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the catalogue #600
whaleboats

1945 RAN Montagu Whaler #872 and #1107 F 27 ft

#600

MANUFACTURE
MANUFACTURER: Australian Naval Dockyard, Garden Island, Sydney - Contact Shipwrights.
DESIGN: Montagu Whaler
DESIGNER: Rear Admiral Victor Alexander Montagu, Royal Navy, 1890.
RESTORATION: Alf Settre (shipwright), students of Vincentia Publc School, Lady Denman Maritime Museum.

SPECIFICATIONS
CONSTRUCTION: Mahogany and larch on oak, with gunwales, thwarts etc in solid teak.?
Equipment includes 5 matching 15ft spruce Admiralty oars, full sailing rig – lug main, jib and mizzen, two paddles (for tight spots), and an Admiralty pattern anchor.

DIMENSIONS

*Length :*	27	ft	0	inches	*L2:*
*Width :*	75	inches		*Wide Point :*	0	inches
*Bow :*		inches		*Stern:*		inches
*Draught :*	17	inches		*Transom :*	0	inches
*Nose Lift :*		inches		*Tail Lift :*		inches
*Displacementt :*	27	cwt		*Volume :*		litres
*Weight :*		kilos

FEATURES
double ended
Nose: pin
Tail: canoe stern
Deck: flat
Bottom: flat to centre, Vee with four clinker channels, vee to fin, flat to tail
Rails: soft low rail with tucked/breakaway edge (Pro Edge ?) to flyers, then hard low.
Rocker: medium

Emblem of HMAS Queenborough on the bow.
4.5 inch diameter

HMAS Queenborough was one of eight Q Class destroyers built for the Royal Navy, commissioned on 30 November 1942.
She was transferred on loan from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy and commissioned as HMAS Queenborough at Sydney on 20 October 1945.
On 10 July 1963, she was paid off to the control of the General Manager, Williamstown Dockyard but recommissioned on 28 July 1966, for service as a training ship, before finally decommissioned on 7 April 1972.

http://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-queenborough

SIGNAGE
Boat

1993 Joint Community Project
This restoration of this former Montague Whaler was undertaken by Workframe boat builder Alf Settree and pupils of Vincentia Public School Co-ordinated by Rex Williams for the Lady Denman Museum.

External

Montague Whaler
Reconstructed in1993-94 by students at Vincentia Public School under
instruction from Huskisson shipwright, Alf Settree.
This 27 foot (8.2299 metres) whaler was rebuilt from
two badly deteriorated boats ('872' and '1107').

Whalers evolved as fast, light and extremely manoeuvrable craft used in the latter stages of whale hunting. They were double-enders, so they could back down quickly under oar during the struggle with the whale. The Montague-type whaler was designed in the 1890s for the Royal Navy as a general purpose sea boat that could be hoisted on board by hand rather than by crane. As naval technology developed during the 20th century they were gradually phased out, used as training craft, and eventually abandoned altogether. Montague whalers and their American counterpart, Boston whale boats, are now relatively rare.

'872' and '1107' were sourced from HMAS Penguin, Balmoral. Personnel from the Royal Australian Navy framing college, HMAS Creswell, assisted with this project.


Centreboard lever 1107 F

Whaleboats, Ship's Boats and Longboats to 1890.
With the introduction of steam power, ships became more reliable and manoeuvrable and the need for small ancillary craft was significantly reduced, particularly the task of watering as steam vessels produced their own water.
In the age of sail, small craft were indispensable in setting and weighing the anchor, depth sounding, and transferring crew, passengers and stores from shore to ship; the requisition of fresh water and wood for the kitchens a constant chore.
In battle, they were used for transferring officers, evacuating the crews of sinking ships, towing off enemy fire ships, and in supporting amphibious landings.
They were essential tools for accurate navigation, their role in James Cook's mapping of the St. Lawrence and Australia's Great Barrier Reef just two notable examples.
When a sailing ship was totally becalmed and in danger, it was common practise to launch the boats and attempt to row the vessel to safety.
When all was lost, the ship's boats served as the best means of self-rescue.
The most famous, seaworthy and manoeuvrable boats were the whaleboats, often dispatched from a parent ship to capture whales in the extreme conditions of the off-shore fishery.

