Tales from the Quarterdeck

Tag: history

  • Marooned for twenty months: the loss of the Grafton 1863.

    The last of the Grafton castaways are rescued. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874..

    On 12 November 1863, the 56-ton schooner Grafton sailed from Sydney on a sealing expedition among the islands of the Southern Ocean. Six months, 12 months, then 18 months passed without any sighting of the ship or its crew. Most people had given up hope of seeing them again, presuming they had been lost in that vast expanse of freezing ocean wilderness to Australia’s south. Then, on 27 July 1865, three of the lost mariners stepped ashore at Invercargill, New Zealand. Their leader was the missing ship’s captain, and he reported that his other two shipmates were still stranded on a remote island to the south. This is their remarkable tale of endurance and survival against the odds.

       The Grafton was ostensibly on a sealing expedition funded by a consortium of Sydney businessmen. But it also had a more secretive mission to investigate if tin could be found on Campbell Island. The Grafton was to visit the isolated scrap of land some 650 km south of New Zealand and determine if the rumoured tin was there in mineable quantity. An experienced master mariner named Thomas Musgrave was appointed captain of the Grafton, and one of the business partners, Francois Raynal, served as his first mate. Two seamen and a cook rounded out the five-mancrew.

       The weather was atrocious for most of the voyage south through the roaring forties and then into the furious fifties. During one particularly heavy gale, the Grafton was laid over on her side by the force of the wind. But after three weeks of hard sailing, they finally reached Campbell Island, at latitude 52.6°S.  

    Illustration of the Loss of the Grafton on Auckland Island, 1863. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874.

       Prospecting for tin came to nothing, and there were few seals to be had. After a month, they had little to show for their time there. They had been gone for almost two months and had consumed nearly half of the four months’ worth of rations they had left with. Captain Musgrave decided it was time to start heading for home. No one disagreed. They departed Campbell Island on 27 December 1863 with the wind blowing hard from the northwest. As they approached the Auckland Islands, Musgrave found that he could not sail past them without getting dangerously close to land. He decided the safest course of action would be to find shelter in one of the inlets and wait for the wind to shift. They dropped anchor in what they would later learn was Carnley Harbour on 31 December. But soon after arriving, their haven turned out to be anything but when it was lashed by a powerful storm. On the night of January 2, the wind shifted and blew at hurricane strength, as the seas foamed and grew mountainous around them.  

    Site of the Grafton wreck site, Auckland Island. Courtesy, Google Maps.

        For a time, the Grafton rode out the maelstrom. Then one anchor chain snapped, and the second anchor began to drag. At midnight, the schooner was driven up onto a rocky beach. “Within fifteen minutes, she was nearly full of water, with heavy sea breaking over her,” Musgrave later wrote of the ordeal.   

    The crew gathered provisions and warm clothing and piled it all on deck. Then everyone found shelter where they could, and waited for daylight as the storm raged around them. Francois Raynal had fallen ill sometime earlier, but his shipmates looked out for him during that bleak night. In the morning, they climbed into their small dinghy, which was already filled with supplies. Captain Musgrave tied a rope to the Grafton and slowly let it run out as the overloaded dinghy was pushed towards land. When they were close to the beach, one of the seamen, Alexander McLaren, jumped into the surf holding a rope tied off to the boat’s bow. He waded ashore and then wrapped the rope around a tree. As Musgrave let his line out, McLaren pulled his in, and the boat made it through the surf to land safely on the beach. It was that level of simple cooperating that would stand them in good stead during the months that followed.

    Captain Thomas Musgrave. Source: Castaway on the Auckland Islands, 1866.

        The castaways spent that night sleeping on the cold, wet ground, but were no doubt grateful that they had made it off the wrecked schooner alive. As for the Grafton, she was pounded to pieces, with no prospect of being repaired and refloated. After the weather had cleared sufficiently, they returned to the wreck. Their priority was to salvage the sails and timber spars, enough to build a small hut so they had shelter from the harsh elements. Despite being marooned on a remote island, Captain Musgrave and the others believed it would only be a matter of time before a ship passed by and they would be rescued.

