One man's 35-year mission to find a gold-laden shipwreck

Saturday, 25 December 2021

Bill Day describes the lure of the General Grant, and why he's spent 35 years looking for the wreck and its gold in the Auckland Islands.

Bill Day has spent 35 years and millions of dollars trying to find one of the world’s most famous shipwrecks – the gold-laden General Grant. The ship struck the Auckland Islands in 1866 and has attracted pirates, treasure hunters and adventurers ever since. Next week, Day leaves from Bluff on his fifth, and final, expedition to discover the wreck. Mike White meets the man who might finally solve the riddle of the General Grant’s gold.

Bill Day, who has spent 35 years searching for the wreck of the General Grant in the Auckland Islands.

It was a rare and welcome thing – a calm day in the Auckland Islands, a place notorious for being the storm-slashed graveyard of ships and sailors.

It was January 1986 and Bill Day had just slithered back on board an inflatable boat after a fruitless dive trying to find the most famous of these wrecks, the General Grant.

He perched on the boat’s edge, admiring the cove they were in, a waterfall tumbling off one edge, a neat archway piercing a peninsula.

“Isn’t it a pity wrecks don’t go down in places like this,” he lamented to the boatman.

One of Bill Day’s ships, The Little Mermaid, at a cove in the Auckland Islands where they discovered a wreck they believed was the General Grant. It was later proven to be the wreck of the Rifleman.

* Waitangi-era HMS Buffalo shipwreck washing away as storms take toll

Coins recovered from the Rifleman wreck.

* New Zealand shipwrecks you can visit

* The Monica now a museum piece

Minutes later, fellow diver Willie Bullock broke the surface clutching a lead weight old ships used to measure the water’s depth.

An illustration of the wreck of the General Grant showing the cave survivors said it was swept into. Its remains and the gold on it have never been found.

“There’s a bit of s..t down there,” Bullock spluttered.

Day couldn’t believe his ears or luck – an unknown wreck in a beautiful location, which fitted the description of where the General Grant sank with a fortune in gold.

He flicked on his mask and fins, and rolled back into the water.

The cemetery at Port Ross on the Auckland Islands, with the graves of settlers and castaways, including David McLelland, a crewman on the General Grant, who survived the shipwreck, only to die six weeks before they were rescued.

As the bubbles cleared in front of his mask and he dived towards the seabed, Day was already thinking that maybe they’d finally solved the mystery of the General Grant that had confounded and eluded so many, for so many years.

The General Grant had set sail from Melbourne in May 1866, bound for England with 83 crew and passengers on board.

It was a 180’ square-rigged sailing ship, built in Maine two years before, and carrying a cargo including wool and skins.

But it also carried 2576 ounces (73kg) of gold, probably in bars and sovereigns. And on top of that, many of the passengers were miners returning home with small fortunes in gold, scraped and scrabbled from the unforgiving earth of Victoria’s goldfields.

On the evening of May 13, 10 days after setting sail, the General Grant’s captain was alarmed to hear a cry from the masthead that land had been sighted dead ahead, and altered course. Half an hour later came the same chilling cry.

As the wind dropped, swells pushed the General Grant relentlessly towards the Auckland Islands, the remains of two volcanos, 460km south of Bluff.

Unable to manoeuvre or escape, the ship soon struck the cliffs that rose sheer from the sea, becoming wedged in a cave within a small cove.

Attempts to save themselves when dawn broke, largely ended in disaster, with only 15 of those aboard making it to safety. The captain was last seen waving a white handkerchief from the rigging as his ship slipped beneath the waves.

Bill Day’s father captained a motor torpedo boat in WWII, delivering spies along the English Channel, being in the vanguard of the D-Day landings, and fighting Japanese forces in the Pacific. He “liberated” these binoculars while in Malaya, and Day now uses them to scan Cook Strait from his house in Ōwhiro Bay.

Just 10 survivors remained alive on the island when they were rescued by a passing sealing ship, 18 months later.

Despite their ordeal, three of them returned in the months and years that followed, attempting to find the ship’s gold – one of the survivors dying in the process.

And since it sank, more than 30 expeditions have been planned and launched to try to discover the grave of the General Grant.

