The Midnight Watch

I enclose my Goodreads review of this book by David Dyer about the 'side story' of inaction by a nearby ship when Titanic struck an iceberg and failed to recover. He has researched the characters and actions that  turned a maritime accident into a human disaster.

The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian by David Dyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wasn't particularly interested in an analysis of the events surrounding the Titanic story, but I was rather captivated by the failures that made it such a disaster.
The unfathomable distortions of a truth, or maybe just the exploration of the impossibility of truth as memory lie just beneath this fictional rendition based upon actual events and people in the sinking of Titanic and the loss of so much life- apparently unnecessarily. The book explores the terrible inaction of a nearby ship when Titanic was damaged and unable to recover.
In the last pages Dyer masterfully resolves a lifetime of focus by a fictional newspaper journalist who struggled for decades to explain the human failures at the heart of the tragedy, and did so finally by understanding that human action takes place within a lived emotional and psychological context.


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A New Port Fairy Whaler

It isn't often that you hear of a small community having a replica working hull made to celebrate not only the working traditions of the local seafarers but also those of the craftsmen that enabled them to take to the water.

 The 28ft Huon pine whaleboat is being built for the local Port Fairy Heritage Boat Group. The builder Garry Stewart says 'working with me on construction is Rob Whitehead who is a member of the group, all timber is huon pine, fastenings copper and bronze, planking is lapstrake, and the design is what was used for off beach whaling at Port Fairy in the early 1800s'.

This pile of Huon Pine is a rare thing now. Like so many wonderful species in the Southern Hemisphere, the huge scale of their availability and their wonderful working qualities fooled our forebears into thinking that the supply was endless. I'm thinking Huon, in Tasmania, Australian Red Cedar in New South Wales,  Kauri in New Zealand, and Jarrah in Western Australia- but there are plenty of others that grew aplenty in our neck of the woods. For some, their use is very political and it can be difficult now for good craftsmen to source the timbers that have always served so well.

While in some stands of forest 'clear felling' is still allowed, exposing soils to invasion by weeds and depleted by erosion, in other situations supply of particular species has been very restricted if not banned.

Huon is a marvellous timber to work. It planes like butter and has an incredible aroma that wafts off the blade and fills a workshop. It is resinous and very resistant to rot. These trees need time and space, so their use should be carefully considered. I would argue that traditional crafts that depend upon them should be prioritised.