       But as the months rolled by, their hopes of being found ebbed away and finally vanished completely. The small amount of water-damaged sea biscuit and salted pork they had saved from the schooner had run out long ago. Then, for the next 18 months, they survived on a diet comprised mainly of seal meat. Raynal, who over time recovered his strength, was able to brew a passable ale, which he believed would help keep scurvy at bay.

    Inside the hut on Auckland Island. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874.

         The castaways strengthened their hut, built a fireplace and chimney, and furnished it with stretchers, a table, and stools. Lanterns fuelled with seal oil gave the interior a warm, comforting glow. When not out procuring food and water or keeping vigil for any ship that might pass by, Musgrave taught his illiterate sailors how to read. The castaways also passed their time playing chess and dominoes with bone pieces Raynal had carved by hand. They also played cards for a time, but Raynal eventually destroyed the pack when it became evident that Musgrave was a poor loser. As their clothes deteriorated, they were replaced with seal-skin garments. In short, they made their home as comfortable as circumstances would allow.   

    After spending a second summer on Auckland Island without ever seeing another soul, the castaways decided to wait no longer to be rescued. It was now around March 1865, and another freezing winter was fast approaching. They considered constructing a new vessel from the Grafton’s wreckage, and they even built a forge to assist them. However, the venture was abandoned for want of an auger to drill holes through the timbers. Instead, they turned to making their twelve-foot (3.6 metre) dinghy more seaworthy. They extended its length by 76 cm, built up the sides and furnished it with a deck. When it was finished, Musgrave found it was so unstable that it would have been too dangerous to call all five of them to safety.

     

    Preparing the dinghy to escape from Auckland Island. Source: Wrecked on a Reef, Raynal, 1874.

       On 19 July 1865, Captain Musgrave set off in the dinghy with only two men, Francois Raynal and Alexander McLaren, promising to return quickly to rescue George Harris and the cook, Henry Brown. After five days of hard sailing through foul weather, they reached Stewart Island, 450 kilometres to their north. They put into Port Adventure and fell in with the Flying Scud. The next morning, Musgrave and his mates were taken the final 50 km across Foveaux Strait to Invercargill on New Zealand’s South Island.   

    After sufficient funds were raised by the good folk of Invercargill, a ship was chartered to take Captain Musgrave back to Auckland Island to retrieve his two shipmates. The Grafton’s story is a testament to what can be accomplished when a group of resourceful individuals, aided by a measure of good fortune, work together for their common good.

    As chance would have it, the survivors of another ship, the Invercauld, had washed up on the northern end of Auckland Island around the same time.   Unfortunately, theirs is a far different story and is the subject of a future blog.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • William Dampier: Navigator, naturalist, writer, pirate.

    Life and adventures of William Dampier. Source: Tales of Shipwrecks and Adventures at Sea, 1856.

    William Dampier visited Australian shores twice in the 17th Century. The first time was when he served on the Cygnet in 1688, and the second, 11 years later, when he commanded HMS Roebuck. Dampier was the first Englishman to describe the land, its fauna, flora and people to a European audience. While his contribution to Australia’s history is relatively minor, his story is nonetheless a fascinating look into the golden age of exploration. Navigator, naturalist, writer, and pirate are all words that describe aspects of Dampier’s colourful life.

       Born in Somerset in 1651, William was the son of a tenant farmer. He does not appear to have had any interest in following in his father’s footsteps. Instead, when he turned 17, he went to sea and began his apprenticeship as a mariner. He joined the Royal Navy around 1673 and saw action during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. When hostilities ceased, he left the navy and travelled to the West Indies. Then, when war broke out between England and Spain, he became a privateer, which could best be described as a state-sanctioned pirate. In 1678, now aged 27, he returned to England and married his fiancée. However, he would spend just one year with her before he put to sea again.   