Most ships boats were carried on-board, and although larger boats were towed this was generally not done in open seas, and they came in a wide variety of designs and sizes depending on the required function.
By the end of the 18th century, British Royal Navy designs included the barge, cutter, galley, gig, jollyboat, launch, longboat, pinnace, shallop, wherry and yawl.
While steam reduced the importance and reliance on ancillary boats, other technological developments saw a reduction in the number of different designs.
The introduction of davits to launch and retrieve boats in the early 1800s favoured smaller craft which could more easily be hoisted aboard.
On passenger liners and freighters the ships' boats were carried as lifeboats, and, on modern battleships, the clear arc of fire required by turret mounted guns further limited the number of multiple davits available for mulptiple boat designs.

The Montagu Whaler, 1890.
The British Royal Navy determined that single multi-purpose boat was required and proposals relating to a suitable hull and rig by Rear Admiral Victor Alexander Montagu (1841-1915) saw the introduction of the Montagu Whaler as the standard design for the British Royal Navy.
It served around the world from the 1890s to the 1960s, and introduced generations of Navy recruits to the basics of seamanship.
Largely derived from the commercial whaleboat; it was double ended, around 28 feet and powered by oars or sails.
These craft had a proven reputation when negotiating the surf, both on the beaches of West Africa, in serving the slave trade, and across the coral reefs of the Pacific islands.
Clinker built, its ancient ancestor is the Viking longboat.

The Montagu Whaler was 27ft LOA (Length Over All), although there was a shorter 24ft version, 6ft 3ins in the beam and with a draught of 1ft 5ins with the centre-board plate up.
It was double ended and constructed in various timbers, depending on the location of manufacture.
Some reported timbers include wych or sand elm in England, or mahogany at Malta, elm or mahogany on oak, Mahogany planking on Canadian elm ribs, and in the Far East the boats were built in exclusively of teak.
.

Whaleboat under sail, HMS Suffork, c1930.

When rowing, the whaler was single banked, with five crew manning 15ft spruce oars and a helmsman, or cox, who manned a larger sweep-oar.
For sailing it was ketch rigged with a dipping lug mainsail stepped in an iron mast clamp secured to the after edge of the second thwart, a jib and mizzen sail.
Unconventionally, the mizzen mast is stepped in a yoke with ropes attached to the outboard hung rudder, the tiller used when the boat was under-sail.
The whaler also carried two short paddles for manoeuvring in tight spots, along with other equipment such as ropes and anchors.

Highly seaworthy, in emergency situations the Montagu Whaler could carry 27 persons and some were said to have covered voyages in excess of 2000 miles.
Hundreds of Montagu whalers were built in dockyards, or under contract by local boat builders, around the world.
In addition to their official use, and on many harbours the crews of visiting ships would often compete in pulling and sailing races on the harbour of their hosts.
On occasions these competitions were included in the programs of civic celebrations, for example, the Great White Fleet Regatta on Sydney Harbour on the afternoon of Sat 22nd August 1908.

By the mid-twentieth century the Montagu Whaler, and other similar working craft, was superseded by widespread use of motor-powered vessels.
Whalers were phased out by the British Royal Navy from the 1960s onwards; however many had a second life as training craft for Sea Scout groups and a few were acquired by private owners.

Montagu whalers were part of the standard boat fit-out of Royal Australian Navy ships from 1911 to the mid-1960's,their use closely paralleling that of the Royal Navy.
This example is part of the Wooden Heritage Fleet of the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum, which serves as the case study for one of the last of these vessels and affords an opportunity to combine historical research and use in a contemporary enviroment.

Note that the common spelling of Montagu is without the e, the less occasionally used Montague has been adopted by the JBMM.

RAN Motorized-Whaleboats, 1964.
RAN 27 Ft Motor Whaler 2717 ARHV Number: HV000213
Current Owner Queensland Maritime Museum Date Built: 1964

The Royal Australian Navy 27 foot motor whaler number 2717 built in 1964 is a typical naval small craft carried aboard a ship and called a seaboat.
Seaboats served a variety of purposes at sea and in harbour in support of the ship they were attached to.
These craft were carried aboard most RAN warships for many decades.
This example, number 2717, is the last clinker construction whaler built at Garden Island Dockyard, Sydney.

