Tasmanian Trading Ketch, The : An Illustrated Oral History

Much has been written about the Tasmanian Trading Ketches and their role in the founding of Australia’s only Island state. In a parochial way Hobart Trading Ketches can be seen to dominate any records of Tasmanian Ketches. However, Trading Ketches were built and used in substantial numbers around the state’s coastal and sheltered waters. Records also highlight how Tasmanian Trading Ketches plied Bass Strait, the Tasman and southern waters with trade bound for ports including Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, Warnambool and Adelaide. These were generally known as the Bass Strait Mosquito Fleet. Therein lies the insights to the design needs and or limitations, that is the waters in which the Trading Ketches plied their trade demanded shallow draft vessels for access to the shallow ports or beach landings the ketches had to encounter to deliver or pick up cargo and passengers to and from. As the ketches then had to leave the shallow waters and plie their way back to home ports they would encounter coastal and ocean waters demanding the need for centre boards and rigging variations allowing them to point up more effectively. pp. 179 illusts #0818 First Edition