    This time, he would be gone 12 long years. After hunting down Spanish ships off Central America, he joined another privateer and crossed the Pacific Ocean in search of plunder. He visited ports in the Philippines, China and Southeast Asia. Then, in January 1688, he was on the Cygnet when it stopped on Australia’s northwest coast. The ship had pulled in for repairs at King Sound north of present-day Broome and would remain there for a couple of months. Dampier spent his time documenting the unusual fauna and flora. He also wrote at some length about his observations on how the indigenous people lived, but not in particularly flattering terms. To his Eurocentric eye, they existed in appalling conditions, and he thought them to be the most miserable people he had ever encountered.

    A map of the world showing the course of Mr Dampiers voyage round it: From 1679 to 1791. By Herman Moll.

       In 1691, Dampier joined a very exclusive club of men who had circled the globe when he returned to England via the Cape of Good Hope. His various exploits and adventures became the subject of his hugely successful book, “A New Voyage Round the World,” published in 1697. Through his book, Dampier came to the attention of both the Royal Society and the Admiralty. They commissioned him to chart the east coast of New Holland, some 70 years before James Cook would eventually do so. Had Dampier succeeded, he may well have changed the trajectory of modern Australian history. However, as will soon become evident, circumstances would conspire against him.  

    HMS Roebuck sailed from England on 14 January 1699 with a crew of 50 and provisions to last them 20 months. Dampier originally planned to sail around Cape Horn and then cross the Pacific Ocean until he reached Australia’s east coast. However, his ship was long past its glory days, and its refit for this hazardous voyage had taken far longer than anticipated. By the time he reached the southern tip of South America, it was winter, the worst time to try rounding Cape Horn. Instead, he decided to cross the South Atlantic and round the Cape of Good Hope. He would then cross the Indian Ocean to New Holland’s west coast and begin his survey there.

    HMS Roebuck.

    They made landfall near Dirk Hartog Island in early August 1699.   On 7 August, he sailed past Cape Peron and into Shark Bay, where he spent a week exploring.   Dampier named it for the abundance of sharks he found in those shallow, enclosed waters. He made a detailed chart of the bay and described many of the fish, birds and plants he saw there. Though fish, fowl, and turtles were easily procured and made a welcome addition to the men’s diet, they were unable to find a supply of fresh water. On 14 August, Dampier left Shark Bay by the same passage he entered after encountering shoals and dangerously shallow water between Dorre and Bernier Islands and the mainland.

    A Pied Oyster Catcher. Source: A Voyage to New Holland, in the year 1699.

    They continued north along the coast for another 750 kilometres until they arrived at a small group of islands, now known as the Dampier Archipelago. Freshwater remained elusive, so they continued sailing north until they were at latitude 18° 21’ south, about 60 to 70 km south of present-day Broome. Again, they went in search of water. And, again, they returned empty-handed. Only this time, an encounter with the local inhabitants ended in violence. One of Dampier’s men was speared through his cheek while a Karajarri man was wounded by musket fire. In early September, Dampier resigned himself to temporarily abandoning New Holland and made for Timor to resupply.   

    From Timor, Dampier continued sailing northeast and charted the northern coast of New Guinea. By now, the Roebuck was in such poor shape that he abandoned his plan to locate New Holland’s east coast and turned back towards England. He stopped briefly at Batavia, then crossed the Indian Ocean, rounded the southern tip of Africa, and sailed north through the Atlantic. In February 1701, they reached Ascension Island, but HMS Roebuck would go no further. Her planking was riddled with seaworms. And she was taking on a lot of water. Dampier had to run her ashore to stop her from foundering in deep water. He and his crew would remain stranded there for five weeks until a passing East Indiaman rescued them. Dampier and his men returned to England in August 1701.

    1966 Australian postage stamp commemorating William Dampier.

    William Dampier was court-martialled on his return to England on a charge of ill-treating his first mate on the voyage out. Found guilty, he was stripped of the money the Admiralty owed him, and he was ruled unfit to command any of His Majesty’s ships in the future. Undeterred by the setback, he published a book about his most recent exploits and would go on to circumnavigate the world twice more. When Dampier died in London around 1715, he was the only person to have circled the globe three times.

