History – Sentinel rock and the groyne

The history of the Mangawhai River and breakwater is only recorded from our early European settler days. We don’t have stories from local Maori as they were virtually decimated in the battle of Te Ika-a-Ranganui in 1825.

Known as the ‘black death’, drownings were not uncommon in the settlement’s early days and the Mangawhai River took many lives. Often the drownings were because a ship or boat had foundered on rocks near the entrance to the harbour.

From the 1860s, residents and shipping personnel tried to convince the Provincial Government to finance the creation of a breakwater between Sentinel Rock and the quarry area. They were initially told that the government would finance half of the costs. However, negotiations carried on for many years with little progress and only intermittent attempts to remedy the dangerous harbour entrance. At one time, 40 men were sent up from the Waikato area, being recent arrivals in New Zealand. However, it seems that whoever sent them didn’t check their skills or qualifications. One came from the honourable career of lacemaking. It would have been interesting to know how he got on with the work of carting soil and dumping it in the channel.

A contractor was finally found who had some degree of knowledge. But a disaster occurred when three of his hired workers were killed in a rock fall at the nearby quarry, where stone was being taken to fill the channel. The men were Alexander Duncan, Lawrence McWatt and William Craig. They died instantly on Monday August 13, 1866, and all three are buried in the St Michael and All Angels Church cemetery, in Hakaru.

More than £2000 had been wasted on the project by 1876, when a new contractor arranged with local and retired army men from the 58th Regiment to do the work of filling in the channel. These men had also spent several years as boat and ship builders at the McInnes/McKenzie shipyard, on the Mangawhai River, which gave them a great knowledge of the waters around the harbour and its entrance.
When completed in the late 1870s, the breakwater served watermen and fishermen alike for more than 100 years. The groyne was topped up again during the Big Dig in February 1991.