Inspiration behind the tuna boat that launched a legend
Ross and Rob Haldane on board historic fishing boat the Tacoma, Australia's first purpose-built tuna boat. Picture: Steven Davies Source: Supplied
THE story of our first tuna boat is one of vision, disappointment and triumph.
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ITS heart is an eight-tonne bluegum, its soul the vision of three swashbuckling adventurers and its legacy a multi-million dollar industry almost everyone from the Federal Government down said wouldn't work.
MFV Tacoma turns 60 this year. And anyone who dreams dreams while others laugh should take note of the boat that laid the foundation for the lucrative Port Lincoln tuna industry.
The Haldane brothers, Bill, Alan and Hughie, were Depression-era teenage fishermen in Port Fairy, Victoria, who built three fishing boats up to 12m long for shark fishing under the eye of Scots shipwright father Hugh.
At sea they saw schools of salmon and tuna, and decided to move to a new league with a revolutionary 25m wooden boat using purse seine nets - a big ring of net with a drawstring at the bottom to capture tonnes of surface fish.
The lads had seen boats in magazines and in 1944 wrote to the Western Boat Building Company in Tacoma, in the US, seeking plans. WBBC owner Hervey Petrich took a liking to the audaciousness of the young Aussies - a cheque the boys enclosed for £500 was never cashed. Plans obtained, the brothers thought the boat might take two years to build; it took more than seven. Massive bluegum logs, the largest 21m and weighing 8 tonnes, were felled in the Otway Ranges and delivered by rail in 1944.
There were six major logs for the keel, weighing 25 tonnes; and no cranes to shift them.
The brothers used adzes and crosscut saws to shape them, slowly but with utmost care.
Years dragged on; the Haldanes married and had children. They continued to fish but ran out of money.
The Victorian government ignored requests for help while the Federal Government couldn't see defence roles for the new boat. The Commonwealth Bank considered the whole venture too big a risk - it was "experimental".
Bill's son Ross recalls that his family approached then-Federal Treasurer Ben Chifley. "He wrote back telling them there were no fish in Australia - that they were wasting their time," he said.
"They thought it was a marine desert. We cousins now talk about those days and all agree there is no way you could make this happen today."
Enter Frank Moorhouse, the SA Chief Inspector of Fisheries.
He believed that there were fish in SA waters, and had been to America to see their industry and to Port Fairy to speak to the Haldanes and see their partly built "super-boat".
By 1948, he convinced then-premier Tom Playford to give the Haldanes a £20,000 loan to create an industry.
Conditions included the Tacoma being based at Port Lincoln and all fish being marketed through SA fish markets.
It was a huge risk and caused political uproar in Victoria, where the government tried to convince the Haldanes to stay.
The ABC news of September 7, 1948, reported: "More than one thousand tons of fish can be caught in one haul with a purse seine net, and that's half of the state's present annual production."
On high tide at 3.38am on November 5, 1951, a bottle filled with saltwater from Port Lincoln was broken on the Tacoma's bow by the Haldanes' mother, Rebecca, then the wooden clipper slid from her drydock down a tallow-greased slipway into the Moyne River. She floated like a graceful swan. The Haldanes packed up and on January 6, 1952 the Tacoma set out for Port Lincoln, taking the three brothers, their wives, seven children, furniture, nine bikes, a pet dog and two cats.
Other crew members were Tom McDonald and twins Jack and Keith Bellamy, who lived near the Haldanes and as 10-year-olds had taken a keen interest in the project, later assisting with constructing.
They were asked if they wanted to join the crew and jumped at the chance of a new adventure at sea. The twins celebrated their 18th birthday on the trip but tragically Keith was lost at sea in 1959 while poling for tuna.
The arrival in Port Lincoln prompted mixed feelings.
Not all locals were sure this super-ship was a good thing. The idea the net would plunder the ocean spooked some.
And for the pioneering Haldanes, not all went according to plan.
They went further into debt while venturing deep into relatively unknown waters, on a new boat, trying to create a new fishing industry in a new land with new methods.
They found ocean fish but the drawstring net plan did not work so well, and their overdraft grew to a crushing £27,000.
But like the little engine that thought it could, the Haldane boys never lost faith.
On February 25, 1953, the Haldanes ran their net around a school of tuna in Boston Bay. They captured 10 tonnes: the first Southern Bluefin tuna to be captured in Australian waters using a purse seine net.
Tuna experts Cris and Sverre Jangaard were brought out from the US to further refine fishing techniques - their expertise in teaching the pole catching method marked another turning point.
The industry was off and running - in 1958 on a single weekend the Tacoma and another ship, the Fairtuna, brought in a combined catch worth £5200.
The Haldane/Moorhouse/Playford gamble had paid off.