The motor whaler hull is just over 9.0 metres long and about 2.20 metres wide.
It is clinker or lapstrake construction, and has three rubbing strips around the gunwales.
It was built at the Navy's Garden Island Dockyard where the RAN apprentices learnt their trade.
It was a typical project for the apprentices, working with an experienced shipwright.
The apprentices learnt practical skills and teamwork by building the vessel.
This hull is fitted with thwarts for rowing and a small 10 kW diesel engine.
The number 2717 is engraved on the stem, along with the year it was built, 1964.

The RAN motor whalers were the same design as the Royal Navy craft.
In 1956 the RN had decided to modernise its seaboats with a motorised craft, and redesigned their sailing and rowing version to include a motor.
It was officially designated a 27 foot Motor Whaler and unofficially known as a three-in-one whaler.
They did not sail or pull very well as they were too heavy, and the RN then changed them to a version designated a 27 foot Motor Whaler Mod 1, which abandoned the sailing rig.
The RAN built 13 three-in-ones, numbered 2701 - 2713 from 1961 to 63, and then four Mod 1's numbered 2714 - 2717 from 1963 to 64. This example 2717 was allocated to HMAS MORESBY.

The duties of these seaboats were quite varied.
At sea they performed man overboard rescues, transfer of stores and personnel between ships, transferring an armed boarding party, recovering practice torpedoes and passing towing lines.
In harbour they would assist in securing a ship to a mooring buoy or laying out a kedge anchor, transferring mail, stores and personnel, or laying buoys for survey or salvage operations.
They also had a recreational purpose as a pulling boat for naval regattas and if fitted with sail, for sailing races.

This whaler has been restored at the Queensland Maritime Museum where it is on display aboard HMAS DIAMANTINA. Before 1961 HMAS DIAMANTINA carried two clinker whalers.

Notes prepared by John Smith, ARHV: Clinker 3 in 1 whaler with the terms ‘motor whaler and seaboat.
Kindly forewared by David Payne, ANMM, October, 2015.

Whaleboats, Ship's Boats and Longboats on Jervis Bay since 1791.
Although James Cook named Cape St. George and identified the entrance to Jervis Bay in April 1770, the first recorded entry was the Atlantic, under the command of Master Archibald Armstrong, on the voyage to Port Jackson in August 1791.
Like most of the Third Fleet, she was one of Samuel Enderbys' whalers commissioned to transport convicts and with orders to then to sail for the southern fishery to hunt whales and fish with seine nets
Seeking refuge from bad weather, the Atlantic's visit was very brief and it is unclear if the ship's boats were ever launched on the bay.
However, the Naval Agent on board, Lieutenant Richard Bowen, made an 'eye-draft' of the bay and named it after Captain, later Admiral, John Jervis, under who Bowen had served.

The next vessel in Jervis Bay, the Matilda under Master Matthew Weatherhead, was another whaler carrying convicts for the Third Fleet, arriving at Port Jackson in August 1791.
Having seen large pods of whales on the voyage up the south-east coast, the Matilda headed south in November for whaling.
Once at sea, the Matilda began to leak and Wheatherhead entered Jervis Bay to undertake repairs where he reported that it was an exceeding good anchorage.
He mapped the bay, which was later copied and developed by Alexander Dalrymple, a hydrographer who was aboard
The map named Cabbage Tree Point, Long Beach, Cawood Point, and Rocky Point and, no doubt, the ship's whaleboats were launched and employed during this stay.

Australia's most significant whaleboat, commanded by naval surgeon and explorer George Bass, entered Jervis Bay on December 18, 1797.
This boat, unlike its predecessors, Tom Thumb and Tom Thumb (II), was not named, but was one of the first vessels built in the colony from local cedar and banksia.
Bass wrote that Hunter had only had one boat available and that was the whaleboat ... for coastal exploration it was ideal so long as we did not venture too far from shore.
It is variously known as the whaleboat, the Governor's whaleboat, or Bass's whaleboat.