    Sun sets over Flinders and Stanley Islands in Bathurst Bay with a fishing boat in the forground at Cape Melville on Cape York Peninsular, Far North Queensland. Photo Chris Ison / Wildshot Images.

     © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • Shipping Cleopatra’s Needle

    Cleopatra’s needle being brought to England, 1877. Courtesy, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

    In September 1877, a most unusual-looking vessel left the Egyptian port of Alexandria bound for England.   She was the brainchild of engineer John Dixon and had been purpose-built to carry a 200-ton stone obelisk to London.   “Cleopatra’s Needle”, as it became known, had been gifted to Great Britain almost sixty years earlier, but until Dixon came along, no one had found a cost-effective way of transporting the massive monolith to its destination on the banks of the Thames River.    

    The obelisk had originally been erected at Heliopolis near present-day Cairo in 1450 BCE on the orders of Thutmose III.    Two hundred years later, Ramses II added inscriptions commemorating his victorious battles.  Then, in 12 BCE, Cleopatra had it, and a second obelisk carried down the Nile to Alexandria and installed outside a temple to Julius Ceasar and Mark Antony, where they were eventually lost to time.

    While visiting his brother in Egypt in 1875, Dixon devised a plan to get the needle to London.   There had been a couple of schemes suggested in the past.   One proposed dragging the heavy monolith through the narrow streets of Alexandria to the port where it could be loaded onto a ship.  Another was to dredge a channel from the waterfront to get a ship alongside the monolith where it lay.   Neither was particularly economical or practical.   But, after taking a look at the obelisk in situ, Dixon thought he had the solution.

    “Cleopatra’s Needle as it lay.” Penny Illustrated Paper, 29 Sept 1877, p. 13.

    The obelisk was lying on its side, covered in sand behind an old quay wall about 4 metres above sea level.   On the seaward side of the wall, the sand sloped down gently to the water’s edge, eventually reaching deep water a few hundred metres away.   Rather than move the obelisk to a ship, Dixon proposed building a cylindrical vessel around Cleopatra’s Needle and, after removing a portion of the quay wall, rolling it down the slope and into the sea.   He estimated the venture would cost no more than £5,000 to get it to London and another £5,000 to have it installed on the Thames Embankment.   The cost was a far cry from the £80,000 the French had apparently paid to have one delivered to Paris in the 1830s.  

    With the government showing no interest in wearing the cost, it was up to private enterprise to come to the fore.    Dixon even offered to contribute 500 guineas of his own money to get things started.   But after two years of stagnation, a benefactor in the form of the noted surgeon and philanthropist Professor Erasmus Wilson stepped forward and donated the full amount.

    Logitudinal section of the Cleopatra Needle-Boat, Penny Illustrated Paper, 8 Sept 1877, p. 9.

    By May 1877, Dixon was back in Alexandria and had begun work excavating around the buried obelisk.   It measured nearly 21 metres long and was slightly over 2 metres wide at the base.   He began encasing it in an iron cylinder 28 metres in length and 4.5 metres in width.   To prevent the stone and hieroglyphs from being damaged, Cleopatra’s Needle was cradled by several iron interior bulkheads lined with timber.

    The vessel resembled a giant cigar tube and was now ready to be floated.   A path was cleared and it was rolled towards the sea.   However, when tugs took the tube in tow, they discovered she had filled with water.    A stone had punctured a plate while the tube was being rolled down the beach.   The damaged plate was repaired, and the tube pumped dry.     Ballast was added, and the odd vessel was towed to a waiting dry dock where the rest of the work would be completed.

    Captain’s Cabin (left), Main cabin (right), Illustrated London News, 26 Jan 1878, p. 96.

