The gold has cost 92 lives since miners won it from the Bendigo and Ballarat fields a century ago.
The fabulous treasure lies in 250 ft. of water in a sea cave under Auckland Islands 300 miles south of New Zealand.
The gold, which belonged to the Bank of New South Wales, went down with the American clipper General Grant on a voyage from Melbourne to London in May 1866.
Neil Shirtliffe, a mechanic for a Wellington earth-moving firm, will team with five other New Zealanders in the 10th attempt to get the gold.
Scores of people have invested a lot of money in the nine previous expeditions.
All have failed, some with disasterous loss of life.
The General Grant, a handsome full-rigged Boston-built ship of 1103 tons, slid out of Port Phillip Bay on May 4, 1866.
Aided by the power of the roaring forties it made smart time on the first leg of the voyage to London by way of the south of New Zealand.
Under Captain W.H. Loughlin, it took only nine days to go the first 1200 miles.
Then, in the pitch black night of May 13, 1866, it happened. At 10 p.m. the crow's nest sighted land on the port bow.
Captain Loughlin thought it was Disappointment Island and sailed on. An hour later he saw looming ahead the 700 ft. sheer cliffs of Auckland Islands.
At one o'clock next morning the ship crashed headlong into the cliffs. then it drifted half a mile astern and crashed again shearing off its rudder and spanker boom.
The General Grant, crippled fore and aft, drifted into a cave under the cliffs.
As dawn broke its mainmast hit the roof with such force that its lower end pierced the hull, and the sea gushed in. Instantly it began to sink.
Two boats got clear and plucked a few passengers from the water.
Forty people scrambled into a lingboat. It drifted 50 yards, then was sucked under.
Only three men managed to swim clear and those in the other two small boats could do nothing but watch 68 men, women and children drown.
The 15 survivors sailed for Disappointment Island 10 miles away. That night they sheltered behind some rocks and landed next morning.
The sea calmed and they set sail for the main island landing at a place sealers named Sarah's Bosom.
But by some amazing fortune one survivor found in his pockets a match which was probably their ultimate salvation. With it they lit a fire and kept it going day and night for nearly two years. At night someone stayed awake to feed the fire with tussock and driftwood.
After seven months, they were so miserable they decided to mount a do-or-die effort to reach New Zealand in one of the boats.
Chief officer Bartholomew Brown and seamen William Scott, Andrew Morison and Peter McNevin agreed to make the voyage.
They had no compass, chart of nautical instruments but thought that by sailing north-east they would reach New Zealand. They were never heard of again.
The remaining eleven went on looking for scraps of anything that would ease their hardship.
On October 6, 1867, the castaways sighted far away a ship. Mad with excitement they lit fires and set out in boat waving in frenzy.
But no. The ship passed.
To add to their immediate misery the sailor McLellan took ill in August and died in September.
On November 21, 1867, they saw another ship - and this time it meant rescue.
The resuers were the crew of the New Zealand whaling brig Amherst. The tough whalers broke down and wept on seeing the castaways.
The return of the 10 to civilisation ended nearly two years of the most shocking hardship.
But while people commiserated politely, they greedily speculated about salvaging the gold.
Only 13 months passed before the first attempt. The paddle steamer Southland set out from Bluff in December 1868 with James Teer, a survivor from the General Grant, on board.
Teer guided the Southland to the cave but the expedition found not the slightest trace of the wreck.
The next attempt in 1870 failed, too. The schooner Daphne, also carrying a crew member of the General Grant, anchored in Port Ross from where the captain and five others set out in a whaleboat to reach the cave.
The cook and the deck boy who waved them off were the last to see them. The sea swallowed them up.
In 1877 the steamship Gazelle found the cave and the wreck.
But gales blew up and the Gazelle sailed home beaten.
Then in 1911 Captain N.C. Sorenson, an American, announced plans for another salvage syndicate. He had no touble raising 30,000 pounds on the strength of his claim that the gold was worth 500,000 pounds.
But minutes before he was due to sail, court authorities nailed a writ of attachment claiming 400 pounds for repairs to the mast of his ship. It never left.
Next Captain P.V. Catling bought the 20-ton cutter Enterprise. Exactly 50 years after the General Grant sank, Catling moved to the mouth of the cave.
But the intrepid man found neither wreck nor gold.
Thirty-four years later, H. Marfleet, a Brisbane man, disclosed he had the notes of William Sanguilly, a survivor of the General Grant.
Marfleet estimated there was 500,000 pounds worth of gold on the General Grant. But his plans to get it never went into effect.
Nor Shirtliffe hopes to make bid No. 10.
He says neither he nor his companions have any ability or background of skin-diving.
He plans to use helicopters to survey the site and may use planes in the gold recovery.
He says he has read the history of past attempts and is aware of the difficulties.
| © Marfleet Family History 2000 | ||
 |
Newspaper Extract This page was last updated |
 |
| This page contains links to other web-sites. If you experience problems with an onward link, please e-mail me with details so that the problem can be rectified. Thank you. | ||