Opua, Bay of Islands, New Zealand. She is operated as a non-for profit charitable trust and owned by the R. Tucker Thompson Sail Training Trust. The mission of the trust is “Learning for Life through the Sea”. The ship is used for tourism day sails in the Bay of Islands from October through April and for sail training activities between May and September. Youth sail training is particularly focused at youth from the Tai Tokerau Northland region of New Zealand. She is a member of the Australian Sail Training Association (AUSTA), and participated in the American Sail Training Association (ASTA) West Coast Tall Ships Challenge events in 2002 and 2005.
Tradewind is a Dutch topsail schooner. She was built in the Netherlands in 1911 as a herring lugger named Sophie Theresia.
The Archbishop of Melanesia is the spiritual head of the Church of the Province of Melanesia, which is a province of the Anglican Communion in the South Pacific region, covering the nations of Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. From 1861 until the inauguration of Church of the Province of Melanesia in 1975, the Bishop of Melanesia was the head of the Diocese of Melanesia.
Brilliant is a schooner located at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, United States. Brilliant was built in 1932 on City Island, Bronx, by Henry B. Nevins Yard to a design by Olin Stephens of Sparkman & Stephens for Walter Barnum. Brilliant was built as an ocean racing yacht, and on her maiden voyage crossed the Atlantic Ocean in just over 15 days, 1 hour and 23 minutes, a record for a sailing yacht of her size. Brilliant ran from Nantucket Lightship to Bishop Rock Light, England.
The Melanesian Mission is an Anglican missionary agency supporting the work of local Anglican churches in Melanesia. It was founded in 1849 by George Selwyn, the first Bishop of New Zealand.
Booya was a three-masted schooner with a steel hull built in the Netherlands in 1917. She was originally named De Lauwers. The schooner was renamed Argosy Lemal in 1920 and carried that name until 1949. As Argosy Lemal the ship served as one of the early United States Army communications ships from 1942–1949. In 1949, on return to civilian use, the vessel was renamed Ametco, Clair Crouch and finally Booya in 1964. Booya was last seen anchored off Fort Hill wharf in Darwin Harbour at about 8.00pm on 24 December 1974, the evening Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin. Nearly twenty-nine years later, in October 2003, she was discovered by chance in Darwin Harbour, lying on her starboard side in about 20 metres of water.
HMS Rosario was an 11-gun Rosario-class screw sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1860 at Deptford Dockyard. She served two commissions, including eight years on the Australia Station during which she fought to reduce illegal kidnappings of South Sea Islanders for the Queensland labour market. She was decommissioned in 1875, finally being sold for breaking nine years later. A team from Rosario played the first ever New Zealand International Rugby Union match against a Wellington side in 1870. She was the fifth Royal Navy ship to bear the name, which was first used for the galleon Del Rosario, captured from the Spanish in 1588.
Southern Cross was a three-masted schooner originally built in 1891 for the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church and the Church of the Province of Melanesia, and was lost with all hands off King Island, Tasmania in 1920.
Endeavour II was a three-masted auxiliary barque built in Vancouver in 1968 and originally named Monte Cristo. She was built along the lines of the brigantine Albatross as published in Uffa Fox's Second Book of Boats.
Sam Cearns was a British ship-rigged sailing cargo ship and emigrant carrier, built in 1864. In 1871 she was wrecked near Tierra del Fuego after the crew members gallantly saved the crew of another windjammer Knight Errant.
Pitcairn was a schooner built in 1890 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church for use in missionary work in the South Pacific. After six missionary voyages, the schooner was sold in 1900 for commercial use, and renamed Florence S. She was lost by stranding on the island of Mindoro, Philippine Islands, on 17 October 1912.
Benjamin Yate Ashwell was an Anglican missionary and a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission in New Zealand in the 19th century. He was missionary to the Māori in the western Waikato region. In 1839 he was sent to Kaitotehe, near Mount Taupiri, where he established the Kaitotehe Mission, with branch missions at Te Awamutu and Otawhao in the valley of the Waipa River.