Tales from the Quarterdeck

Tag: Survival

  • The Foundering of the S.S. Alert – 1893

    Foundering of the SS Alert. Source: The Queenslander 13 Jan 1894, p. 71.

       On Friday, 29 December 1893, around 11 o’clock in the morning, two ladies were strolling along Sorrento Ocean Beach on the Mornington Peninsula when they discovered an unconscious man washed up on the sand. He would prove to be the sole survivor of the steamer Alert, which sank during foul weather.

       The SS Alert had left Bairnsdale on Victoria’s southeast coast at 4 p.m. two days earlier, bound for Port Albert and Melbourne. But a little more than 24 hours later, she would be lying at the bottom of Bass Strait off Jubilee Point.

       The Alert was a 16-year-old 243-ton iron screw steamer owned by Huddart and Parker. She had recently been refurbished and, for the past two months, had been carrying passengers and cargo between Gippsland and Melbourne. Prior to that, the Alert had been a favourite of the excursion fleet, which ferried passengers between Melbourne and Geelong.

       From the moment the little steamer cleared the Gippsland Lakes, she felt the full fury of a storm lashing the Victorian coast. Nonetheless, Captain Albert Mathieson thought the sea conditions were nothing his ship could not handle. They stopped briefly at Port Albert, 150 kilometres down the coast, to deliver some cargo and then continued on towards the entrance to Port Phillip Bay and respite from the atrocious weather.

    S.S. Alert. Source: Leader, 6 Jan 1894, p. 30.

       By 4 p.m. Thursday, they were off Cape Schanck, just 30 kilometres short of Port Phillip Bay. Owing to the trying conditions, Captain Mathieson had remained on the bridge the entire trip. Such were the conditions that it required two men at the helm to keep the steamer pointed on its course. Then disaster struck.

       About half an hour later, the Alert was struck by a massive rogue wave that swamped the deck with tons of water and pushed the steamer over onto her side. Then, they were hit by a second large wave before the water from the first had time to drain away. The saloon skylight and a porthole window were smashed, and the sea poured in. The helm was unresponsive by now, and the ship’s lee rail was pushed underwater. Another wave swept over the bridge as seawater snuffed out the struggling steamer’s engine fires.

       The captain ordered everyone to don their lifebelts as he vainly tried to head the stricken steamer into the wind, but to no avail. He ordered the lifeboats to be lowered, but one had already been swept off its davits, and the other had seas continuously sweeping over it. There was nothing anyone could do now.

    The Herald, 30 Dec 1893, p. 2.

       Robert Ponting, the ship’s cook, joined the rest of the crew on deck, and minutes later, the Alert went to the bottom. Ponting climbed onto a hatch cover, but in the turbulent seas, it kept turning over and flipping him into the water. He eventually lost hold of it altogether and began swimming. He spotted the ship’s steward nearby and kept pace with him. Ponting and the steward remained together until the poor fellow could no longer keep his head above water and drowned. Around this time, Ponting spotted Captain Mathieson swimming strongly, but lost sight of him again shortly after.   

    Ponting spent the night swimming about in the cold Bass Strait waters within view of the Cape Schanck Lighthouse. The cold water chilled him to the bone, and he eventually passed out. He continued drifting with the current, slowly pushing him towards land. Then, around daybreak, he felt himself being tumbled ashore and used the last of his strength to drag himself away from the pull of the surf. He had spent over 12 hours in the water and would spend another five or six hours passed out on the beach.

    Robert Ponting. Source. Weekly Times (Melb), 6 Jan 1894, p. 19..

       When, around 11 o’clock, he came too, he found he was surrounded by a group of ladies and a gentleman who had been walking along the beach. The first ladies to discover the unconscious man had called on the others to come to Ponting’s aid. Among his saviours was Douglas Ramsay, a doctor on holiday from his practice in Elsternwick. At first, Ramsay thought that Ponting was dead. He had tried to find a pulse but could not. and “his eyes were shut and all sanded over, his nostrils were also clogged with sand, and his body was stiff and cold,” he later recalled. The doctor didn’t give up, though. He opened Ponting’s mouth and poured some drops of brandy down his throat while vigorously working his arms “to restore animation.” After about ten minutes of this bizarre medical attention, Ponting began to show signs of life.