    A cabin large enough to accommodate four men was mounted on the top of the tube and a keel below.   A stumpy mast and rigging were installed, along with a rudder, wheel and associated running gear.   The Cleopatra, as she was named, was ready to make the 6000-kilometre voyage to London.   Not having the means to propel herself, she was to be towed to England by the steamer Olga.   The sail and steering gear were only fitted to ease the strain on the steamer.

    On Friday morning, 21 September, Captain Booth gave the order for the Olga to get underway.   As she cleared Alexandria Harbour, the Cleopatra followed in her wake, tethered by a pair of tow cables.  They chugged along at a steady six knots, which was about as fast as the Olga could go towing her cumbersome load.    It cannot have been a pleasant cruise for Captain Campbell and his men on the Cleopatra.   At first, she yawed terribly, pulling one moment to port and the next to starboard.   However, once the Cleopatra’s steering chains were tightened and the towing cables lengthened, she finally ran true behind the steamer.   However, that did not stop her tendency to porpoise.   Dixon, who was travelling on the Olga, wrote, “I have counted as many as 17 times a minute that her nose has been underwater, and then ten or twelve feet above.” 

    First night out in the Bay of Biscay. From a sketch by our special artist on board the tug Anglia. Illusgtrated London New, 26 Jan 1878, p. 92.

    Apart from a few minor leaks, which were quickly plugged with cement, the voyage was uneventful until they were about to cross the Bay of Biscay.    On Sunday, 14 October the Olga and the Cleopatra were off Cape Finisterre when they were caught in a violent storm.  They were lashed by huge seas and a Force 7 to 8 gale blowing from the southwest.   That night, the Cleopatra’s ballast shifted and she was thrown onto her beam ends.   Captain Campbell cut away the mast, but the vessel did not right herself.   With the Cleopatra floundering around at the mercy of the wind and the waves, Campbell fired off his distress flares.  Captain Booth sent six men across to help in any way they could, but they were lost in the maelstrom before they reached the heavily listing vessel.   Eventually, Campbell and his men climbed into a boat and were hauled across to the Olga with the aid of a rope.  

    Captain Booth had no choice but to cut away the Cleopatra as he went in search of his six missing crew.   After spending some time searching the seas, the effort was abandoned, and the Olga headed for Falmouth to report the tragedy.   However, a couple of days later, the Cleopatra was found adrift about 170 kilometres off the Spanish coast by the crew of the Scottish steamer Fitzmaurice. They had been en route from Glasgow to Valencia when they happened upon the strange vessel bobbing in the water. They took it in tow and delivered it to the Spanish port of Ferrol and reported their find to the British Vice-Consul.  

    “End view of the pontoon.” Penny Illustrated Paper, 29 Sept 1877, p. 13.

    Dixon offered the salvors £500 for finding the Cleopatra and its priceless cargo and taking her to port.    However, the Fitzmaurice’s owners claimed salvage rights ten times that amount.   The case eventually headed to the Admiralty Court, where the sum of £2000 was decided upon.   Meanwhile, the Cleopatra was towed the rest of the way to England, and up the Thames River to London, where it was to be installed on The Embankment.   There, the Cleopatra’s hull was opened up, and the obelisk removed none the worse for its long sea voyage.   Cleopatra’s Needle was erected on a new plinth where it still stands to this day.   A plaque commemorates the six men who lost their lives trying to save the Cleopatra and her crew.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2024.

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  • The 1878 Loch Ard Tragedy

    “The Wreck of the Loch Ard near Sherbrook River.” Source: Illustrated Australian News, 8 July 1878, p. 20.

       In early June 1878, the Scottish merchant ship Loch Ard was expected to arrive in Port Phillip Bay at any time. But that was not to be. News soon reached Melbourne that the ship had been wrecked near the Sherbrook River, some 50 kilometres west of Cape Otway, with a fearsome loss of life.