The January 1986 trip was the first of four Bill Day has made to the Auckland Islands, and the site they discovered eventually revealed cannons, part of a ship’s bell, remains of a toilet, a deck light, and so many coins it was dubbed “the half-crown wreck”. Everyone believed it was the General Grant.

“We thought we had it, we really did,” says Day, sitting in his Wānaka home.

Bill Day has dived around the world for more than 40 years, including in Antarctica. He will be one of four divers on the upcoming expedition to the Auckland Islands, to find the General Grant.

But they didn't.

Several things didn’t add up: All the coins were from over 30 years prior to the General Grant. Day was convinced the sailors, who were expert climbers given they spent so much time up the ship’s masts, could have climbed the surrounding cliffs to safety. And, ultimately, there was no bullion to be found.

Eventually, the wreck was identified as the Rifleman, which had been lost between Hobart and London in 1833.

So the mystery continued.

And so did Bill Day.

When Day made that first voyage to the Auckland Islands, he navigated with the brass sextant his father, also Bill, had used in WWII when he captained motor torpedo boats around Europe and in the Pacific.

One of Bill Day’s salvage vessels, The Little Mermaid, at the site of the Rifleman wreck in the Auckland Islands on a rare calm day.

So it was scant surprise that Day ended up drawn to the sea and ships.

After growing up in Nelson, he went to Victoria University to train as a social worker.

He ended up doing a law degree. And being a fireman. And starting a 10-pin bowling alley. “And a couple of other things as well.” All at the same time.

“I operated a ‘neat, eh’ strategy. Something would come along, and I’d think, ‘that would be neat, eh’. And you’d have a crack at it. In those days, if you thought there was a business opportunity doing pig farming on ships, you would’ve done it.

“I was just doing things for fun – fun and money.”

After learning to scuba dive on Wellington’s south coast, Day quickly got into instructing together with Malcolm Blair at Divers World.

Sometimes Blair and Day would also do commercial diving work, and in 1981 they set up a marine salvage company.

One of the first jobs Day did was getting the diesel off the Yung Pen, a squid boat wrecked in Ōwhiro Bay, where he lived, in 1982.

Bill Day has pored over maps and charts for 35 years, trying to pinpoint exactly where the General Grant went down on the Auckland Islands.

“I made $5000 from that job. That’s how I could afford to get married.”

Day had met his wife, Karen, when teaching her to dive, and in those days, diving on wrecks around Wellington was the most popular thing to do, once you’d got a feed of crayfish.

Blair had been part of a 1976 expedition to find the General Grant, alongside legendary shipwreck hunter Kelly Tarlton, and he filled Day with stories of it and the treasure that was buried there.

The pair’s first venture to the Auckland Islands, in 1986, when they discovered the Rifleman wreck, was cut short when they had to return home to salvage the cruise ship Mikhail Lermontov after it sank in the Marlborough Sounds.

But Day had been smitten by the rarely-visited islands and the promise of what lay there.

“I was enchanted from day one, absolutely enchanted. I just thought it was fantastic – the wildlife, the whole thing was extraordinary. I just think the Auckland Islands are an absolute jewel.”

The sheer cliffs of the Auckland Islands where numerous ships have been wrecked. Many ships came to grief here in the 19th century, because the islands’ location was incorrectly plotted on charts.

But it was 10 years before Day returned to them, and the search for the General Grant, which he describes as “the wreck to find in the South Pacific”.

By then, he was the sole owner of the salvage company Seaworks, which had contracts around the world in the oil industry, laying cables, and film work.

That trip returned empty-handed, as did further expeditions in 1999 and 2008.

“More than anyone on the planet, I know more places where the General Grant isn’t. And I’m hoping this time I’m going to find a place where it is.”

A cannon from the wreck of the Rifleman in the Auckland Islands. Finding signs of wrecks is difficult, because any remains have often been covered by sand and rocks, or blend in with the seabed.

Day admits, initially, it was the lure of finding the General Grant’s gold that motivated him.

“In those days Karen and I were on the bones of our arse, so gold had a certain appeal.

“But now it’s definitely the mystery, the riddle. No question about that. I’m driven by the fact it hasn’t been found – and there’s got to be an answer to that.”

