Today's post is about one of my distant relatives on Mum's (Atkin) side of the family. My 2x great-grandfather Samuel Atkin came to Australia from Lincolnshire in 1853, and three years later was followed by his older brother Henry with his family. Henry settled near Newstead (not far from Castlemaine), and his daughter Elizabeth married Charles Slee, the Slees being another prominent early Newstead family. Elizabeth and Charles had 14 children (!) and this story is about their grandson Mark Mackie - my third cousin once removed - and what would have been, for the time, a pretty incredible adventure.
Mark Mackie was born in Camberwell in 1899, and was educated at Scotch College. He worked as a photo-engraver and had a keen interest in yachting. In 1927 he was one of several ex-public school boys to undertake an 8 month trip in the South Pacific, aboard a yacht named Utiekah III, a 37-ton, 56 ft, auxiliary ketch built in Tasmania two years previously. The Utiekah had been competing in local regattas, but had been built with this kind of trip in mind.
The boat was to be skippered by Melbourne Grammar sportsmaster J Elliot Giles of the Victorian Royal Yacht Club, with the remainder of the crew being: Mackie, Tony Hamilton (co-owner of the boat with Giles), Arthur Peck, Gyle Soilleux, John Crossley Hartle and H Newton Scott. All were yachtsmen of experience but none more so than Arthur Peck, who at 72 years old had been sailing for 50 years. Scott hailed from Sydney but the rest were Melbourne boys. It was believed to be first time in the history of Australian yachting that a ketch of this tonnage had undertaken such a 'long and hazardous' voyage, and the accounts of the journey that appeared in the newspapers, mainly by Hartle and Mackie, make for entertaining reading.
On May 27, after 40 days of preparation at the yacht club in Williamstown, the Utiekah set sail with a plan to head to Sydney followed by Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. There was no definite itinerary after that, but it was hoped they would take in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, with a plan to return to Hobart via New Zealand in January. The boat was carrying a ton of groceries, 300 gallons of water and 100 gallons of petrol for the 34-horsepower engine.
Hartle writes of a rough first day, in which the crew were "wishing that in addition to coppering the bottom of the yacht we had copper-lined our own tummies as well'. They got 'abominably wet' and were left shivering - and they hadn't even left Port Phillip Bay! They rested at Swan Bay near Queenscliff, and despite having left on Friday, didn't get out of the Heads until Sunday. Leaving the Rip, the "sea god laid hold of us by the midriff, and pulled fourteen different ways, both one after the other and altogether. Our last meal had been toast, and we generously cast our bread upon the waters." Regarding seasickness, "remedies are various, one of our crew...steadfastly resolves to eat nothing but strawberry jam, because that is the only thing he knows of which tastes the same whichever way it may be travelling." The one person who seems to have coped so far was Mackie, who had not felt "the slightest qualm".
Before long though, the wind and sea had died down and Bass Strait was too calm. Near Wilsons Promontory, and still within sight of land, the crew practiced trying to fix their position, results varying from "136 degrees east to approximately forty yards in the air of the southwest corner of the polar icecap". In contemplating how they might go when out on the open ocean, Hartle mused "where we might eventually get to staggers imagination". The trip up the New South Wales coast was uneventful until more heavy weather upon reaching Sydney Harbour but by 6 June they had reached their first port. Mooring at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron at Neutral Bay, no less than the Governor General and his wife, Lord and Lady Stonehaven, came aboard for a visit.
The Utiekah left Sydney on June 16. After more wet weather, Hartle drily observed, "I have known better places to sleep in than wet bunks on a yacht". And after plenty more rolling about: "those of us who were no longer seasick seemed to consider it their duty to be offensively cheerful." One of the crew injured a foot when falling into a skylight during a battle with the sails.
Eventually the adventurers reached Lord Howe Island on June 27. Hartle informs us that the island has a population of 130, who make a living from the business of palm seeds. The islanders pay no tax other than rat-catching one day a week, and even then 4d is paid per tail. With the island managed by the New South Wales government the residents have an easy life, and are a "kindly, hospitable, generous people, whose only anxiety seems to be whether they are doing sufficient for the fortunate visitor." Mackie makes mention of the butterfly cod with its venomous spines, and also observes that "the views are glorious and the nightfall here is a sight that would make the most worried and tired person in the world quite content". The crew "foxtrotted till the early hours" one evening.