Bass arrived in Port Jackson aboard HMS Reliance, under the command of Henry Waterhouse, in September 1795, along with John Hunter, the new governor, midshipman Matthew Flinders, and Bass's assistant, William Martin.
Hunter was returning to Australia, having served under Arthur Phillip in the First Fleet, where he was instrumental in the exploration of the colony, culminating in a Chart of the coasts and harbours of Botany-Bay, Port-Jackson and Broken-Bay, as survey'd by Capt.n John Hunter of H.M.S. Sirius.
For Bennelong, also aboard the Reliance, his return to his native land was a difficult home-coming.
Bennelong and another local Aboriginal, Yemmerrawanne, had sailed to England with Phillip on the Atlantic in 1792, the year after she was the first vessel to shelter in Jervis Bay on her voyage to Port Jackson

Bass Postage Stamp
Australia Post, 1966.

The Reliance was in poor condition after the voyage and as Bass and Flinders enthusiastic to begin to explore the region, Matthew Flinders recalled:
George Bass was a man whose ardour for discovery was not to be repressed by any obstacles, nor deterred by danger; and with this friend a determination was formed of completing the examination of the east coast of New South Wales, by all such opportunities as the duty of the ship and procurable means could admit.
They embarked on their first expedition in a 10ft boat, named the Tom Thumb on account of its size, that Bass had brought with him from England.

In October 1795 , accompanied by William Martin, they sailed south into Botany Bay and explored the upper reaches of Georges River, their reports instrumental in the new governor founding a settlement at Banks' Town, hence the replica Tom Thumb currently held by the Bankstown City Council.
Five months later, in March 1796, the same crew headed south again in a locally built 14ft boat, also called Tom Thumb, but now identified as Tom Thumb II.Intending to explore Port Hacking, the first day they were blown south to the islands off Wollongong, landed at Tom Thumb Lagoon (Lake Illawarra) and then explored Port Hacking on their return north to Sydney Cove.

The entrance to Lake Illawarra is dominated by Windang Island, in the local Thurwal language Gang-man-gang, the wreck of a large canoe
that had brought the human creatures to this land who became the native animals.
They had stolen the canoe from the human creature that was the whale.
He had swum desperately after the fugitives but with the destruction of his canoe, the whale now cruised the coastline, blowing water through the gash in his head inflicted in his earlier battle with the starfish.

Right: Windang Island and Lake Illawarra Entrance, 2015.
96.5wavefm
http://www.wavefm.com.au/

In the first years of settlement, the eucalypt hardwoods were found to be unsuitable for most purposes and difficult to work, blunting the poor-quality government-issued axes and adzes, and the most popular timber for building was the cabbage tree palm, harvested from Double Bay and Vaucluse and then shipped to Sydney Cove by longboat.
Of the other timbers around the harbour, the she-oak (Casuarina sp.) was preferred for framework and roofing shingles as it did not split or warp like the gums.
The large pines of Norfolk Island, discovered by ... in 179x, were first thought to be a significant resource, however they proved to be useless for any naval application.
Harvested with considerable effort, the lack of a suitable harbour presented serious difficulties, in practice the wood was found to be brittle, porous, and for large masts or spars, the trees were shakey or rotten at 30 or 40 feet.

The first stands of cedar were harvested from the banks of the Hawkesbury-Nepean, following the exploration of the river in longboats by Phillip and Hunter in 1789.
However, the colonists initially thought it was a species of mahogany and Phillip sent a sample to England, describing the timber as resembling walnut.
John Vader (2002) ascribes the incorrect identifiication as mahogany to the colonists, noting that all the naval personnel would have seen cedar worked in England or been familiar with the cedars of India, the Middle East, the East Indies and the Americas.
By this time the use of the timber in ship building was widespread; and in particular, it was well known that a green cedar log was would float.
Following the arrival and appraisal of the samples of Hawkesbury cedar sent to England by Phillip and Lieutentant-Colonel William Patterson, in late 1791, the Admiralty ordered that all returning convict transports should return with as much cedar as possible for the navy's dockyards.
Before the cedars of the The Hawkwsbury-Nepean River were fully decimated, the timber cutters had already moved north into the forests of the Hunter River, the cedars of the s with the the beginning of a progressive and would follow
South of Sydney Cove, in the 1820's the cedars of the Shoalhaven provided the first income for Alexander Berry's new settlement at the foot of Mt. Coolangatta; and by 19xx? the cedars had disappeared from the east coast.

