18-Footer DEFIANCE and schooner HELEN B STERLING on Sydney Harbour.
Photographer
William James Hall
(Australian, 1877 - 1951)
DateNovember 1930
Object number00011939
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Transfer from the Mitchell Library
DescriptionA black and white image of the 18 foot skiff EILEEN sailing alongside the six-masted American schooner HELEN B STERLING anchored in Sydney Harbour.
Construction work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge is visible in the background, far left, of this image. Based on the progress on the bridge construction, this photograph was probably taken around November 1930.
Negative ID number, 3719.HistoryThe six-masted schooner HELEN B STERLING (formerly OREGON FIR) was built at the Peninsula Shipbuilding Yard at Portland, Oregon, USA in 1920. Originally the ship was intended as a steamer but instead rigged as a six-masted schooner. For six years OREGON FIR and her sister ship OREGON PINE were employed in the offshore lumber trade from Columbia River, Washington state, USA to Australia.
In January 1927 the vessel was sold to Captain E R Sterling of the Sterling Shipping Company (SSC) of Seattle, Washington. He renamed HELEN B STERLING, after his wife. The schooner made only one voyage under Sterling's name, carrying more than two million feet of lumber to Australia. The ongoing issues with other ships of the Sterling Line forced E R Sterling to sell the schooner to a Mr W S Payne of the Pacific Export Lumber Company, who then changed its name back to OREGON FIR.
By 1930, the vessel was seized in Sydney for outstanding debts. The ship’s master, Henry H Oosterhuis, reportedly stayed with the vessel for 15 months. As it lay idle in Rose Bay in Sydney Harbour, Oosterhuis made headlines in the newspapers for opening the vessel at night as a ‘floating cabaret’ to host wild ‘Bohemian parties’.
On 5 March 1931, the vessel passed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge with only six feet between the masts and the bridge. It was on its way to its 'final resting place' in Kerosene Bay (now Balls Balls Head Bay near Waverton). In March 1934, after it was dismantled and stripped of anything of value, HELEN B STERLING as it was still affectionately known, was set on fire in 20 places and destroyed.SignificanceThis photograph of HELEN B STERLING records of one of only two six-masted schooners to operate in Australian waters. Very few images exist of such ships in Australia and even fewer of such vessels in Sydney Harbour.