On July 3 the Utiekah sailed for Norfolk Island, 40 islanders gathering in dinghies to farewell them. Arriving three days later they were received by the Administrator, General Senheim, at Government House, who insisted they dine there, where they were waited on by Mrs Senheim herself. They toured the convict ruins and Mackie was particularly taken by the Melanesian church with its pews inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He noted how different the vegetation was between Lord Howe (quite tropical) and Norfolk (more English). They departed Norfolk Island on July 10.
Once again on the open seas, Mackie commented on how safe he felt even in the heaviest squalls, describing the boat "tearing down the sides of the waves like a railway train". The yacht was "so easy to steer that you could hold the wheel with your little finger". On July 14 they struck the 'variables' where the winds became fickle. This gave them more time to contemplate their surroundings: the sea was so blue that "if you were to reproduce it in a painting, no one would consider it realistic". Meanwhile Hartle records that when one of the crew fell ill he was prescribed "a large dose of castor oil...mixed with orange juice, it looked a ghastly mess - almost as bad as the skipper's scrambled eggs".
Reaching Tonga on July 17, the Utiekah was greeted by a series of blowholes that occur along the coral reef, giving the appearance of 'shell bursts'. Upon arrival at Nukualofa, there was some excitement, when the customs launch and its dinghy got tangled with the yacht when trying to bring it in to mooring; the tow rope had to be cut and a new one made, the yacht getting out of trouble when quite close to the reef. Hartle mentions the over 6-foot Queen of Tonga opening parliament in her ermine-trimmed red robe "draped over the back of her noble form, floating in the dust-laden breeze, and a gold crown".
At this time in Tonga there was a population of "11,000 natives and 300 whites", Mackie remarking that the natives are "fine specimens, active and obliging". He endeared himself to them on one occasion when using a dinghy he rescued some children drifing out to sea in their boat. He also notes that the "graves are peculiar. They just throw sand over them and the railing usually consists of beer bottles". While in Nukualofa he took what were apparently the first photos ever of the treaty between Great Britain and Tonga signed by Queen Victoria, and that with Germany signed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, as well as a piece of flannel given by Captain Cook to one of the chiefs. However, developing the films while on board the yacht proved challenging.
After a week at Nukualofa with some repairs carried out on the yacht the voyage was ready to resume, and the Utiekah was on its way on July 31. They sailed on towards Vava'u, an island with a reputation of beauty, and after a close call drifting towards a coral atoll, they reached there on August 2. One of the crew felt that Vavau's harbour was even more beautiful than Sydney's. Hartle wrote of the response, "We fell silent on hearing this awful blasphemy, and felt his pulse and examined his tongue. Both were apparently quite in order...we put it down to temporary aberration." They paid a visit to a cave in which the deep water "reflects all sorts of indescribable colours on to the high roof", and made the stiff climb to the top of Talau, which provided a view of 100 islands. This was followed by thirsts quenched with freshly made coconut juice, "boys climbing the palms to procure the nuts for us", and a dance with the native girls ("dusky dancing partners") in the evening.
Leaving Vava'u on August 6, by midday the next day they had covered 200 miles which the sailors believed to be a record. Mackie was the only one on board who ate that day, such was the turbulence generated by that pace. They had planned to head for Pago Pago in Samoa but found themselves off course and instead headed to Apia which they reached on the evening of August 9. Hartle found Apia to be more modern, with less of the romance of the previous islands (noting barbed wire fences, dirt roads and signposts, as well as an element of social unrest), but the farlays (huts) were "scrupulously clean, unlike those at Tonga". Though the "dusky beauties sighed over by many a youthful poet, positively reek of rancid cocoanut oil". A noteworthy feature of their stay was a visit to Robert Louis Stevenson's home Vailima, which was now the Government House.
Leaving Apia on August 16, the Utiekah sailed to the neighbouring Samoan island of Savai'i. There the local chief and his daughters welcomed the crew, the daughters serving the sailors shells of kava. The chief and daughters the entertained them with a dance, "capering about and shuffling the feet and much play with the hands." In return, the crew entertained the chief and his daughters on the yacht: they displayed a "surprising capacity for buttered biscuits and plum cake". On August 19, they sailed for Fiji.
