Refugee Week 2006 at the National Maritime Museum

by National Maritime Museum on 17 Oct 2006 The Australian National Maritime Museum invites everyone to celebrate Refugee Week 2006 (22-28 Oct).

From 22-28 October the National Maritime Museum will open its restored Vietnamese refugee boat Tu Do to the public with special guided tours.


Tu Do (‘Freedom’) gives visitors a very real sense of the desperation that motivated refugees to make the long and dangerous journey to Australia by sea.
In April 1975 North Vietnam soldiers captured Saigon, the capital of the south. South Vietnam surrendered and Vietnam was again united, but under a communist government.

In the late 1970s thousands of Vietnamese fled the new communist regime, escaping the country in small boats. In 1976 the first vessels carrying Vietnamese refugees reached Darwin, Australia. By the end of 1979, 2011 Vietnamese had survived the perilous voyage from Vietnam. Many more died trying. In 1979 Australian immigration officers accepted most refugees remaining in camps in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Those with relatives in Australia, useful skills and who could speak English were selected, as well as a small number of students and diplomats.

Store owner Tan Lu had fought with the South Vietnamese during the war and believed his family faced a bleak future under the new communist regime. In 1975, he pooled resources with several friends from the island of Phu Quoc and built a boat. To divert suspicion Tu Do (Freedom) was constructed as a dragnet fishing vessel typical of the region.

In September 1977, Tan staged an engine breakdown. A powerful replacement engine was installed and the group of 39 passengers, including Tan's pregnant wife Tuyet and three children Dzung (6), Dao (4) and Mo (2) struggled across the tidal mud flats to the waiting vessel. Tuyet had crushed sleeping pills into her children's food to quieten them and disaster almost stuck when several hours out to sea, they realised Dzung had been left behind. Despite quarrels with his panicked passengers, Tan returned to find her, crying and mosquito bitten in the mangroves.

The vessel managed to outpace pirates in the Gulf of Thailand and docked in Mersing, Malaysia where eight exhausted passengers disembarked. Tan had relatives in the United States, but after weeks of wrangling with US Immigration officials, opted to re supply and set sail for Australia. On 21 November 1977, Tu Do finally made landfall in Darwin. Tan and his crew had navigated more than 6,000 kilometres using a map from a school atlas and a simple compass.

The Australian National Maritime Museum acquired Tu Do in 1990. Working from a passenger list compiled by customs officials, the museum used the Vietnamese media to locate Tan Lu and his family in Lismore, NSW.

In 1995 the museum flew Tan and his son Mo to Sydney to inspect Tu Do, advise on its configuration (which had changed little since the boat arrived), and piece together Tu Do's remarkable story. In 1998 museum staff traveled to Vietnam with Tan to locate and purchase replicas of bedding, crockery, toys, life jackets, food and clothing taken on Tu Do in 1977.

Tu Do has historic value as tangible evidence of a key phase of Australia's migration history. These were Australia's first 'boat people' whose arrival and acceptance both reflected the dismantling of the White Australia Policy and encouraged further reforms. While only 2,000 of Australia's 200,000 strong Vietnamese population arrived by boat, escape by sea remains the defining narrative of the Vietnamese experience.

The vessel has significance to the descendants of Vietnamese refugees as a means of understanding their family's migration stories and their homeland's history. Its acquisition by a national institution is a compelling validation of these refugee voyages and experiences.

Tu Do represents a particularly Australian perspective on a global story, one which continues to capture international attention. This story encompasses a range of issues that include social justice, political and religious freedom, the new Australia and its place in the global village and in particular its relationship with Asia. The vessel can be used to explore the experiences of all those who have taken great risks to escape oppression, and in particular those who embarked on the perilous sea voyages as boat people in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

Historically, Australian migration policy has always responded to a fear of 'the boat' whether it carried Chinese diggers heading for the gold fields, South Sea Islanders recruited for the cane fields, or refugees from Indochina. Tu Do is significant as a symbolic hook for dissecting past and present immigration debates. By locating the vessel's passengers, it also helps humanise and amplify the experience of all asylum seekers.

Tu Do is well provenanced from its construction by Tan Lu on the island of Phu Quoc in 1975-76 to its acquisition by the ANMM in 1990. The vessel is the most thoroughly documented and researched refugee boat held in an Australian public collection.

It is remarkably well preserved for a wooden vessel of its age and is currently being restored by museum shipwrights to its appearance when it docked in Darwin in 1977. When completed, it will be the only fully functioning refugee boat displayed on water in an Australian institution.