       Ramsay then dragged him behind a rock to shelter him from the cold wind and one of the ladies removed her jacket and wrapped it around his frozen feet. A couple of the other ladies began the long walk back to their carriage and headed to Sorrento for assistance. Meanwhile, Dr Ramsay continued with his ministrations. While they were waiting for help to arrive, another man happened on the scene while walking his giant St Bernard dog. He had his huge canine nestle up against Ponting for warmth. That, and a steady administration of medicinal brandy, brought some colour back to Ponting’s cheeks.   

    After a while, he was able to tell his rescuers his name and what had befallen him. He also asked that someone send his wife a telegram to tell her he was alive. He did not want her to think he had perished with everyone else when news of the shipwreck broke. Eventually, he was taken to the Mornington Hotel in Sorrento, where a couple of local doctors cared for him. As apparently was best practice in such cases during the late 1800s, the good doctors rubbed his entire body with mustard and poured hot brandy down his throat. In response – or perhaps despite it – Ponting made a full recovery.

    The Argus, 30 Dec 1893, p. 7.

       Over the next couple of days, several bodies and much wreckage washed up on Mornington Peninsula’s rugged ocean beaches. In all, 14 men lost their lives: 11 crew and three passengers. Robert Ponting was the only one to survive the catastrophe.

       A marine board inquiry concluded that the Alert had insufficient ballast for the prevailing sea conditions, which had made her ride higher in the water and less stable on her final voyage. The board also felt that Captain Mathieson should have found shelter in Western Port rather than continue down the coast to Port Phillip Bay. It chose not to give an opinion on the captain’s handling of the vessel in its final minutes due to insufficient evidence.

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

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • COSPATRICK: A tale of fire, cannibalism and a desperate fight for survival

    The burning of the Cospatrick at sea. Penny Illustrated Paper, 09 January 1875, p. 1. (Detail)

    On 27 November 1874, a lookout on the British ship Spectre spotted something floating in the water deep in the Indian Ocean.   As they drew near, they realised it was a small boat holding six men.     When they came alongside, they found one man was already dead. The other five were barely clinging to life and two of those would soon die.   They were the only survivors from the emigrant ship Cospatrick, which had caught fire and sank with the loss of nearly 470 people.

    The 1200-ton  Cospatrick had sailed from London bound for Auckland with 433 passengers, most of whom were assisted migrants looking forward to starting life afresh in New Zealand.   But, just after midnight on 17/18 November, when they were about 750 km southwest of the Cape of Good Hope, smoke was seen coming from the forehatch.  

    The alarm was immediately raised, and Captain Elmslie rushed on deck.   The whole crew were turned out to tackle the blaze thought to have started in the Boatswain’s Locker, where many flammables were stored.     Pumps poured water down the forescuttle, hoping to extinguish the fire before it spread.    Meanwhile, the captain was trying to turn the ship before the wind in a vain attempt to keep the fire contained to the fore part of the vessel.

    Cospatrick, source: London Illustrated News, 9 Jan 1875.

    As the crew battled the fire, almost all the passengers rushed on deck, fearing for their lives, and screaming for help.    Then the Cospatrick swung head to the wind, “which drove the flames and a thick body of smoke aft, setting fire to the forward boats,”* 2nd mate Henry McDonald recalled.  He and the sailors fighting the fire with pumps and buckets were forced to retreat aft with the flames licking at their heels.    With half the ships’ lifeboats lost Macdonald asked Captain Elmslie if he should lower the remaining two.   Elmslie told him “no” but instead to continue fighting the fire.

    But, by then, terrified passengers had taken matters into their own hands.   As many as 80 people, many of them women, climbed into the starboard boat meant only to carry 30 while it was still suspended in its davits.   They buckled under the weight, and when the boat dipped into the sea, it capsized, spilling everyone out.   Under the circumstances, no crew could go to their assistance, and they all drowned.