The first vessel built in the colony, the Lump, was a hoy that is said to be built of she-oak and clad with cedar and was used as a barge on the Parramatta River.
Despite the official regulation of boat building, there were well founded concerns that these would provide an incitement to escape, once the quality of the Australian cedar was recognised the colony's shipwrights built a range of craft, mostly small multi-purpose vessels for fishing and transport around the harbour.
The largest was probably a ship designed by Governor Hunter of about 160 tons to maintain contact with Norfolk Island and the Cumberland, 27 tons, was an armed schooner intended to chase deserters or escaping convicts.
Small boats built from Hawkesbury cedar included Tom Thum II and the open boat in which Bass undertook his third voyage south from Sydney in December 1797.

This boat apparently had no established name, and the details of its construction are also unclear.

It was variously known as the whaleboat, the Governor's whaleboat, and after the voyage, Bass's whaleboat.

The name Governor's whaleboat could be misleading; while the whaleboat was provided by Hunter and it is likely to have been expressly constructed under his orders, it may also have been "requisitioned" from one of the growing number of local shipwrights.
Bass wrote that Hunter had only one boat available and that was the whaleboat, which they discussed and decided that for coastal exploration it was ideal so long as we did not venture too far from shore.
Certainly it was of local construction from native cedar and banksia and she proved to be a remarkably sea-worthy craft..

Flinders noted that Bass was furnished with a fine whale boat and six weeks provisions by the governor, and a crew of six seamen from the ships.
The only identified seaman of the crew from the Reliance or HMS Resolution (?), is John Thistle, however, it is possible that young William Martin was aboard as he appears to have accompanied George Bass on all his other voyages, including their last and final voyage in 1802.

Sailing close to the coast, they regularly landed to water and camp over-night, including Kiama, the Shoalhaven-Crookhaven Rivers,
Jervis Bay (naming Bowen Island), Twofold Bay, Wilson's Promontory and Westernport Bay; and sailing far enough south to establish the existence of Bass Strait, later named after him.
This was confirmed by Bass and Flinders when they circumnavigated Van Diemen's Land in the Norfolk in October 1798.

The return voyage north was slowed by adverse winds and the whaleboat crew stayed overnight on Brush Island (off Ulladulla) and in Jervis Bay and at Shoals Haven (Crookhaven).
In Port Jackson the men were welcomed enthusiastically; they were wined and dined, entertained,and talks were given.
Five years later, when François Péron visited the colony as part of the Baudin expedition in 1802, he reported that the whaleboat now sat on the shore of Sydney Cove as a monument to Bass and the success of the voyage, it's fate thereafter unknown.
While he could hardly be seen as an unbiased commentator, Flinders' assessment of the whaleboat voyage of 1797-1798 has some merit:
A voyage 'expressly' undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in which six hundred miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous climate, was explored, has not, perhaps, its equal in the annals of maritime history.

The Lady Nelson's boat was instrumental in the exploration of Jervis Bay by Lt. James Grant in March 1801.
After waiting outside the heads overnight, Grant sent the first mate in the ship's boat to find a suitable anchorage on the morning of the 11th.
On the boat's return, with one of the local Aboriginals, by half-past ten she anchored in four fathoms water, fine sandy bottom.
The boats were thereafter extensively employed over the next three days before the Lady Nelson departed early on the 13th March.

Pleadon (1990) reports that the Lady Nelson got under way having been towed out of the bay by the ship's boat.

James Grant: Lady Nelson and ship's boat, Thames, 1799.

After leaving Port Jackson in 1826, the Astrolabe visited Jervis Bay in late November and spent several days exploring the region and meeting the local Aboriginals.
The commander, Dumont D'Urville, reported:
At first light, M. Gressien in the whaleboat, MM. Guilbert and Dudema in the yawl and M. Paris in the dinghy all left at the same time to work on the chart of the bay.
Louis Auguste de Sainson, an artist aboard the pictured one of the Astrolabe's longboats after casting a net and providing a plentiful supply of fish shared by the local Aboriginals and the French visitors.

