Enterprize

Enterprize ( Enterprise ) is a marseille schooner built in Hobart ( Tasmania ) in 1830 by William Pender ^[1] . Used for coastal transportation of coal, livestock and other supplies.

Enterprize
Flag	Great Britain
Class and type of vessel	schooner
Commissioned	1830
Withdrawn from the fleet	1847
Main characteristics
Displacement	72 t
Length	27 m
Height	5,4 m
Mover	sail

In April 1835, John Pascoe Fokner bought a schooner to service his future settlements in Port Phillip Bay , at that time in the southern part of the New South Wales colony. However, the transfer of the vessel was delayed for several weeks, as it was used for the transportation of coal to Newcastle (New South Wales) ^[2] . Fokner took over the ship on July 18, 1835 in Launceston (Tasmania ), paying a total of ₤ 430 for it, with a discount of ₤ 20 from the original price of ₤ 450 for the delay.

Fokner was ready to go to Port Phillip Bay in August 1835, but at the last moment, creditors did not allow Fockner to join the expedition, and she went without him. On board the Enterprize on departure from the port of Georgetown (Tasmania) were Merchant Captain John Lancey, a representative of Fockner; George Evans, builder; William Jackson and Robert Marr, Carpenters; Evan Evans, servant of George Evans; and Fokner's servants: Charles Wise, plowman; Thomas Morgan, servant; James Gilbert, a blacksmith, with his pregnant wife Mary. Captain Peter Hunter commanded the ship.

On August 15, 1835, the schooner entered the Yarra River . After climbing upstream, she moored in the area of ​​today's William Street in Melbourne . On August 30, 1835, colonists landed on the shore to build a warehouse and clear land for planting vegetables. After this, the schooner returned to Georgetown.

Regardless of Fokner’s expedition, John Elder Wage, a member of the Port Phillip Association , left Launceston on August 7, 1835, to also establish a settlement on land that the company claimed belonged to her. When Wedge reached the Yarra River, the Fockner colonists had already settled in a new place.

Fokner himself arrived in the new settlement on Friday, October 16, 1835, during the second Enterprize voyage to Port Philip Bay. He wrote in his diary: "I got to the bay, brought 2 cows, 2 calves and 2 horses." By this time, the claims of the Port Phillip Association on the Gulf Coast were rejected by Governor Bourke’s Statement of August 26, 1835 . Legally, both Fokner, Batman, and Wedge, and the parties they represent, were guilty of violating the borders of the crown lands, but they remained in the new settlement, which became known as Melbourne.

Enterprize continued to operate as a coaster for more than a decade after the founding of Melbourne. The schooner was expelled from the Hobart Shipping Register after a crash on the Richmond River in northern New South Wales on July 5, 1847. Two people died in the crash.

The exact fate of the schooner remained uncertain for about 100 years due to confusion with the ship, which had a similar name ^[3] . September 16, 1850 a ship called Enterprise threw a strong southerly wind on a sand spit near the city of Warrnambul. The crew was rescued by an aboriginal named Bacavol, who reached the ship with a rope through a stormy sea. In the 1880s, low tides made it possible to reach the crash site, and many parts of the ship went on sale as part of the Enterprize Fokner schooner. As a result, the crash site was completely covered with sand, and trailer parking was organized on it. The vessel was considered a Fokner schooner until the 1970s, when extensive research was undertaken to study the shipping register and local newspapers, which ultimately refuted this assumption. ^[four]

A fully working replica of the Enterprize schooner was launched in Melbourne in 1997 ^[5] . It is administered by the Enterprize Ship Trust on behalf of the people of Victoria. From 1997 to 2011, the ship was assigned to Williamstown (southwestern part of Melbourne). In September 2011, she was transferred to the port of Docklands. A schooner makes regular flights from Docklands and other ports along Port Phillip Bay.