    A guard was placed on the port lifeboat, but it was also swarmed by panicked passengers.   Flames burnt through the ship’s rigging, and the foremast collapsed and fell over the side.   By now, the captain realised his ship was lost.   Standing by the helm with his wife and son beside him, he told the few men assembled around him to do what they could to save their own lives.  

    The Rush to the Boats. The Australasian Sketcher, 20 Mar 1875, p. 9.

    Macdonald and a couple of the seamen tried launching the pinnace which was stored upside down on the deck.   But before they could get it over the side, its bow caught fire, and they abandoned it.   Macdonald then ordered the port-side lifeboat to be lowered, and as it descended, he jumped on board.    Moments later, he was joined by the Chief Mate, who leapt from the Cospatrick as it was fully ablaze.  Captain Elmslie was last seen jumping into the sea with his wife.  The ship’s doctor followed, carrying Elmslie’s young son.  

    The boat, carrying 34 people, remained by the Cospatrick throughout the night as it continued to blaze.   The main and mizzen masts fell, and then an explosion deep in the hold blew out the stern under the poop deck.   This was probably caused by the large quantities of alcoholic spirits, and other volatile liquids stored in the hold.

    The next morning, Macdonald found that some of his shipmates had managed to right the starboard boat, and it, too, was full of survivors.   They found a few other people clinging to wreckage and hauled them onto the two boats.    They remained with the Cospatrick until it finally burned to the waterline and sank on the evening of 19 November.   Then, Macdonald took command of the starboard boat while the Chief Mate remained in the portside boat.  

    They divided the surviving people between the two boats and shared out the available oars.   The Chief Mat’s boat carried around 35 people while Macdonald’s carried 30.   Neither boat had a mast or sail, but Macdonald got a petticoat from a female passenger, which he used as a makeshift sail fastened to an upright plank.    Neither boat had any freshwater or any other provisions.   Nor does it seem they had so much as a compass to steer by.  

    Sail Oh! Rescue of the Survivors. The Australasian Sketcher, 20 Mar 1875, p. 9.

    They set a course for where they thought the southern tip of Africa lay some 750 kilometres away.    The boats remained together for the next two days, but on Sunday night, 22 November, a gale blew up, and they became separated.    The Chief Mate’s boat was never heard of again.

    Henry Macdonald kept a daily log of their voyage as any good office would.   “Sunday 22, … thirst began to tell severely on us all. … three men died, having first become made in consequence of drinking salt water.”*   Four more men died the following day, but before their bodies were dispatched over the side, Macdonald wrote that “we were that hungry and thirsty that we drank the blood and ate the liver of two of them.”*  Over the next several days, they would continue to live off the dead.

    The weather raged around them, and deaths were a daily occurrence.   Early in the morning of Thursday, 26 November, a barque sailed past but failed to spot them among the white caps.    They continued drinking the blood of the dead, but they were getting weaker by the day.  

    On Friday, 27, two more men died, but they had only the strength to throw one of them overboard.   “We are all fearfully bad, and had drunk sea water,” Macdonald entered in his log.*

    There were now just five men still alive, but only barely.   They were all dozing when Macdonald was woken by a passenger, who had gone made with delirium, biting his feet.   When Macdonald looked up, he saw that an end to their suffering was at hand.    The Spectre, returning home to Scotland from Calcutta, was bearing down on them.   The five men were taken aboard, but two of them died soon after being rescued.   The three survivors, including Henry Macdonald, were put ashore at St Helena when the barque stopped there for supplies.

    The Survivors, L-R Cotter, Macdonald, Lewis. The Illustrated London News, 16 January 1875, p. 61.

    An inquiry held in London into the loss was not convinced the fire had started in the boatswain’s locker.   It concluded that the blaze was likely caused by a careless match or candle carried by someone breaking into the hold in search of liquor the ship was known to be carrying in large quantities.    It recommended that a more robust bulkhead be installed in ships but did not consider whether highly flammable cargo should be carried on the same vessel as so many passengers.

    Nor did the inquiry make any firm recommendations regarding the number of lifeboats carried by passenger ships.    Even had the crew been able to launch all the Cospatrick’s boats, fewer than half the people on board could have been saved.   It simply advised that ship owners should consider some increase in lifeboat carrying capacity.   It would take another 40 years and the loss of the Titanic before laws mandated that all ships have enough lifeboats to evacuate everyone in an emergency.