Amongst the difficulties of yacht life related were occasions of washing naked on deck, lathering up in the rain only for it to stop and having to wash eveything off with sea water. One of the men was suffering from a poisoned finger, while all the crew arrived in Suva four days later "clothed in sunburn". They rested there for a fortnight, seeing the sights, and "making ourselves as agreeable as possible to the ladies". They even bumped into some Melbourne Grammarians.
September 3 marked the beginning of a nearly six week tour of Fiji with the help of a local pilot: islands visited were Levuka, Wakaya - where they hunted deer but shot only two pigeons, Vanua Levu, Taveuni - dodging coconuts, and Ugamia - more kava ("muddy water, with a slight flavour of ginger"). Next was the Lau group, where they learned later that the natives had worried the men had come to "conquer their island and abduct the maidens". It was supposed that this was because of their appearance: "surely such an unshaven, underclothed, desperate-looking lot of pirates never descended upon an unsuspecting island."
Giles, the skipper, noted the "ideal cruising ground and such wonderful weather" while Mackie wrote: "Simple, honest folk these natives, and teeming with romance. It seems to be in their very blood." At Fulanga, the island chief came on board the yacht and when they turned on the electric light, he "yelled like mad, and laughed and jumped with excitement." He presented them with about 60 intact coconuts, a mark of respect apparently offered only to very high chiefs.
After this trip, the local pilot who had been aboard remarked of the Utiekah that he had never "handled a better yacht, both for sailing and seaworthiness". The men spent four days back at Suva before a trip around Viti Levu, though on their travels Hartle informed that they did not visit the famed fire-walkers of Mbengga (who walk across white-hot stones), as they wanted £50 to walk! Returning to Suva on October 30, the crew were beginning to dread the 2000 mile return ocean voyage ahead, and the seasickness that would come with it. They abandoned the idea of returning via New Zealand, as the winds were not favourable, and they had stayed longer in these parts than intended.
Gyle Soilleux left his crewmates from Fiji by steamer to go to the US; he was going on to England to study architecture. Meanwhile the veteran of the crew Arthur Peck had 'strained himself and was ordered complete quiet' so had to book passage back to Australia in a steamer. The remaining crew sailed from Suva on November 7. They experienced some heavy weather on the return, lost a jib, had to 'hove to' and set anchor for 42 hours. They made a return visit to Lord Howe Island, arriving November 22 and resting for three days, also picking up a Mr Gower Wilson for the return to Australia.
The Utiekah arrived in Sydney to great fanfare on the evening of Nov 28. However the journey was not over, Tasmania was still on the itinerary. They sailed for Hobart on December 14, arriving six days later. After a stay of over a month, they departed on January 24 for a cruise around the Tasmanian coast, including into treacherous Port Davey, which won the admiration of local yachtsmen. The crew felt Tasmania compared favourably with cruising the Pacific apart from the weather. At last, on the the 4th of February 1928, the Utiekah reached sight of home. Cheered on by yachtsmen up Port Phillip Bay and by hundreds on St Kilda Pier, she finally anchored at Williamstown, the crew celebrating with a hula dance on deck. They had brought back with them spears, clubs, 'sissies' (garlands of flowers), sea shells, an assortment of kava bowls, mostly these had been acquired by Mark Mackie. Mackie also took more than 1000 photos during the trip, and a motion picture was taken.
The nearly 10,000 mile trip was a record for any Australian-owned and manned yacht. And it had returned in almost perfect condition. The Utiekah had "nosed her way into islands where seldom a white man had been seen, and never the name Australia heard." Even so, the skipper felt that the trip was too long. But the final words I will leave to Mark Mackie:
"I wouldn't have missed it for worlds; but it's good to be home."
Epilogue: Mark Mackie returned to his job as a photo-engraver, and the other crew members went back to their jobs of sportsmaster, orchardist and surveyor, but our entertaining correspondent from the voyage John Crossley Hartle was of independent means and had been roving for 12 years; he was soon to head to the Malay states.
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