Lucy Ann (1810 ship)
Sold out of government service in 1831, Lucy Ann served as a trading vessel and support ship for whaling stations in New Zealand.
[1] Another source, based on Canadian records, agree the vessel was built at Frederickston, but in 1810, and was initially called the William (236 tons).
[4] Lucy Ann departed London 19 January 1827 under the command of Captain Ranulph Dacre with a general cargo and a few passengers.
[6] After completing several voyages between Sydney and Hobart, Captain Dacre offered the vessel for sale to the New South Wales colonial government in August 1827.
[8] Lucy Ann departed Sydney 23 October 1827 for Western Port, on the coast of Victoria, where the government was attempting to establish a new settlement near present-day Corinella.
[10] In November 1828, Lucy Ann departed Sydney for King George's Sound in Western Australia, and Fort Dundas on Melville Island off the northern coast, where two new government settlements were being established.
Lucy Ann departed Sydney, on 26 December 1830, in company with HMS Comet, to take aboard the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island and transfer them to Tahiti.
[12] Pitcairn, it was decided, had become too small and crowded for the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the British government had obtained permission from the Tahitian leadership for their resettlement on Tahiti.
[15] Lucy Ann, under the command of Captain William Owen, left Sydney and arrived at Otago in October with stores and merchandise.
[24] The following month she left again for the Weller brothers for NZ, this time under the command of Captain Samuel Rapsey, and returned in October with oil.
Lucy Ann was modified for pelagic whaling and departed Sydney under the command of Captain Thomas Richards in mid December 1835.
She visited Lord Howe Island in September just before returning to Port Jackson on 13 October 1839 with a reported 800 barrels of sperm whale oil.
[30] Under Captain Aldrich, she next made a brief three-month voyage, departing 24 November, to New Zealand to collect oil from the Weller brother's whaling establishment at Otago.
Melville would later describe the vessel in his book Omoo as, ... a small slatternly looking craft, her hull and spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and bleached nearly white, and every thing denoting an ill state of affairs aboard.
The lower masts were said to be unsound; the standing rigging was much worn; and, in some places, even the bulwarks were quite rotten ... All over, the ship was in a most dilapidated condition, but in the forecastle it looked like the hollow of an old tree going to decay.
[34]The vessel called at Tahiti in September 1842 where eleven crewmen, including Melville, were put ashore for refusing to obey orders.
[40] It was reported in the press, "The Lucy Ann has returned to port, owing to the badness of her whaling gear, as no dependance could be placed in either harpoons, lances or spades.
Many of his crewmen were "twice-convicted convicts" and reported he had discovered and thwarted a plot by some of them to take control of the ship while the boats were away after whales.
[42] Lucy Ann returned to Sydney 28 June, twelve months early, largely due to crew problems and complaints about the food.
[44] The vessel was off Wilson’s Promontory on the coast of Victoria in October when Captain Downes boat upset while taking a whale and he was drowned.
She was anchored at Strong's Island on 23 May 1850 when a water cask fell down the main hatch and struck the 2nd mate, Mr Davis.
[48] The vessel experienced a succession of gales prior to her return to Sydney where she arrived on 23 March 1852 with 300 barrels of sperm whale oil and a crew of 25 men.
[51] The discovery of rich gold fields in central Victoria the year before had led to the arrival of large numbers of vessels to land cargo and passengers and created an urgent need for storage facilities in Port Phillip Bay.