    (*) Henry Macdonald’s log was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 26 Feb 1875, p. 3.

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

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • The Invercauld shipwreck, 1864.

    Illustration of the Invercauld. Source: The Castaways, Andrew Smith, 1866.

       In recent years, the loss of the Invercauld and its tragic aftermath has been held up as an example of what can go horribly wrong when leadership fails. In contrast to the wreck of the Grafton, on the same island at the same time, where all five men survived, only three of the Invercauld’s 25-man crew lived through the ordeal. The considerable loss of life has sometimes been blamed on the captain’s failure of leadership. But that harsh criticism is based largely on a version of events contained in a memoir written by one of the survivors, some 60 years after the event. Robert Holding had little to say in praise of his captain, but his chronicle stands in stark contrast to the only contemporary account left by one of the other survivors. His story is one of grinding struggle against the elements, a hostile landscape, and a scarcity of food.

       The Invercauld was a 888-ton merchant ship under the command of Captain George Dalgarno. She sailed from Melbourne on 3 May 1864, bound for the Peruvian port of Callao to load up with guano.

       Almost from the outset, they were plagued by foul weather. As they bore southeast in a long, sweeping arc that would take them deep into the South Pacific, they battled strong winds, high seas, rain, sleet, and snow. Then, a week after leaving Melbourne, the lookout sighted the dim outline of land ahead through the pouring rain. Dalgarno took the sighting to be the Auckland Islands, south of New Zealand, at 61 degrees south. He had been unable to take any sightings due to the weather, but had calculated that he was likely approaching their southernmost point. He altered course a few degrees south to clear them with a safe margin.    To Dalgarno’s great surprise and alarm, the lookout called land ahead again. Dalgarno’s navigation had been off more than he had anticipated. He realised, too late, that his ship was in mortal danger, for they were being blown towards a lee shore. By now, the sun had set as the storm continued to rage around them. He spied what he thought was a narrow passage separating two islands and decided that this was his best chance to save the ship. He brought the Invercauld around to the north and heaped on as much sail as he dared, hoping to pass unscathed through the channel into calmer waters beyond.  

       High cliffs loomed out of the inky darkness on the starboard side, and then they were caught in breaking surf. Dalgarno lost all control of the ship. She ran aground broadside on a rocky shore. Huge waves crashed over the deck. There was no time to get the lifeboat over the side, for the Invercauld almost immediately broke apart under the pounding. The men ditched their boots and heavy oilskins as the ship came apart under their feet. Twenty-five men were swept into the turbulent sea to be washed ashore in a small cove backed by towering cliffs. Only 19 men survived the sinking, and all were battered and bruised from being bashed against rocks and wreckage.

       The sodden survivors huddled together for warmth during that first freezing night as the sea spray, rain, and sleet beat upon them. In the early hours, they gathered some of the wreckage to build a lean-to, which gave them some shelter from the worst of the elements. When the sun rose, they got their first proper look at where they had been tossed ashore. They were trapped on a narrow crescent of rocky beach hemmed in on three sides by towering cliffs. The only food they had been able to find washed ashore from the wreck was a kilogram of salt pork and a kilogram bag of sea biscuits, not much to sustain 19 cold and hungry men. One item that would aid them in the future, once it had dried out, was a soggy box of matches that the steward had found in his pocket.   

    To remain where they were would spell the end of them all. The only option they had was to scale the cliffs and see what lay at the top. The climb would claim another sailor who slipped and fell to his death. When Dalgarno and the 17 surviving crew reached the top, they found an inhospitable landscape of dense scrub and coarse grass as far as they could see. Dalgarno thought they would have a better chance of surviving on the more sheltered eastern side of the island. So, off they set, barefoot through the thick vegetation. It took them two weeks to cross the island. Two weeks of pushing through dense scrub, of being lashed by freezing wind and rain, of barely subsisting on a diet of roots and leaves, but for one day, when they caught a small pig.

    Newcastle Journal, 1 Aug 1865, p. 3.