The Tacoma has been gifted to the people of Australia under the care of the Tacoma Preservation Society and now sits proudly at the Port Lincoln marina, an inspiration to anyone with a dream
- Brad Crouch
- From: Sunday Mail (SA)
- May 01, 201112:00AM
Ross and Rob Haldane on board historic fishing boat the Tacoma, Australia's first purpose-built tuna boat. Picture: Steven Davies Source: Supplied
THE story of our first tuna boat is one of vision, disappointment and triumph.
----------------------------------------------------
ITS heart is an eight-tonne bluegum, its soul the vision of three swashbuckling adventurers and its legacy a multi-million dollar industry almost everyone from the Federal Government down said wouldn't work.
MFV Tacoma turns 60 this year. And anyone who dreams dreams while others laugh should take note of the boat that laid the foundation for the lucrative Port Lincoln tuna industry.
The Haldane brothers, Bill, Alan and Hughie, were Depression-era teenage fishermen in Port Fairy, Victoria, who built three fishing boats up to 12m long for shark fishing under the eye of Scots shipwright father Hugh.
At sea they saw schools of salmon and tuna, and decided to move to a new league with a revolutionary 25m wooden boat using purse seine nets - a big ring of net with a drawstring at the bottom to capture tonnes of surface fish.
The lads had seen boats in magazines and in 1944 wrote to the Western Boat Building Company in Tacoma, in the US, seeking plans. WBBC owner Hervey Petrich took a liking to the audaciousness of the young Aussies - a cheque the boys enclosed for £500 was never cashed. Plans obtained, the brothers thought the boat might take two years to build; it took more than seven. Massive bluegum logs, the largest 21m and weighing 8 tonnes, were felled in the Otway Ranges and delivered by rail in 1944.
There were six major logs for the keel, weighing 25 tonnes; and no cranes to shift them.
The brothers used adzes and crosscut saws to shape them, slowly but with utmost care.
Years dragged on; the Haldanes married and had children. They continued to fish but ran out of money.
The Victorian government ignored requests for help while the Federal Government couldn't see defence roles for the new boat. The Commonwealth Bank considered the whole venture too big a risk - it was "experimental".
Bill's son Ross recalls that his family approached then-Federal Treasurer Ben Chifley. "He wrote back telling them there were no fish in Australia - that they were wasting their time," he said.
"They thought it was a marine desert. We cousins now talk about those days and all agree there is no way you could make this happen today."
Enter Frank Moorhouse, the SA Chief Inspector of Fisheries.
He believed that there were fish in SA waters, and had been to America to see their industry and to Port Fairy to speak to the Haldanes and see their partly built "super-boat".
By 1948, he convinced then-premier Tom Playford to give the Haldanes a £20,000 loan to create an industry.
Conditions included the Tacoma being based at Port Lincoln and all fish being marketed through SA fish markets.
It was a huge risk and caused political uproar in Victoria, where the government tried to convince the Haldanes to stay.
The ABC news of September 7, 1948, reported: "More than one thousand tons of fish can be caught in one haul with a purse seine net, and that's half of the state's present annual production."
On high tide at 3.38am on November 5, 1951, a bottle filled with saltwater from Port Lincoln was broken on the Tacoma's bow by the Haldanes' mother, Rebecca, then the wooden clipper slid from her drydock down a tallow-greased slipway into the Moyne River. She floated like a graceful swan. The Haldanes packed up and on January 6, 1952 the Tacoma set out for Port Lincoln, taking the three brothers, their wives, seven children, furniture, nine bikes, a pet dog and two cats.
Other crew members were Tom McDonald and twins Jack and Keith Bellamy, who lived near the Haldanes and as 10-year-olds had taken a keen interest in the project, later assisting with constructing.
They were asked if they wanted to join the crew and jumped at the chance of a new adventure at sea. The twins celebrated their 18th birthday on the trip but tragically Keith was lost at sea in 1959 while poling for tuna.
The arrival in Port Lincoln prompted mixed feelings.
Not all locals were sure this super-ship was a good thing. The idea the net would plunder the ocean spooked some.
And for the pioneering Haldanes, not all went according to plan.
They went further into debt while venturing deep into relatively unknown waters, on a new boat, trying to create a new fishing industry in a new land with new methods.
They found ocean fish but the drawstring net plan did not work so well, and their overdraft grew to a crushing £27,000.
But like the little engine that thought it could, the Haldane boys never lost faith.
On February 25, 1953, the Haldanes ran their net around a school of tuna in Boston Bay. They captured 10 tonnes: the first Southern Bluefin tuna to be captured in Australian waters using a purse seine net.
Tuna experts Cris and Sverre Jangaard were brought out from the US to further refine fishing techniques - their expertise in teaching the pole catching method marked another turning point.
The industry was off and running - in 1958 on a single weekend the Tacoma and another ship, the Fairtuna, brought in a combined catch worth £5200.
The Haldane/Moorhouse/Playford gamble had paid off.
The Tacoma has been gifted to the people of Australia under the care of the Tacoma Preservation Society and now sits proudly at the Port Lincoln marina, an inspiration to anyone with a dream