History
Gisborne's Harbour has gone through many historic changes over the years. Take a look at those events in brief through this section and discover just how it has evolved into the flourishing port you see today.
- 2010
- 2009
- 2008
- 2006
- 1984
- 1983
- 1981
- 1979
- 1977
- 1975
- 1972
- 1971
- 1970
- 1969
- 1967
- 1966
- 1965
- 1964
- 1961
- 1960
- 1951
- 1951
- 1950
- 1945
- 1942
- 1940
- 1936
- 1932
- 1931
- 1930
- 1930
- 1930
- 1930
- 1930
- 1929
- 1928
- 1927
- 1925
- 1924
- 1923
- 1921
- 1920
- 1919
- 1918
- 1917
- 1916
- 1914
- 1912
- 1912
- 1909
- 1904
- 1903
- 1899
- 1896
- 1894
- 1891
- 1890
- 1890
- 1889
- 1888
- 1887
- 1885
- 1884
- 1883
- 1882
- 1880
- 1879
- 1878
- 1877
- 1877
- 1876
- 1875
- 1874
- 1872
- 1870
- 1851
- 1850
- 1831
- 1830
- 1769
2010
February: the port feels the tsunami effect from a massive earthquake in Chile with radical tidal surges. All port vessels are evacuated, along with many private craft. New Zealand's largest scaling station is opened at Eastland Port. Design of the $1 million plus development is a joint collaboration between the port and C3 and will be leased by C3. Winter: Port staff, families and the wider community turned out to help plant more than 600 native trees in the shady oaks area of Kaiti Hill as part of the port-driven ongoing beautification and restoration of the area. Eastland Port manager Andrew Gaddum wins the C3 Outstanding Contribution to Regional Industry Development at the inaugural Eastland Wood Council Forestry Awards.
2009
A golden year for the port as records on the tonnes of logs exported over the wharves are smashed. December: Eastland Port breaks the magical one million tonne mark for the first time in a calendar year.
2008
The Pukunui dredge gets a major refit. She was bought in 1983 by the Gisborne Harbour Board for $80,000
2006
The $4 million Hirini Street Project is underway. It includes an underpass from the upper log yards to the wharf face, so trucks avoid using public roads.
1984
The board is now running the Tauwhareparae endowment itself. The first kiwifruit trays are exported over the No 7 wharf.
1983
The Bounty is filmed at the port and featured many of the staff and equipment.
1981
The AC is sunk to form part of the Kaiti Beach reclaimation in February 1981. Fishing reaches a peak in Gisborne, with 143 registered fishing boats operating from here. The new dredge Pukunui arrives in Gisborne. Initially a dumb hopper barge, the Pukunui was converted to a trailer suction dredge during 1983 and 1984, and then began its new life. August: Gisborne Harbour Board workers put a ban on the railing of meat to Napier.
1979
AC – the dredge – reaches the end of its life after more than 55 years in service, after failing to pass survey.
1977
The new 1000hp tug Turihaua arrives at the port. The Hikurangi is sold.
1975
Grain becomes Gisborne's major export product. Gisborne Refrigerating Company adds its cool store to the No 7 wharf foreshore complex.
1972
Wattie's Wharf is completed.
1971
Fourteen ships are diverted to Gisborne due to congestion in Napier.
1970
The Takitimu is powered up again, this time with a 6LX Gardner engine. Permission is gained to reclaim a further two hectares off Kaiti Beach. Two fish unloaders are added to the wharf area, and a gate was to be put into the wall allowing Wattie's trawlers to come up the harbour, cross through the gate, and discharge beside Wattie's riverside complex. This failed before it really started, after the gate broke at the hinges when being tested.
1969
October: Cook Bicentenary celebrations.
1967
The new overseas wharf project is handed over to the board. The Abel Tasman was the first ship to use the new No 7 wharf, which was officially opened by Minister of marine WJ Scott on December 2, 1967. The dredge AC ends up stranded on Waikanae Beach for 10 days.
1966
The board declares that the story the American military had planned to build a harbour at Gisborne during World War II
1965
October: work begins on the new overseas wharf.
1964
June: the board decides to remover 27.5 metres of Butler's Wall to increase the width of the harbour entrance to 91 metres, making it safer in bad weather. The recent reinforcement work made it harder to remove the wall.
1961
The new 16.75 metre tug Hikurangi arrives
1960's
The overseas wharf and swinging basin is completed.
1950-1960
There are nine fishing trawlers operating out of Gisborne. This mushroomed to 20 in 1965 and 25 in 1971.
1951
The Napier Star takes on 42,000 carcases of frozen meat over a four day period.
1950
The wharves and Butler's Wall need ongoing maintenance work. The wall work was slow, and the wooden piles were reinforced by concrete piles.
1945
The Takitimu is repowered with a 100hp Vivian engine.
1942
September: the Gisborne to Napier railway line is officially opened. Following the war, the Government vessel Baltraffic loaded meat out of Gisborne
1940
The Korua is sunk near Young Nick's Head, after it failed to sell.