       Four men died from fatigue and exposure during the long trek. Six others broke away from the main group led by Dalgarno, wanting to return to the shipwreck site. Holding was one of them, but he rejoined the main group a few days later. The other five were never seen again.

       By the time they reached a bay on the eastern shore, the party had been reduced to just nine men. There, they found an abundance of limpets fixed to the rocky shore and feasted as only starving men could. But even that plentiful supply was eventually exhausted. They decided they would cross a ridge to the south, hoping they would find another bay filled with shellfish.

       As they crested the ridge, Dalgarno saw two huts on the edge of a bay. They were the first signs of civilisation they had seen since being tossed ashore. When they reached the huts, they found them to have been abandoned, but they provided welcome shelter from the winter elements and the hope that someone might return during the summer months. In fact, the huts were the remains of Endeby’s short-lived whaling station on Ross Bay, which had lain abandoned for the past decade.

       For a time, their fortunes improved. For men who had nothing, the huts were a treasure trove of rubbish that could be repurposed into useful tools of survival. Empty tin cans became boiling pots for limpets. A sheet of iron served as a hotplate over their cooking fire. The discovery of an old adze and hatchet made cutting firewood so much easier. On their first day, they caught a seal, which they feasted on that night. Unfortunately, that was the only one they found, so their diet primarily consisted of limpets, wild roots and greens.

       When they had exhausted this bay of shellfish, remaining any longer seemed pointless. Dalgarno and three others remained at Ross Bay while Andrew Smith, the chief mate and narrator of the only contemporary account of the wreck and its aftermath, Robert Holding and the other two sailors set off to find a better source of food further along the coast. By the time they found a suitable cove and returned to collect the others, only Captain Dalgarno was still alive. The others had succumbed to the cold and starvation. Two more would die in the coming months, leaving just Dalgarno, Smith and Holding still alive.

       Again, their fortunes seemed to improve, at least for a while. After hunting down a couple of seals, they constructed a canoe by stretching the skins over a sapling frame. Now they were able to venture further afield in their relentless search for food. Surviving on a diet of fish, sea birds and the occasional seal, they made it through to summer, but that brought a new set of miseries. Sandflies savaged them, and any seal meat or fish left uneaten for more than a day or so became fly blown.

    …With rescue looking unlikely, the trio realised their only chance of escape lay in building a boat. It was a move born of desperation, for the nearest port was Invercauld in New Zealand, nearly 500 km away. They returned to the huts and pulled them apart using the timbers to construct a boat. However, no sooner had they finished building it than a storm lashed the island and swept it out to sea. They built a second boat with the remaining timbers and, over the next couple of months, used it to travel around Ross Bay and to nearby islands in search of seals and other food sources. They found that one island was thickly populated with rabbits, which eventually proved to be an easy source of meat and skins.

       As their second winter loomed, they built a sturdy sod-walled hut complete with a fireplace and chimney to see them through the coldest months. Then, on 21 May 1865, one year and ten days after being cast upon the island, a vessel dropped anchor in Ross Bay. It was the Portuguese ship Julian, which had pulled in for repairs while on a voyage from Macao to South America. The Julian’s captain had seen Endeby’s whaling station marked on his chart and had hoped to get some help repairing his badly leaking ship. All he found were the Invercauld’s three castaways. When the Julian set off for South America, Dalgarno, Smith, and Holding went with her.

    Main sources: The Castaways: A Narrative of the Wreck and Sufferings of the Officers and Crew of the Ship “Invercauld” of Aberdeen on the Auckland Islands by Andrew Smith, 1866; Captain Dalgarno’s letter to the ship’s owners published in the Birmingham Daily Post, 31 July 1865, p. 8; and A Narrative of the wreck of the “Invercauld” among the Auckland Islands by Captain Dalgarno in Wrecked on a Reef by Francois Raynal, 1874.

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

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blogs.

  • Bligh’s Epic Open-Boat Voyage

    The Mutineers turning Lieut. Bligh and part of the officers and crew adrift from his Majesty’s Ship the Bounty / painted and engraved by Robert Dodd, 1790 London

    On 28 April 1789, Lt William Bligh was startled awake by his first mate, Fletcher Christian, and several other HMS Bounty sailors threatening his life. He, along with 18 members of his crew who wanted nothing to do with the unfolding mutiny, would soon be unceremoniously herded into a launch and set adrift. So began one of the great open-boat voyages in maritime history.