Shipwreck expert John McCrystal, who solved the riddle of the Rifleman wreck in the Auckland Islands, and recently published Worse Things Happen at Sea, which recounts famous shipwrecks around New Zealand and the rest of the world, including the General Grant.

The fundamental riddle is where on the Auckland Islands’ west coast the General Grant is wrecked.

Survivors described it as being in a cave, within a cove, and when they hung lanterns over the stricken ship’s side, they lit up cliffs so steep there was “no toehold for man nor bird”.

The problem is that nearly all the 100km west coast is sheer cliffs, indented with coves, pocked with sea caves, an intimidating landscape to most, and fearsome for mariners.

Past expeditions have dived virtually the whole of this coast, without finding the wreck, which is something of a mystery in itself, Day says.

Wellington author John McCrystal has written a book about shipwrecks, both in NZ and around the world. (First published 05/10/21)

“Either there’s something about the General Grant we don’t understand, or people have missed it.”

Or they’ve been looking in the wrong place.

After decades poring over survivors’ accounts, reports from previous expeditions, satellite images, and hydrographic data, Day suspects the wreck could lie further south than has been previously explored, a theory he will test this summer.

Day had previously announced he’d finished hunting for the General Grant, because he’d run out of ideas of how to find it.

“You’ve got to understand it’s really hard to see a wreck down there. Everything’s the same colour, and the bottom’s just smashed, and you’re just looking for a straight line or a shape that’s typically not found in nature, like the curve of an anchor.”

But everything changed when new equipment became available in the form of pulse magnetometers, which are towed behind a boat, and can detect ferrous metals from a ship’s remains (anchors, chains) up to 150m away, even against the background of the magnetic volcanic rock of the Auckland Islands.

“This technology came along, and I tried to ignore it. But I thought, it’s actually going to piss me off if I don’t do this.”

So Day purchased two of these one-metre torpedo-shaped units, and has tested them on wrecks in Fiordland, and sunken bridges in Lake Dunstan.

The plan is to tow the magnetometers close to the island’s cliffs, and if something is detected, Day will send down divers, or a small ROV with a camera.

Two things could prevent Day finding the wreck: If it’s buried under a collapsed cliff face, or if the weather prevents them from searching.

Westerly winds from the Southern Ocean’s “Furious 50s” tear at the island’s coast and rarely relent. For this reason, the team of eight (four divers and four crew for the two boats they are taking) will spend six weeks on site, waiting for the week of calm they need, and sheltering in the safety of Carnley Harbour when storms pass through.

Bill Day has climbed Mt Cook, flies helicopters, and always been drawn to adventure, but swears this will be his last attempt to find the General Grant.

“I think this expedition’s got a better chance of finding it than anyone previously,” says Day. “If the technology works, and it’s not under a slip, I don’t know how the wreck can hide from us.”

“If the ship is findable, I’d give Bill as high as about an 80 per cent chance of finding it,” says John McCrystal, Wellington writer and shipwreck expert.

“But if the ship is buried under a few hundred thousand cubic metres of rock, it’ll never be found.”

McCrystal accompanied Day on his 2008 expedition, and his remarkable research solved the identity of the Rifleman wreck.

He rejects theories a previous expedition found the General Grant and retrieved the gold without telling anyone. If that was the case, the rest of the wreck would still be there.

“The question then is, why has Kelly not found it, why has Malcolm not found it, why has Bill not found it, and others before them?

“And the answer is twofold – either the wreck is no longer there, or they’re looking for the wrong features of the coast. And to me, that’s what’s been going on.”

McCrystal says it’s always been assumed the General Grant sank in a cave, in a cove.

Bill Day is about to make his fifth expedition to the Auckland Islands to find the wreck of the General Grant.

“Cove yes, cave no,” says McCrystal.

“Everyone’s gone down looking for a great big huge cave. And I don’t believe that’s what it is at all. I think it’s a narrow defile in the cliffs, probably not all that obvious from 300 or 400m offshore.”

McCrystal, who in October published a book about famous New Zealand and international shipwrecks, Worse Things Happen at Sea, says the history of attempts to find the General Grant is littered with death, bankruptcy, fraud and bad-blood.

But he’s sure if Day doesn’t find the wreck this summer, others will follow him and continue searching.

