Sail-making kit

Sitting on the edge of Nichol Bay and at the mouth of the Ashburton River, Onslow was a pearling town where pearling fleets careened their boats and sought refuge in Beadon Creek well into the 1960s. In this cyclone-ravaged zone of the west Australian coast, thwarted by strong winds and wild seas, no pearling lugger would set to sea without a sewing kit to repair the sails. Belonging to Onslow-based pearler Cec Piess, who owned the Voltaire, this kit is made up of the essentials — twine, spools, needles, finger protectors, dampers—required to repair sails at sea. It is possibly the only one of its kind in Western Australia. A 100 year-old whistle has also survived.