The fire that destroyed a historic ship in the Bay of Islands was most likely caused by an electrical fault, not by arson, a fire investigator says.
The Tui, a century-old sugar barge converted into a replica sailing ship by the late underwater explorer Kelly Tarlton, was severely damaged by fire early on Wednesday morning.
Police initially treated the blaze as suspicious and, given how little remained, Northland fire investigator Craig Bain was not hopeful of being able to establish the cause. Luck was, however, on his side.
“As the digger was bringing bits and pieces out, we were looking for the likes of switchboards and hard drives for the security system, and anything that might show an origin point,” Bain said.
“Just by pure luck, once everything had been removed, I went into what was left and looked over the side – and lying in the sand were the burnt-out remnants of the mains switchboard. Digging through that a bit further I found what was left of the mains cable that feeds the switchboard, and that had significant arcing and a fair bit of melting on it as well, indicating significant heat.”
That led the investigation team to conclude an electrical fault was the most likely cause of the fire.
The find was even more unexpected given how quickly they had to work to beat the incoming tide.
Bain said the switchboard was still warm to the touch when found, and appeared to have fallen out of the boat early in the fire. Power was live to the switchboard due to the vessel’s pending restoration, and it was possible moisture had entered it during the wild weather lashing the Bay of Islands that night.
Bain said the finding that the fire was most likely electrical rather than suspicious could provide some comfort to the owners, as well as to the Tarlton family.
“I think it’s quite a benefit to the folks starting out on this project to restore the boat that there doesn’t appear to be anything malicious about the fire, that we know of.”
Kelly Tarlton created the Tui in the 1970s to display his collection of treasures salvaged from shipwrecks around New Zealand. Later it housed a series of restaurants and cafes but for the past decade it had been empty and increasingly derelict.
It was bought last year by researchers Cat Peters and Thibaud Guerin, who planned to turn it into a centre for free community marine education.
In April this year their TriOceans Education Trust received a grant from Foundation North to restore the ship. Work had just started when the fire broke out.
Parts of the ship not destroyed by the blaze had to be demolished that morning, both to allow firefighters to fully extinguish the flames between its two hulls and to ensure debris did not enter the Bay of Islands on the high tide at 2.30pm.
The site was blessed before dawn on Saturday in a moving ceremony led by the chairman of neighbouring Te Tii Marae, Ngāti Kawa Taituha.
Fiona Tarlton took part, representing the family, and said she planned to gift the marae a framed photo of the Tui and her late father.
rnz.co.nz