Louis Auguste de Sainson:
Sharing the catch, Jervis Bay, 1826.

Dumont D'Urville:
Two Voyages to the South Seas
Volume 1: Astrolabe 1826-1829
Translated by Helen Rosenman
Melbourne University Press, 1987, facing page 91.

At the National Gallery of Australia

The southern coasts of Australia were identified as a possible whale fishery by Samuel Enderby in the Emilia in 1788-1789, and he supplied nine whalers for the Third Fleet.
After disembarking their cargo of convicts at Port Jackson, Enderby's captains had instructions to sail south to fish and hunt whales
Following the Atlantic and the Matilda, over the next hundred years whalers would often enter the bay for wood and water, invariably transferred by their whaleboats, or to seek respite from inclement weather.

Captain William Kinghorne established the first shore-based whaling station in Jervis Bay at Cabbage Tree Point around 1840, but this operated less than three years.
In the second half of the 19th century, whalers from Ben Boyd's settlement at Twofold Bay and Tasmania were regular visitors and, as the demand for whale oil expanded and the northern fisheries were progressively depleted, there was an increasing number of American whalers.
The only significant attempt to establish a whaling station inside the bay in the early 20th century was short-lived.
In 1912, a Norwegian company, the Australian Whaling Company, were permitted by the NSW government to station the Loc Tay a 8,000 ton factory ship and a number of whale chasers, including the Campbell, Lionel and Sorrell, in Jervis Bay.
Despite some reported initial success, the operation was unprofitable and there was growing opposition from some local fishermen and oyster farmers, the Commonwealth government, and the Navy, the major objection being the pollution resulting processing the blubber.
While the Norwegians were gone by 1917, one hundred years later whaling is now a well established commercial activity on Jervis Bay, however, the hunters now shoot with a camera and not with a harpoon.

The new Australian Commonwealth progressively assumed the control of many areas of government previously managed by the state governments, and no responsibility was more important than the formation of a national army and navy.
The Royal Australian navy was formed in , years after federation, and a number of locations were examined for the establishment of a naval college.
Prime Minister Fisher announced he decision in favour Jervis Bay in November 1911, despite substantial contrary advice from the naval experts who considered it a poor option.
However, the decision did align with current plans to build a railway to the new capital, Canberra, and to extend the NSW line from Bomaderry.
These major projects never eventuated; just two of the many tales of what did not happen at Jervis Bay.
In addition, like the decision to build the new nation's capital in an other-wise insignificant location, the selection of Jervis Bay also avoided any hint of favouritism towards a major city, invariably Sydney or Melbourne.

Construction of the college premises at Captain's Point began in 1913 with the building supplies brought by sea or carted by bullock from the Bomaderry railhead, except for some locally quarried stone transported via a light rail line.
The buildings were finished in 1916 and, as there has been no significant changes since, many of the original buildings are now on the Register of the National Estate.

As the facilities at Jervis Bay were not ready, the College's was first cadets were stationed at Osbourne House in Geelong in January 1913, the official opening performed by the Governor-General of Australia, Lord and Lady Denman.
In January 1919, the College moved to Captain's Point, even though construction was still in progress, and was commissioned HMAS Franklin; named after the college's training vessel.
Originally commissioned as Adele in the British Royal Navy, she was a steel screw steamer built in Scotland in 1906 as a yacht.
In 1915, she was commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Franklin and after serving in Papua-New Guinea, by 1930 she was re-named HMAS Adele, was wrecked at Port Kembla in May 1943.

The College operated until 1930, when a smaller navy and financial constraints saw it relocated once more to Victoria, at the Flinder's Naval Depot, later HMAS Cerebus.

Until 1930, the midshipmen of the Naval College would have done much of their initial training in Montagu Whalers, or very similar ship's boats and they were, no doubt, manned by some of the college's most famous graduates.
These included Commodore Sir James Ramsay, later Lieutenant-Governor of Western Australia, Vice Admiral Sir John Collins, commander of the cruiser HMAS Sydney in WW II and the RAN's representative at the Japanese surrender in 1945, and Harold Gatty.
An outstanding navigatior, in 1931, Gatty and Wiley Post set a world record for circumnavigating the world of 8 days 16 hours, previously held by the Graf Zeppelin airship in 21 days.
They were honoured with a ticker-tape parade in New York City and Gatty's The Raft Book (1943), a guide to navigation without instruments based on Poynesian techniques, was standard-issue for US pilots during WW II.

