Build Date
1897
Boat Builder
C & W Bailey
Length
80 Feet
Beam
Unknown
Building Vindex
Vindex was built in Auckland by C & W Bailey in 1897. She was built as a ketch-rigged deck scow specifically for carrying cattle which could be held in pens on Vindex’s decks. Although it can be argued she was not a true scow. Instead Vindex is said to be a sailing ketch with a round bilge, flat bottom and shallow keel.
Her first owners were the Biddick family including James, James Edwin and William. During William Biddick’s time Vindex is recorded as being damaged in the Coromandel.
Vindex was fast and competed in the popular scow regattas. She was notably a two time winner of Auckland scow race.
In 1914 Vindex changed owners and George Martin Dunn and Charlotte Maud Harden took ownership. George Dunn brought Vindex down to work the Marlborough Sounds and Tasman Bay trade routes. This included working from a small jetty near the current Motueka Marina and shipping timber from H Baigent Ltd’s mill. Two years later she was sold to S Stade and William John ‘Bill” Tregidga who was her skipper.
Vindex After 1918
In 1918 Christopher John Henry Stade took ownership of Vindex and in 1921 she was skippered by Percy Williams. At this time Vindex was working around Tasman Bay and Golden Bay carting loads of timber, firewood, coal and firebricks. Percy recalls in Motueka Wharf 100 Years that Vindex was no longer seaworthy at this time and was sold after springing a leak in 1922. During Stade’s time a vessel named Vindex is reported to have collided with the scow Oban in Golden Bay.
McArthur Bros purchased Vindex in 1923 and they owned her until 1931 when Vindex last owners River Sand & Shingle Ltd. took over. River Sand & Shingle Ltd., used her as a barge until she sank off the mouth of the Hutt River in Wellington Harbour in 1939. She was declared a total loss and possibly still rests in the spot underneath reclamation land.
References
To research Vindex we used the books Motueka Wharf 100 Years by Carol Dawber with the Motueka and Districts Historical Association and A History of New Zealand Scows and their Trades by David Langdon.
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