A grand old lady sails on – May Queen turns 150

The SV May Queen is Australia’s oldest sail trading vessel and is one of only a handful of wooden vessels of her era still afloat in the world. And she turned 150 years old on 5 June.

Built at Franklin on the banks of the Huon River in Tasmania’s south in 1867, her working life spanned a century of development in southern Tasmania. She, like the other trading ketches, was a true workhorse, literally the semi-trailer of her day until road networks finally improved in the 1950s.

Her primary cargo was construction materials, sawn timber, shingles and railway sleepers, carried to Hobart for house building and industry. But she also brought coal to Hobart, as well as quarried stone, apples, pears and other fruit. On her outbound journey from Hobart she carried food supplies for settlements, hay and oats for the horses and bullock teams used in the forests to pull logs to the mills, steel railway lines, coffee pot boilers and steam engines for use by the timber industry.

“She is a vitally important part of Australia’s maritime heritage and must be preserved at all costs. She represents all those vessels that helped to develop Tasmanian industry and our rural economy”, said Mary Marsh, long-time member of the May Queen Trust.

The May Queen was a shallow draft vessel that had a retractable centreboard allowing it to enter river mouths to load or unload cargo, often at small jetties linked to individual farms. During her 106 year working life as a sail trading vessel (1867 – 1973) the May Queen was largely used by Henry Chesterman and his successors in the business Chesterman and Co. She operated mostly in south-east Tasmania carrying sawn timber from the Raminea sawmill near Dover to Hobart, a journey that she could complete in 8 hours in favourable weather.

Trading ketch races were a feature of many local regattas, particularly the Royal Hobart Regatta until 1954. The ketch race at the Royal Hobart Regatta was the glamour event of the year, known as the Cock of the Derwent Race. There was intense rivalry between the ketches when they raced for the honour of flying the ‘Golden Cock’. The May Queen raced with great success, winning her first Hobart Regatta in 1868 and competing in the last trading ketch race in 1954. During the races between 1882 and 1954, May Queen achieved a record haul of placings, with nine firsts, eight seconds and two thirds.

At the end of her working life, May Queen was gifted to the Tasmanian Government by her owners, H Jones and Co. She passed into the care of the Hobart Marine Board until the Friends of the May Queen were formed in 1997 to take over restoration. She is now well-cared for by the members of the May Queen Trust, supported by the Maritime Museum of Tasmania and a number of other sponsors, including Graeme Phillips of the North Western Shipping and Towage Company Pty Ltd.

To commemorate this anniversary, an event will be held of Franklin at the end of the month on the site of where this grand old lady was first built and launched.
John Wadsley