       The Loch Ard was a 1623-ton fully rigged sailing ship belonging to the Glasgow General Shipping Company. But she proved to be an unlucky vessel. On her maiden voyage, she was twice dismasted. The first time it happened was shortly after she departed Glasgow on a voyage to Melbourne in December 1873. She was struck by a powerful storm and had to return to port to undergo a refit. She then set sail again in January the following year. This time, as she was crossing the Southern Ocean, she lost all three masts and nearly foundered during a ferocious storm. The resourceful captain was able to set jury-rigged masts from spare spars and limp the rest of the way to Melbourne.

       On this most recent voyage, the Loch Ard sailed from London on 27 February 1878 under the command of Captain George Gibbs with around 25 to 30 crew, 17 passengers and over 3,000 tons of cargo. But as she neared the end of her voyage, the weather closed in on that most dangerous stretch of Victoria’s coastline.

    The Loch Ard. By Allan C. Green – State Library of Victoria.

       The weather became squally, and the sky remained overcast for several days, preventing Captain Gibbs from making any observations as his ship ran before the wind under close-reefed topsails. Sailing instructions warned mariners to remain far out to sea until they had passed Cape Otway before making the final approach to the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately, Captain Gibbs was sailing blind and was unaware of how much danger he and his ship were in until it was too late.

       Around 4 a.m. on 1 June, the lookout spotted white-capped waves breaking over a reef half a nautical mile (one kilometre) ahead. Gibbs ordered the ship to be put about, but the wind continued to push them towards danger. He then ordered both anchors to be let go, but they did not hold, and the ship continued towards the jagged fangs of the reef and the towering cliffs beyond.

       When they were just 150 metres from the rocks, Captain Gibbs ordered the anchors to be slipped, and he tried to put on more sail, hoping he might veer the ship back out to sea. But it was far too late. The crew had only managed to set the mainsail when the Loch Ard crashed into the rocks on her starboard quarter. The topmast went over the side, taking two seamen with it. Meanwhile, Gibbs ordered the lifeboats to be readied for the evacuation of the women. But by now, successive waves were crashing onto the deck and sweeping it clean.

    “The rescue of Miss Carmichael” Source: Illustrated Adelaide News, 1 Aug 1878, p. 13.

       Midshipman Thomas Pearce and several other seamen had tried getting one of the lifeboats over the side to begin taking on passengers when it was washed into the swirling seas. Meanwhile, the captain and several sailors were struggling to free another boat from a tangle of fallen rigging. Then, a massive wave lifted the Loch Ard off the reef, and she sank in deep water, spilling everyone into the turbulent seas.

       Pearce managed to cling to his upturned boat, but he never saw any of his shipmates again. By now, it was daylight, and he saw he was drifting towards a small bay. Once in the bay, he left the boat and began swimming towards shore. Then he found an upturned table and climbed onto it. He washed up onto a small sandy beach with all manner of crates, driftwood, and other debris from the wreck. After taking some time to recover his strength, Pearce searched the small bay to see if anyone else had survived. Just then, he heard a cry for help coming from the water. He then spotted a woman clinging to a spar bout 50 metres out in the bay.    He swam out, dragged her ashore, and the pair took shelter in a shallow cave. The young lady was 19-year-old Eva, the eldest daughter of the ship’s surgeon, Dr Carmichael. His wife and three children had accompanied him on the voyage, for they had intended to settle in Victoria.

    Miss Carmichael and Thomas Pearce. Source: The Illustrated Adelaide News, 1 Aug 1878, p. 13.

       After rescuing Eva, Pearce collapsed beside her from sheer exhaustion and slept. He felt somewhat recovered when he woke and turned his mind to scaling the high cliffs surrounding the bay so he could go and find help. He eventually found a route up and then a well-trodden path and began following it. After walking several kilometres, he came upon a shepherd tending to a flock of sheep. Pearce asked him to send for help while he returned to the bay to let Eva know assistance was on the way.

       However, when he returned to the cave, he found Eva was gone. Pearce searched the area but was unable to see her. When help arrived, the search continued. And then, just as night was falling, a faint cry was heard coming from behind a bush. There, they found Eva, barely conscious. She was hauled up the cliff face with the aid of a rope, where a carriage was waiting to whisk her away.