1936
Two Priestman grab cranes are fitted to one of the Korua's dumb barges to form the dredge AC
1932
July: the Shell Company's Paua discharges Gisborne's first shipment of petrol into the Crawford Road tanks.
1931
The port has a working depth of 3.66 metres at low water, which, when the range of tide is taken into consideration, allows vessels drawing up to 4.51 metres to work the port with ample water underneath them. The annual report states that while the harbour is small, it supplies the district with every facility necessary for the present trade. No damage is reported at the port after the Napier earthquake but a mercy mission is mounted, with the lighter tug Koraro heading south with a doctor, ten nurses and a pick and shovel gang aboard. June: the dredge John Townley, which has been out of commission since March 1929, is sunk near Young Nick's Head.
1915-1938
Alexander Carson is harbourmaster.
1917-1942
HA Barton is sectary and secretary manager.
1938-1950
AJ Nicol is chairman of the board.
1929-1938
John Tombleson is chairman of the board.
1925-1931
The Korua excavates 2 million tonnes of spoil at a cost of 15.75 pence a tonne
1929
The final gap in the diversion wall is closed and the Korua dredged out the final cut for the Turanganui's new path to the sea.
1928
Korua finishes the major dredging work in the Kaiti Basin and contractors build the wharves and goods sheds.
1927
The last sailing trader calls into Gisborne.
1925
January: repairs to Kaiti Wharf are completed. The old slipway is demolished and a new one completed in August 1926. February: Korua starts dredging the channel.
1924
December: new tug Pelican and dredge Korua arrive, followed by a couple of barges. Work begins on the new railway bridge, but stops in January 1926 with just one span left to be competed.
1923
Work on the Reynolds plan begins, however, in the following years, the plan was modified. The plan's two key features were an outer harbour with berthage for overseas ships and the separation of the river from the harbour. The Turanganui was to be diverted to the west along Waikanae Beach, by means of a diversion wall. From the eastern bank of the new river mouth, an outer breakwater was to wrap around parallel to Kaiti Beach. It had allowance for wharves and an extension to the existing breakwater. The area around the mouth of the Waikanae Stream was to be reclaimed and the stream trained.
1921
The pilot launch Takitimu, fitted with a 70hp Twigg engine, is built for the board to replace the GHB.
1920
The dredge Maui is sold.
1919
February: a conference is held to try and 'sort out Gisborne's harbour woes'. It is attended by 60 people
1918
John Townley - Cahirman of the Board from 1890 - 1918 and Board member from the founding 1882 Board - steps down. Fred Lysnar is the new Chairman.
1917
Engineer and secretary John McDonald is dismissed and HS Barton takes his position. More plans are unveiled
1916
A series of floods sees the port shut for long periods of time as the Maui and John Townley dredges work hard to clear the harbour of tonnes of silt.
1914
Gisborne has the highest value of exports per capita, with the value of Gisborne's import increasing fourfold between 1895-1906, and doubled in value again between 1906 and 1923. The tonnage of vessels trading at Gisborne increased fourfold between 1892 and 1912. A peak year for the port with 661 vessels calling into the port.
1912-1916
Successful times for the port, with a thrice-weekly ferry service between Gisborne and Napier during summer and autumn.
1912
June 23: The Star of Canada (built 1909) is blown ashore. John McDonald is appointed the new engineer and secretary.
1909
April: a larger dredge is bought. Maui arrives in May 1910. It cost 34,500 pounds. In its first year of work, it dredged up 132,368 tonnes of papa and blue clay.
1904
New Harbour Board offices are opened, and moved into the following year.
1903
The groyne is extended a further 16 metres over the next three years.
1899
The pros and cons of dredging the harbour are debated extensively. The board buys a 'grab' dredge and names it John Townley after the long-serving chairman
1896
The board decided to blast the papa floor of the harbour to deepen it.
1894
Severe storms lash the four-year-old breakwater and parts start crumbling away.
1891
April: Harbour Board secretary John Bourke disappears while swimming from the breakwater. Suicide was suspected but things took a dark turn when it was revealed Bourke had been embezzling board funds since 1887. June: a large part of the Tauwhareparae land is broken into blocks and leased out. Silt continues to be a big problem in the harbour.
1890-1918
The Gisborne Harbour Board is chaired by Gisborne businessman John Townley
1890
April: the breakwater is now 360 metres long
1889
Gisborne's first freezing works opens at Taruheru, with the Kaiti works following in 1896.
1888
August: work stops on the breakwater.
1887
March: the board commissions a report from William O'Ryan and Fred Dufaur on recommendations for the use of the Tauwhareparae land, which had yet to pay its way. June: work finally begins on the breakwater, and 60 metres is completed by year's end. There is talk the breakwater should extend as far as 380 metres.
1885
Harbour board engineer John Thomson comes up with an alternative plan to Coode's plan, involving a breakwater extending from the eastern bank of the Turanganui mouth, with a groyne extending from Waikanae Beach. Also included was a swing bridge near the mouth of the river, connecting the goods shed to the breakwater. Coode's plan is thrown out. Other alternate plans also surface.
