: In order to promote exports the Norfolk Islanders decided, in 1923, to build a wooden schooner to carry their produce to New Zealand. The only convenient place for the vessel to be built was on the shores of Emily Bay, which had the only exit to the open sea. Because of the depth of the small gap through the reef, the schooner's draft was necessarily limited.
The islanders used local pine for the keel, pine for the planks and island-grown ironwood and olive for the frames of the schooner. She was launched on March 30, 1925 and named Resolution, after Cook's famous ship, by Mrs. Leane, wife of the Norfolk Island administrator. The Resolution made her first voyage to New Zealand in January 1926, but took 10 days to get to Auckland. This was much longer than anticipated and much of her cargo of fresh fruit was over-ripe on arrival. Although an engine was fitted in Auckland, the vessel still made too many slow trips, with consequential loss of money, and the islanders reluctantly had to dispose of her. She was bought by Burns, Philp (South Seas) Ltd., who employed her in local trading, basing her successively in Tonga, Fiji and Vila, New Hebrides. Whilst in harbour at Vila, on April 20, 1949, the Resolution disappeared. It was later established that she had sunk at her moorings.
The stamp design shows the schooner in Emily Bay before her maiden voyage, and is taken from a photograph by the late Mr. Roy Bell, of Norfolk Island.
SG 89, 170, 171 Sea Breezes 4/68