On _Nineveh_ sailing, _Patriarch_ should have hauled alongside, but
her captain had been told that as it was Saturday he need not come
alongside until Monday. The _Patriarch_, being in no particular hurry
as a good deal of her wool was still up country, therefore remained
where she was. Hearing of this, the enterprising Captain Fimister
proceeded to hire a tug and move his ship from Smith’s Wharf where
she was lying to the vacant berth at Circular Quay, all ready to load
the wool which was waiting for him. He took the precaution, however,
to take his shorefasts through the quay rings and aboard again. This
defiance of the harbour authorities was allowed to go unnoticed until
Monday morning. Then Captain Fimister received an order to remove his
ship. Of this he took no notice. His action, as may be supposed, was
the talk of the port, especially amongst the captains of the wool
clippers. One of these skippers threatened to moor his ship in Sydney
Cove, ready to be the next to jump the berth. Others complained in
person to the Colonial Secretary.
On Tuesday morning Captain Bell, the harbor-master, went in person to
the _Cimba_ to order her removal, but the undaunted Captain Fimister
triced up his gangway ladder and threatened to throw him overboard if
he attempted to gain the deck. By this time all the legal lights of
Sydney were puzzling their heads over the legal aspects of the case;
Messrs. Dangar, Gedye & Co., the ship’s agents, upholding the captain.
Finally the Colonial Treasurer sent the President of the Marine Board
an order to remove the ship. So at 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Captain
Hixson, the assistant harbourmaster, with 20 men and half-a-dozen water
police, boarded the ship, only to find that Captain Fimister and his
whole crew had flown after first removing every means of weighing the
anchor. But a harbourmaster is not easily balked, and Captain Hixson
let go the shorefasts, slipped the chain, and with the aid of a tug
took the _Cimba_ out and moored her at the man-of-war buoy off Fort
Macquarie.
It was now time for Dangar, Gedye & Co. to take action. They
immediately enlisted the help of Sir John Robertson, who moved
the adjournment of the House in order that an explanation of the
harbourmaster’s high-handed proceedings might be given. The House was
already divided into two factions over Captain Fimister’s action, but
the Colonial Secretary firmly upheld the Marine Board, and in the end
Captain Fimister was fined 20 shillings and 5s. costs and ordered to
pay £28 4s., the cost of removing the _Cimba_ from the berth.
All this trouble really arose firstly through the _Patriarch’s_ being
ahead of her cargo, and secondly owing to Circular Quay being a free
berth. This was shortly afterwards rectified, but the _Patriarch_ did
not get away until a month after the _Cimba_ for want of cargo.
In 1889, the _Cimba_ made her best wool passage, as follows:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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