    The cave and wreckage strewn on the beach. Source: Australasian Sketcher, 6 July 1878, p. 11.

       Eva Carmichael and Thomas Pearce were the only survivors from the Loch Ard. The young midshipman had the unenviable task of identifying the remains of several bruised and battered bodies that washed up in the next few days.   

    Among the tons of debris washed ashore was one particularly well-constructed crate that contained a large porcelain peacock. It had been manufactured by Minton and had been sent out on the ship to be displayed at the upcoming 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition. It had survived the wreck without so much as a chip of damage. It and other relics from the Loch Ard are now on display at Warrnambool’s Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum. The small bay where Thomas Pearce and Eva Carmichael made it ashore is now named Loch Ard Gorge.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2023.

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  • The Sapphire and Marina: Three Months in a Leaky Boat

       At midday on 8 September 1859, the 749-ton merchant shipSapphire weighed anchor and began slowly making her way out of Port Curtis (present-day Gladstone, Queensland). She was ultimately bound for India via Torres Strait, with a consignment of 60 Australian horses purchased by the British Indian Army. But before the ship could clear the natural harbour, she ran aground on a sandbar and had to wait for the rising tide to lift her off.  So began a voyage that would cost 18 men their lives and last five gruelling months, only for the few survivors to wind up back where they had started. Their story is a remarkable one of perseverance in the face of unimaginable hardship, served with a healthy measure of good luck.   

    The Sapphire bore out into the Coral Sea and then headed north outside the Great Barrier Reef. On 23 September, Captain Bowden calculated he was somewhere off Raine Island. That afternoon, the lookout sighted a line of breaking surf heralding the outer edge of the reef. Bowden had the ship put about, and they tacked back and forth through the late afternoon. Captain Bowden intended to hold his position in deep water overnight and make his way through the reef first thing in the morning.

    Illustration of Booby Island, Torres Strait – Otherwise, Post Office. From the Illustrated Sydney News, Fri 16 Dec 1864, Page 9.

        But shortly after sunset, the alarm was raised. A lookout sighted a long, uninterrupted curve of white water directly in their path. By the time the ship responded to the call to pull hard about, the breakers were just 500 metres off the leeward bow. There was now insufficient sea room to turn the ship around and point her back out to sea.  The Sapphire struck the coral reef broadside. Huge waves swept her deck. The force of the collision brought down the fore-top-gallant mast, and one of their lifeboats was swept from its davits. The ship heeled over, and all seemed lost. Captain Bowden ordered the main mast cut away, hoping the vessel might right itself. When the mast came down, it landed on the deck, smashing the longboat to pieces. It also brought down the mizzen mast, which in turn crashed onto the lifeboat, damaging it. Within minutes, three of the Sapphire’s five boats were lost. Everyone spent a harrowing night sheltering as best they could while the terrified horses remained trapped in the hold.

       Breaking with maritime convention, by leaving his ship, Captain Bowden set off in the morning to search for somewhere to land. First Mate William Beveridge was left in charge of the stranded vessel. Beveridge began preparations to abandon the ship and also had the carpenters try to repair the two badly damaged boats, only half expecting that Bowden might return. It seems that Beveridge and Bowden did not see eye to eye, and the first mate may even have blamed his captain for running aground. However, Bowden did return to the Sapphire, having found a suitable refuge on Sir Charles Hardy Island about 85 km away.

       The Sapphire’s crew of 28 men took to the two surviving boats and headed to the island, abandoning the ship and the 60 horses still trapped below. Captain Bowden decided they should return to Port Curtis, 1,500 kilometres to the south, and they left messages in a bottle hung from a tree telling of their intentions. They set off south on October 6 but immediately encountered strong headwinds. Bowden soon gave up on heading south, turning his boat around to head north, through Torres Strait, intending to make for Booby Island. In another unusual turn of events, Beveridge did not follow suit. He continued trying to push south for another day or two before he also gave up and turned around.