       To say the launch was overcrowded is an understatement. Measuring 23 feet (7 metres) in length, there was room for just half those on board. But, in addition to Bligh and his men, space had to be made for their provisions.

       The mutineers allowed them 70 kg of sea biscuits, 10 kg of salted pork, seven litres of rum, six bottles of wine, and 130 litres of water. For navigation, they were provided with only a quadrant and a compass. Fletcher Christian would not allow them to take a chronometer or any of the charts. A few clothes were thrown into the launch at the last moment, as well as four cutlasses for personal protection should they be foolish enough to venture onto any of the neighbouring islands. Lastly, the carpenter was allowed to take his toolbox, and the ship’s clerk had collected some of Bligh’s papers and belongings, including the captain’s nautical almanac. With the launch so heavily weighed down, it was in imminent danger of being swamped.

     

    Portrait of William Bligh By Alexander Huey – National Library of Australia, Public

    As the Bounty sailed away, Bligh and the others found themselves adrift in the South Pacific Ocean, a very long way from the nearest European settlements. With no viable alternatives, Bligh convinced his men that they should make for the Dutch settlement of Kupang on Timor Island, some 3,500nm (7,000 km) away. But before they could set off on the long voyage, Blight felt they needed to add to their stores. At first glance, the provisions might seem bountiful, but shared among so many people, they would last little more than a week without strict rationing.

       Bligh made for the nearest land, Tofua Island, about 50 km away, to stock up on fresh produce. Initially, the Islanders seemed friendly and happy to trade. But after a couple of days, the mood inexplicably changed. Bligh and his men suddenly found themselves fleeing for their lives under a hail of hurled rocks. One man was felled on the beach, but the rest managed to get away in the launch.   

    But the assault continued. Rocks still rained down among them, thrown by islanders who pursued them in a canoe. Reprieve only came when the launch finally outdistanced the attackers. Bligh noted in his journal that almost all of them had been injured to some extent from the barrage of stones. But they had escaped, though at the cost of one life. Bligh then set a course west through the South Pacific Islands towards New Holland (Australia). He decided that they would not risk stopping anywhere else along the way.

    A page from William Bligh’s logbook. Courtesy State Library of NSW.

    Sacrifices had to be made if they were ever to make it to Timor. Spare clothes, ropes and anything else not essential were tossed overboard to lighten the load and make more room. Even so, conditions remained so cramped in the boat that no one had room to stretch out their legs. Those not seated on the thwarts had to find room where they could, often on the floor with their backsides in a few inches of water. The carpenter’s chest was emptied of tools so it could be filled with sea biscuits to keep them out of the water sloshing around in the bottom of the boat.

       Bligh organised the men into two watches as they sailed west-north-west towards the Fijian Islands and beyond. Beginning on 4 May, they were battered by a powerful storm with gale-force winds and high seas. Water poured into the boat, forcing the men to bail continuously to keep afloat. The storm raged until the following evening, when the weather eased off for a short while.

       Over the next several days and weeks, they passed through the Fijian Islands and then the islands of Vanuatu as they steadily made their way west. The nights were brutally cold, but there was little let-up in the weather, and they remained soaked to the skin for days on end. The only reprieve from their misery came in the form of a small daily ration of rum.

       Even though Bligh had no chart, he was able to compare his observations, when he could make them, with known landmarks recorded in his almanac. Though they passed close to several islands, there was no appetite to go ashore for food despite their growing hunger. Their experience on Tofua was still fresh in their minds.

    Route sailed by the Bounty’s launch. Courtesy Google Maps.

    They began bearing more westerly as they crossed the Coral Sea and weathered several more powerful squalls. Mountainous seas and torrential rain again kept them bailing as hard as they could to remain afloat.

       Then, on 24 May, they were bathed in full sunshine for the first time in nearly two weeks. Over the following few days, they caught several seabirds. The precious little meat was shared out evenly and eagerly eaten raw. The birds also offered hope of another sort, for they signalled that they were approaching the Australian mainland.

