Captain John leaves mark on harbour

 

One of the stalwarts of Mangawhai’s dredging programme for the past 30 years, John Ganley, passed away in early August after a long fight with cancer.

John, aged 69, captained three dredges owned by the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society; the first in the early 1990s The Spirit of Mangawhai, then the dredge Thomas McKinnon that was purchased from the Northland Port Corporation, and lastly until he died, the dredge Spirit of Mangawhai 2, which is currently in use.

Captain John, as he was known, was a man of many talents, and was always willing to impart his dredging knowledge having trained Grant Stewart who is now in charge of the dredge following John’s death.  

John was born in Hamilton on May 7, 1947, spending his early years on farms in Kaipaki and Otorohanga, attending the local schools. He completed his final years of schooling at a boarding school in Kaikohe.

He joined the Royal New Zealand Navy in 1965 and qualified as Marine Engineer 1st Class AWK Stoker. The first ship he served on was the Inverell, which was deployed mainly in the surveillance of our fishing grounds. He was then assigned to HMNZS Lachlan that was also used in coastal surveillance.

John had an exceptionally active brain and was not content with being idle, so during his time on Lachlan he achieved certification in damage control, fire fighting, maintenance of deck machinery & motor boats, fuelling & provisioning of Navy vessels and watchkeeping. 

John ended his days with the Navy spending time on Otago and Taranaki which required learning and maintaining the most advanced and sophisticated marine engines and boilers of that era.

John then spent 13 years with the prison service and one year as a traffic operator with New Zealand Rail. He was married to Lynda in 1970 and they had a son, Tony.

His involvement with the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society (MHRS) dates back to the early 1990s when he was asked to be involved in the dredging operations building the bund wall within the Mangawhai Harbour.

Those members of the MHRS who dealt with John found an exceptionally intelligent and capable person with a great sense of humour who could be warm and caring. He was very brave and pragmatic about his illness and his brain was as sharp as a tack until the end.

People leave their mark on the world in many ways. John certainly left his in the beautiful Mangawhai Harbour.

If you could count the hundreds of hours John spent day after day operating the dredge in his endeavour to maintain and restore the harbour, you would find that his input via the Mangawhai Restoration Society to the community of Mangawhai would be monumental.