Over the years New Zealanders have built planes, trucks, cars and even tanks. But there's one thing our country has never had - its own submarine.
But it turns out that nearly happened, and unbelievably, it's still where its maker left it with no one seeming to know anything about it.
On a beach west of Richmond in Tasman sits the remains of Peter Mackey’s attempt at building a submarine.
It’s since become a part of the folklore of the region, with many knowing nothing about it, including local historians.
Seven Sharp met up with a local man Patrick, whose family used to own the land next to the submarine.
“I know almost as much as there is to know,” he said.
He believes Mackey was building it so he could travel to Antarctica with his dog.
Mackey would drag the steel pieces down to the beach two at a time while the aquatic machine was being constructed, and Patrick’s family saw it slowly take shape.
“The progress was pretty slow but it was all manual labour, he had virtually no power tools and bending equipment anything like that,” he said.
During that time he lived beside the submarine in his caravan, using all kinds of DIY techniques to make his life easier.
“His drinking water was coming from one of those ponds up there, he had a pipe going from one of the ponds where the geese swim around, he figured out the pond was higher than where the submarine building site was so he got a siphon going.”
While Mackey was building the sub manually, Patrick believes he wasn’t a stranger when it came to engineering.
“He was very well-spoken and had quite a good education. I did see all the calculations he'd done to deal with all the stresses and strains involved.
“Looking at the pages of calculations and the formulas he was using it seemed like he wasn't clueless when it came to that.
“You've got to know what you're doing in terms of ballasting it and keeping it on a trim whether it's up and down that way and that way."
According to Patrick, Mackey built the submarine's inner hull out of ferrocement, with a cavity sealed in by a timber outer hull.
Then in the cavity in between he would pump water in and out of that to maintain the buoyancy.
A detachable keel on the bottom would explode if the submarine started descending out of control.
Despite his conceptual design, the submarine never made it out to sea. A cannabis bust mid-way through construction saw Mackey sent to prison, and the sub left on the beach to rust.
“He was growing a bit of dope and got busted for it and ended up with a bit of a prison term, quite a lot of stuff went missing I think and he probably lost heart after that. Mentally obviously there was a lot going on there. There was always something going on up above.
“He was onto something but he was maybe more successful with the cannabis operation.”
But Patrick wishes the vessel could have made it out to sea or be treated as part of the region's history.
“At the time when he got it to the point it is now, but not buckled up and rusted, it was actually quite an impressive piece of engineering.
“I always thought it would make a wonderful sculpture it's a bit of a shame that didn't happen to it really because that would have kept it as a historic piece at least.”
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