Wellington writer John McCrystal,
entrepreneur and adventurer Bill Day (above - photo Unlimited) and maritime artefacts conservator Jack
Fry spoke to a group of maritime heritage enthusiasts on Tuesday night, in the
process of launching ‘The Riddle of the Rifleman’, a report published by the
Maritime Archaeologists’ Association of New Zealand (MAANZ).
In 1986, Bill Day
was a member of an expedition searching for the fabled gold ship, the General
Grant, on the west coast of Auckland Island. The divers located a shipwreck in
a site that roughly matched the presumed location of the General Grant, and
another expedition that Day led in 1996 performed a comprehensive salvage of
the site. As they worked, it became clear that this was a smaller, previously
unknown vessel.
John McCrystal heard Bill telling this story on a visit to the
Auckland Islands in 2008, and his curiosity was piqued. Lavishly illustrated
with images supplied by leading photographer Mike ‘Wilco’ Wilkinson, ‘The
Riddle of the Rifleman’ presents an account of the salvage, the conservation of
the artefacts raised and McCrystal’s four-year search through documentary
sources for clues to the ship’s identity.
The report is available from MAANZ
for $25: for a copy, contact Malcolm
McGregor, MAANZ secretary, on malcolm.mcgregor@paradise.net.nz.
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