On the night of 12-13 August 1856, the French Naval steam corvette Duroc was wrecked on Mellish Reef about 800kms off the Queensland coast. The Duroc was returning to France from New Caledonia where she had been stationed for the previous three years or so. After the ship ran aground, some seventy people made itContinue reading “The Loss of the Duroc and the rise of la Deliverance”
Tag Archives: Rescue
Bato to the Rescue – 1854
In 1854 the Dutch ship Bato, rescued not one, not two, but three separate parties of shipwreck survivors whose ships had come to grief in separate encounters with the Great Barrier Reef. In the space of a few weeks, these three ships all ran aground trying to negotiate the dangerous reef strewn waters leading toContinue reading “Bato to the Rescue – 1854”
The Mystery of the Peri
In February 1872 the crew of HMS Basilisk found fourteen men barely clinging to life on a derelict schooner adrift off the far north Queensland coast. The vessel’s name was not immediately apparent and none of the survivors spoke English. It was a mystery as to how the vessel came to be in those northernContinue reading “The Mystery of the Peri”
The Loss of the Sydney Cove – 1797
In May 1797 a fishing party returned to Sydney with more than their daily catch. They had found three shipwreck survivors south of Botany Bay who told them that the merchant ship Sydney Cove had been wrecked somewhere far to the south. The survivors had trekked over 600 kms seeking help for their crewmates whoContinue reading “The Loss of the Sydney Cove – 1797”
HMS Torch and the rescue of the Ningpo castaways
While Lieutenant William Chimmo was preparing HMS Torch to return to survey work in the South Seas, he was unexpectedly tasked with an urgent mission. Word had just reached Sydney that nearly 20 people had been marooned for two months on a remote island far out in the Coral Sea. By chance, his paddle steamerContinue reading “HMS Torch and the rescue of the Ningpo castaways”
Tales from the Quarterdeck 