1884
The 17,864 hectare Tauwhareparae Farms were gifted to the district. (Tauwhareparae was leased until the 1950s when the Harbour Board then began to farm some of it.)
1883
Engineer RJ Reynolds presents the board with a plan including twin parallel breakwaters to extend the channel seawards over the bar, and blasting the rocks to a depth of 2.5 metres. The scheme would cost 66,000 pounds.
1882
The Gisborne Harbour Board Act 1882 establishes the first Harbour Board
1880
The wool ship Lochnagar is blown onto Waikanae Beach in a gale but is later refloated. Two other vessels sink in the bay.
1879
Gisborne is included in a colony-wide survey of ports by prominent British harbour engineer Sir John Coode who discounted further development of the Turanganui, and instead proposed an outed harbour, 430 metres off Kaiti Beach. His U-shaped island harbour, open to the north west, would have provided 3,335 metres of berthing space. The Union Steam Shipping Company's Taupo is lost during its East Coast run.
1878
The wharf at the seaward end of Reads Quay is extended. Harbourmaster Thomas Chrisp introduces the outer harbour scheme to provide 80 hectares of safe anchorage, with a depth from 2.7m-5.8m (at low tide). Borough engineer John Drummond formulates a plan for an 850m breakwater, extending from Kaiti Beach. The plan was approved by ratepayers but thwarted because the borough council's harbour budget was already fully committed to repairing and replacing wharves. The Union Steam Shipping Company's Taranaki is lost during its East Coast run.
1877 - 1886
A punt ferries people and stock across the Turanganui River until 1886 when the first bridge linking Gladstone Road and Kaiti is built. The harbour board bought the punt from the borough council in 1885.
1877
The Union Steam Ship Company includes Gisborne in its east coast route The harbour is controlled by the Gisborne Borough Council. The comings and goings of the port now appear regularly in the district's two newspapers. Tenders are called to remove the problematic rocks. The task was completedn in November by CA Berry, however, one of the rocks had been held sacred by both Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki and Ngati Porou because legend links it with the arrival of the Matatua waka on Waikanae Beach. First efforts are made to create a Gisborne Harbour Board. Captain Morris suggests selling an endowment block in the Waiapu Valley to raise the 50,000 pounds he says is needed to make Gisborne one of the finest harbours in the colony.
1876
The 'great flood' washes away old jetties, wrecks the stockyard wharf and damages the new Public Wharf.
1875
January: The Pretty Jane is holed on rocks at the river mouth. Captain Kennedy resigns and Captain Thomas Chrisp takes his place. April: blasting of rocks in the river mouth starts. The first lighterage business is established.
1874
October: Captain Joseph Kennedy – who was said to weigh 127kg and 1.68m tall with a chest of 150cm – is appointed the port's first pilot and harbourmaster. November: the Queen Bee is the first overseas ship to load wool direct for England.
1872
Poverty Bay is gazetted as a port (November 12) and George Harris is appointed collector of customs and inspector of distilleries. Two or three ships visit the port every week – sometimes even more. The cutter Dawn is doing a regular run to Napier, usually carrying wool.
1870's
Turanga is now known as Gisborne, with a fast-growing population. Gisborne gets a public wharf, after much campaigning of politicians, at the confluence of the Taruheru and Turanganui rivers. Six offshore ships visit during the decade, but many more coastal traders call by.
1851
There are now eight traders in Poverty Bay, with a steady export trade established.
1850
There are a number of European-owned vessels and Maori-owned schooners working the run from Poverty Bay to Auckland.
1831
Captain JW Harris sets up a trading post on the western bank of the Turanganui River, thus shifting the focus from the Waipaoa River to the Turanganui. In the early days many visitors by sea preferred using the Waipaoa River and the Matawhero area rather than the Turanganui. The Waipaoa was navigable as far as Matawhero by small cutters and schooners. The Waipaoa forged its present mouth in 1841 – until then it had entered the sea three kilometres nearer the Turanganui, with the Awapuni lagoon just inside the entrance.
1830's
European settlement in Poverty Bay creates a demand for a port.
1769
Captain James Cook sails into Poverty Bay on the HMNZS Endeavour – the first ship known to have anchored in the bay. She stayed two days, sailing on the third. His journal entry is interesting.... "..which I have named Poverty Bay, because it afforded us no one thing we wanted... It is in the form of a horse shoe, and is known by an island lying close under the NE point. The 2 points which form the entrance are high, with steap (sic) white cliffs, and lay a league and a half or 2 leagues from each other. The depth of water in this bay is from 12 to 6 and 5 fathoms, a sandy bottom and good anchorage, but you lay open to the winds between the S and E. Boats can go in and out of the river above mentioned any time of tide in fine weather; but as there is a bar at the entrance, on which the sea sometimes runs so high that no boat can either get in or out, which hapned (sic) while we were laid here; however I believe that boats can generally land on the NE side of the river."