Right: Harold Gatty, Winner of Naval Cadet Scholarship,
Royal Naval College, Jervis Bay, NSW, c1918.
- Brown: Gatty- Prince of Navigators (1997) page 12.

Ship's boats were in employed when the Prince of Wales, Edward Vlll, landed at, the then, HMAS Franklin on 15th June, 1920.
Photographs of the occasion show the Prince on the wharf with two whaleboats, similar to the Montagu, pictured on davits.
The Prince was accompanied by Admiral Lionel Halsey, who had been appointed the captain of the new battle cruiser HMS New Zealand in 1912.
He was later given a Māori war skirt, which he then wore over his uniform at the Battles of Heligoland and Dogger Bank in January 1915, setting a tradition followed for the duration of the war.

Commissioned as HMAS Creswell, the College returned to Jervis Bay in 1958, along with some Montagu whalers, although by now they were beginning to retired from service until their final decommissioning in the late 1960s.
As such, these were some of the last working sailing craft on Australian waters and, with the widespread adoption of marine engines, the end of a ancient tradition.
In the 21st century, the paddlers, rowers and sailors on Jervis Bay are now there for recreational pleasure or thrills.

In 1997, a whaleboat was once again on the waters of Jervis Bay, in this case a replica 19th century whaler crewed by a team from Tasmania recreating the famous whaleboat voyage of George Bass of 1897-1898.
The voyage is documented in Bern Cuthbertson's In the Wake of Bass and Flinders published in 2001.
The whaleboat was originally built by Geoff Cuthbertson of Montagu Bay, Hobart, in 1985 to re-enact the circumnavigation of Tasmania by Captain James Kelly in 1815-1816.
Named Elizabeth, the whaleboat was 28.5 feet long, lugged rigged, built of Huon Pine, and with a crew of five.
Bern Cuthbertson was on the sweep-oar and Rick McMahon, Tom O'Byrne, Craig Dixon, and Geoff Zwarand manned the four oars.
Departing from the ANMM, Darling Harbour on 3 December, the Elizabeth entered Jervis Bay six days later where the sail was handed and the crew rowed to the jetty before proceeding up Currembene Creek.
With the boat secured on its trailer for the night, the crew were billeted with Huskisson locals, with Bert Cutherbertson and his family accommodated by Harry and Ailsa Shaw.
The next two days were unsuitable for sailing, the crew spent the first recovering, repairing gear, and conversing with local school children and on the second, at the request of the curator, Robyn (nnn), the Elizabeth was displayed in the grounds of the Lady Denman Maritime Museum.
At this point the Elizabeth would have been in the company of the recently restored 872-1107 and one other Montague Whaler, which was destroyed by fire in 2001.
That evening the crew dined with Robyn and Vera and John Hatton.
During the crew's brief time at the LDMM, Cuthbertson records that Rick and Tom gave some time to the museum to clean out all the leaves from the guttering which was full.

Crew of the Elizabeth practising reefing at Huskisson, December 1997.

Right: Whaleboat Elizabeth under sail off Sam Remo, 1998.

Also see:

History: Whales, Men and Boats	Whaleboat : References, Appendix, Notes
Jervis Bay Whaleboat Crew : Project 2015-2019	JBWC : Information for Members

Jervis Bay Whaleboat Crew : Small Wooden Boat Fleet of the JBMM

JBMM Montagu Whaler: Acquisition and Restoration,1986-1994.
These files are being digitalised by CMC staff, for further information contact Grahamh@jbmm.asn.au

Sculpture dedicated to Alf Settree, 1914-1998.
Jervis Bay Maritime Museum, Huskisson.
Sculptor: Denis Davis OAM

surfresearch.com.au

Geoff Cater (2015-2016) : Montagu Whaler, 1890-1960.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/00000600.html