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Eric `Droopy’ Driscoll had been without his ship for four years, but in January 1947 he was back, and took Alma (now fitted with two mismatched Gardiner engines) to the little Tasmanian east coast port of St Helens. The entrance was deep enough for her entry, but often proved impassable when Alma was fully loaded with the local, magnificent timber, Eucalyptus Regnans (Mountain Ash). A huge stand of this timber had been developed, and with post-war housing at a premium, the mainland builders could not get enough of it. Much was kiln-dried, and turned into fine furniture, the rest of it going into timber homes. Bricks were far harder to obtain, and costlier, and around the Melbourne suburbs there are still in use many of these homes, which proved popular with returned servicemen, and with the increasing stream of immigrants.By the time that Alma’s trading to the mainland ended in 1959 she had made about eighteen calls into St Helens, often having to wait, after fully loading, for days and days before boat soundings showed a favourably high tide. A passage of Bass Strait was rarely made in one run. The usual pattern had Alma sheltering on the way, at various anchorages in Victoria, on Flinders Island or Cape Barron Island, in Banks Strait, and/or at any of the indentations along the east coast of Tasmania. A whole passage could take two weeks (and 3 weeks on one occasion), yet in 1927 the Alma, with Harry Heather in command, made the fastest crossing by any sailing vessel, between Melbourne and Hobart, in under two and a half days. Between 1959 and 1961 poor Alma was again stripped down to a hull, fitted with a derrick on the lower foremast, no other masts, and with wooden bins on rails in her hold. Her run, from early 1961 until 1975, was between a jetty down the d’Entrecasteaux Channel for limestone, to Electrona, where carbide was being produced. The task for Alma and another old vessel was to carry limestone to the factory, a 4½ hour run, four hours of loading, and 4½ hours back, with a total crew of three. An industry that has now ceased and the berth is disused. The old lady had again lost her dignity!
Last modified: August 5, 2010
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