    Sapphire survivors route through Torres Strait from leaving the Sapphire and finding the Marina.

       Beveridge reached Booby Island in mid-October to find Bowden and the rest of the men already there. By now, they had been roaming the seas around Torres Strait for almost a month. The provisions they found there were a godsend for the hungry sailors, but they would not last indefinitely. Bowden and Beveridge agreed that they would have to leave there sooner or later. It was approaching cyclone season, and they had not seen another vessel since becoming marooned. They would likely not see another ship pass by Booby Island until April or even May the next year.

       Bowden and Beveridge put their differences aside and decided to make another attempt to return to Port Curtis, despite their recent failure. But as soon as they got clear of the island, they were struck by the same contrary winds that had plagued them earlier.

       While Beveridge and his boat were off Friday Island, they were set upon by Torres Strait Islanders and one of the men was speared to death. Meanwhile, Captain Bowden’s boat was off Hammond Island. They had stopped to trade with a party of Islanders, but in what seemed like an unprovoked attack, a volley of spears and arrows was launched into their overcrowded boat. Only one man was able to jump clear and swim away. He would later be rescued by Beveridge, who had gone in search of Bowden’s boat.

       Beveridge and his men continued pushing back east and eventually made it around the tip of Cape York. They then picked their way through the maze of coral reefs, and their luck finally changed for the better.

       They spotted a ship in the distance, the first they had seen since abandoning their own vessel some six weeks earlier. But, as they drew closer, they found it was deserted. The ship proved to be the barque Marina, which had run aground around the same time the Sapphire had been wrecked. It too had been abandoned by its crew, and they had also made it to Sir Charles Hardy, reaching it only hours after the Sapphire castaways had left. Miraculously, the Marina had floated off the reef on a spring tide only to drift around Torres Strait for the next several weeks.

    Marina’s course down the Queensland Coast. Source Google Maps.

       The Marina’s crew had then set off south for Port Curtis, and after 43 days of arduous sailing, they made it safely to port and notified the authorities of the loss of their own ship and also of the Sapphire. HMS Cordelia was dispatched north to search for the Sapphire’s missing men. However, she only steamed as far as Cape Upstart, thinking the lost sailors could not still be any further north. But they were wrong. By now, it was late January 1860, and the Sapphire’s crew was anchored off Lizard Island in the Marina, 500 km further north.

       Back in late November, Beveridge had decided they should sail the Marina to Port Curtis rather than try to do so in their small pinnace. Setting off on the 26th, they battled the same contrary winds and currents that had previously frustrated them. For the next two months, they made painfully slow progress. They anchored for days and weeks at a time, waiting for the south-easterlies to fall off. In the first month, they travelled just 180 km.

       They spent tiring Christmas Day kedging the stranded barque off a sandbar, and they would run aground twice more in the weeks that followed. The Marina’s hull was so damaged that water flowed freely in and out of the hold. The only thing keeping the ship afloat was her cargo of tightly packed Kauri logs.

       On 9 February, they were anchored off Palm Island.   In the past two and a half months, they had covered a little more than half the distance to Port Curtis. They still had another 800 km or more to go.   All seemed lost.   Their food had all but run out, and they were slowly starving to death.    

    Finally, their luck turned around. The wind started blowing from the north. They put to sea and made steady progress south. Three days later, Beveridge sighted Cape Upstart off the port bow. The next day, they were cruising through the Whitsundays. They were now only 400 km from Port Curtis. A couple of days after that, they crossed Keppel Bay, and the next day, 17 February, they anchored off Facing Island just outside Port Curtis. No one had the strength to manoeuvre the crippled vessel into port. They took to the Sapphire’s pinnace again and surprised everyone with their return, for they had long been given up for dead.

    The Sapphire’s full story is told in A Treacherous Coast: Ten Tales of Shipwreck and Survival from Queensland Waters, available as an eBook or paperback through Amazon.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison, Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2021.

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