Day, 64, knows that too, and swears this is his last trip – unless he finds the wreck.

If that happens, then all suggestions of retirement are off.

Instead, he would notify authorities, return to New Zealand, and apply to conduct a proper archaeological survey of the site, and retrieve artefacts as permitted.

Day believes he would have some kind of salvor rights to a portion of the gold.

Silver half-crowns and gold sovereigns recovered from the wreck of the Rifleman in the Auckland Islands. The dates on the coins provided a clue to the wreck’s history.

“It’s like finding a bicycle. You take it to the local police station and leave it for 12 months, and if no one claims it, it’s yours. And I’d dearly love to be the one.”

Day says once news spreads that the wreck has been found, he has no doubt treasure hunters will flock to the islands, trying to discover the location, just as it has lured the unscrupulous, the unsavoury, and the unethical, for 130 years.

“The ratbags have been fantastic. It just seems to attract pirates.

Jackson Bay, where the West Coast road runs out, was the final resting place of James Teer, whose skill and leadership ensured 10 people survived 18 months on the Auckland Islands after the General Grant was wrecked. Bill Day now has a crib here.

“Sure, we want to recover the gold, but we want to do it properly, and record the site. The reality is, once the site is known, it’s better to have someone like me go and do it, rather than someone just go and do it quietly anyway, and destroy the archaeological value in the process.

“It’s the wild west. There’s no law down there.”

The 2576 ounces of gold listed on the General Grant’s manifest, likely stashed in a safe in the captain’s cabin, would be worth close to $8 million at today’s prices.

But Day notes the value would be higher because of its history.

“And I suspect there’s significantly more than the manifest gold,” he says.

Another ship carrying gold due to sail from Melbourne shortly before the General Grant, caught fire at the wharf, and there are suggestions its gold was transferred to the General Grant.

In addition, there is the gold each of the miners on board was carrying, sovereigns and melted nuggets they maniacally clung to as the General Grant sank, their precious loot hastening their drowning.

But Day, still the owner and chairman of Seaworks, and Ernst and Young’s entrepreneur of the year in 2000, says the gold wouldn’t change his lifestyle at all, and what compels him is “knocking the bastard off”.

“There’d have to be a hell of a lot of gold on there to cover the cost of all the expeditions he’s done,” adds Day’s wife, Karen.

“I don't regret a dollar I’ve spent,” insists Day.

“It’s been great fun. It’s Boys’ Own Adventure stuff. Why would you regret that?

“And I’ve never taken a dollar off anyone else. I’ve always paid for my own expeditions. I’ve just risked my own money.”

While solving the mystery of the General Grant is the ultimate aim, Day admits it’s such a tantalising mystery largely because of the gold that was on board it.

And he says there’s nothing like the thrill of finding gold underwater.

Iron rusts, silver turns black, “but a gold sovereign, you dig it up 200 years later, and it’s shining like the day it was made, and it’s just fantastic.”

Day lives away from the sea now, in the hills above Wānaka. But he still has his house in Ōwhiro Bay, overlooking Cook Strait and the wrecks of the Cyrus, Progress, and Wellington that he learnt to dive on.

And a crib in Jackson Bay, where the most influential of the General Grant’s survivors, ended his days.

James Teer was a miner and mariner who emerged as the leader of those who made it to shore, struck the single surviving match that gave them fire, kept a log written on sealskin, and kept everyone’s health and spirits up until rescue arrived.

Just months later, Teer returned to the Auckland Islands, intending to salvage the gold, but after finding the site, was beaten back by swells and storms.

Though Teer’s grave has been lost to indifferent history and strangling Westland bush, Day wants to erect a plaque in the tiny Jackson Bay cemetery and pour a whisky over it, in memory of the man and his remarkable achievements.

Teer will be ever-present in Day’s mind as the expedition scours the Auckland Islands’ cliffs this summer, the same cliffs the castaway Teer scoured the horizon from for 18 months, desperate for a passing ship to deliver them.

Luck and logic may well see the two men’s stories cross at the site of the shipwreck Day has dreamt of for so long.

“It would be a great mystery to solve,” says Day.

“I would like to sit here and drink a pinot noir, and look at Mt Aspiring when I’m old, and think, yeah, actually I did find the General Grant.”