HistoryQuick jump to: MV Banks Naval History | Local Maritime History
Naval History of the MV BanksDerivation of the NameNamed in honour of Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist who accompanied Captain James Cook in the "Endeavor" when he discovered the East Coast of Australia.One of the first ships in Australia to be constructed in Modular form. LaunchDecember 15, 1959, by Mrs. W H Harrington, wife of the Second Naval Member of the Australian Commonwealth naval Board.Further HistoryOn completion, HMAS Banks was fitted out for fishery surveillance duties in northern Australian waters, where she spent some time with the Japanese fishing fleet. In April 1961, while operating in the Darwin area, she carried out a hydrographic survey of the Adelaide River area.As a welcome break from her normal routine, she was selected as host ship to Miss Tanya Verstak (Miss Australia, 1961) for her tour or Darwin Harbour. Later in 1961 she visited Java and the Celebes for the War Graves Commission, to recover the remains of Australian servicemen for reburial in the Commission"s cemeteries. During 1962 Banks visited Portuguese Timor, and carried out more survey work around the northern coastline of Australia. Then, from 1963 to 1966, she was in the New Guinea area, performing general duties- including visits to various coastwatching . HMAS Banks returned to Sydney in December 1966, and after paying off on the 16th, entered Garden Island Dockyard for an extensive refit. Banks transferred to duty as a Training Ship with the RANR on November 21, 1969, and proceeded to South Australia to take up duty at HMAS Encounter. Apart from her designated role of training Reservists in ship handling, seamanship and navigation, however, she carried out many other tasks in South Australian waters: giving support to Army units, laying mines and danbuoys, amongst others. In 1974, during exercises in Tasmanian waters with her sister ship Bass, she visited Launceston, Devonport and Portland (VIC). Nine years after she had departed Sydney for South Australia, Banks sailed through Sydney Heads again on March 10, 1976, for a three day stopover before heading back to HMAS Encounter. She had been carrying out exercises on passage from Adelaide, and had called at Portland (VIC), Eden and Jervis Bay on the New South Wales coast en route. Banks decommissioned on December 4, 1982. She was allocated to HMAS Creswell at Jervis Bay as a General Purpose Vessel, and was used chiefly for navigational training. Her secondary role (should it have been required) was to assist in Disaster Relief: delivering emergency rations, providing radio communications, and establishing emergency domestic services. In 1983 she took part in Exercise Seatrain, operating with her sister ship Bass, which was then based at HMAS Waterhen, Sydney. Banks transferred there in 1985. Little is known of her activities between 1985 and 1995. In 1995, Banks left Sydney to spend the next 10 months undergoing a major refit, that was terminated (Nov) due to a devastating fire on board. MV Banks was sold shortly after to the present owners, who have converted it into a charter vessel. Local Maritime HistoryRetracing the Voyages of the SteamersAustralians who choose to live along New South Wales picturesque South Coast have always had to contend with the difficulties of travel and in some ways, in the 21st century, they are not as well served with public transport as they were 100 or eve 50 years ago. At that time it was possible to travel by ship from Eden or intermediate ports to Sydney and back without changing. Today unless a car is used, the public transport system allows the traveler to travel by bus only as far as Nowra at which point he or she must catch a train, the controllers of which have never felt it necessary to extend further south!Passenger shipping finished on the South Coast in the middle of 1928 when the Illawarra and South Coast Steam Navigation Company's liner SS Merimbula went ashore on Beecroft Head while heading south. The older and smaller Eden was brought out of reserve to complete the Merimbula's immediate bookings and was then laid up once more, for sale. With the demise of the Merimbula, a passenger service that dated back to the 1830's was complete. The increase in motor cars, motor trucks and the improvements in air transport had reduced the passenger market on the South Coast, while the railways now dominated the northern 160km. Passenger service along the South Coast began at the same time as did cargo services. Roads were non-existent along the South Coast in the middle 1800's and travellers used horses or walked- a passage on a steamer, no matter how primitive, was an improvement. Pig & Whistle FleetThe Illawarra Steam Navigation Company later to become the Illawarra and South Coast Steam Navigaiton Company, was created from an amalgamation of smaller companies, by an Act of Parliament in October 1858.With a fleet initially comprising five seagoing vessels, the company provided regular services from Sydney to Wollongong, Kiama, Shoalhaven River, Ulladulla, the Clyde River, Broulee, Merimbula and Twofold Bay- all at that time with primitive or non-existent port facilities. Until the turn of the century, the need on the South Coast, was for combinesd passenger and cargo vessels as there was usually insufficient or either trade to justify a single purpose ship. Human passengers were oftne given short thrift. It was said that the Illawarra Company's 'Pig & Whistle' flleet ships would wait an hour for a pig but not a minute for a passenger.Things took a turn for the better with the SS Eden, built in 1900and the SS Merimbula, built nine years later, repesented the pinnace of South Coast passenger ship design. In this ship, and in the older Eden, cargoes took second place to the passenger and it is possible that, for the first (and last) time, the needs of the passenger came before that of pigs and general cargo. The 'Pig & Whistle' fleet provided the main passenger service to and from Eden until March 1928 when the SS Merimbula was wrecked on Beecroft Head. This brought to an end the era of the passenger ship along the South Coast. It is the present owners' aim to reactivate this era for the benefit of South Coast tourism and the interest of todays generation. |
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