       On 28 May, they reached the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, clearly delineated by a line of breaking white surf. Bligh pointed the bow towards a gap in the reef, and everyone hung on as they raced through the narrow passage. Once through the coral jaws, they found themselves in calm water in the vicinity of Cape Melville. Bligh then bore north, remaining close to the inside of the reef in hopes that they might catch some fish to supplement their diet.

       A couple of days later, they stepped ashore on what Bligh would name Restitution Island. After being confined to the boat for so long, they were all barely able to walk. Nonetheless, a fire was started using Bligh’s magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays, and a stew of sea biscuit and salted pork was augmented by some berries, oysters and other shellfish foraged from their surroundings.

       After several days recuperating, they reboarded the boat and island-hopped north until they reached Torres Strait. They then headed west again across open seas until Bligh estimated they were off the southern coast of Timor Island. On 14 June 1789, they sailed into Kupang Harbour, 47 days after the Bounty mutineers cast them adrift. Bligh noted that they were “nothing but skin and bones; our limbs were full of sores; [and] we were clothed in rags.” But they had survived a voyage few would have thought possible.

       The Dutch authorities tended to the survivors and arranged passage back to England; however, five would never see home, dying in their weakened state, probably from malaria, a disease not well understood at the time.     Bligh arrived back in the United Kingdom in March 1790, not to a hero’s welcome but to face a court-martial to explain the loss of his ship. The Court exonerated him and the incident had no noticeable impact on his career. Bligh eventually rose to the rank of Vice Admiral before retiring. He also served a tumultuous two years as the Governor of New South Wales until officers of the NSW Corps deposed him, but that’s a story for another occasion.

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

    To be notified of future blogs, please enter your email address below.

  • The Wanderer and a Miraculous Rescue

    Schooner Wanderer. Painting by Oswald Brierly From the collections of the State Library of New South Wales, a128927.

    Far out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a seaman on board a small schooner thought his imagination was getting the better of him.     It was daybreak on 5 February 1850.   His ship, the 140-ton schooner Wanderer was en route from Sydney to San Francisco and still under storm canvas having just survived a powerful storm.  

    They had sailed from Sydney three months earlier and were slowly island-hopping across the Pacific.   The ship’s owner, Scottish entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd, was in no great hurry.   He was still licking his wounds after the spectacular failure of his grandiose enterprises centred around Boydtown at Twofold Bay (near present-day Eden on the NSW south coast).   He now hoped to turn his luck around on the booming California goldfields.     

    Most recently the Wanderer had departed Papeete in the Society Islands (French Polynesia) bound for Hawaii.  It was on this leg of their voyage that they weathered the cyclonic conditions and performed a miraculous rescue.

    Benjamin Boyd portrait. Source: Australian Town and Country Journal 29 Aug 1906 Page 28.

    The sailor reported that he thought he had glimpsed something bobbing in the mountainous seas even though they were hundreds of miles from land.   A man was sent aloft with a telescope and after a few minutes he called down that there was a whaleboat in distress several miles to windward.   The Wanderer bore down on the stricken craft and discovered it contained six occupants.     

    The seas were still running high and it was not until their third attempt that a line was got across to the boat.   The only words the men on the Wanderer could discern were plaintive cries for water.   Then all six passengers, three men, and three women were hauled across and safely got aboard the schooner, very lucky to be alive.

    It turned out the whaleboat belonged to Jose Davis, “a Brazilian man-of-colour”1 who had since resided in Hawaii for the past 17 years.   With his wife and four others, (all South Pacific Islanders) he had set off from Oahu nine days earlier intending to reach Maui.    They were only about 50kms from home when disaster struck.

    The whaleboat was caught in a severe storm that raged for days.   The sail was ripped to shreds and they lost their rudder during the tempest which made the whaleboat uncontrollable.   What’s more, the planking had sprung so they were also taking on water.    The boat drifted at the mercy of the wind and waves for nine days and it was ultimately pushed some 600kms south.   They had no drinking water and the only food Davis and his comrades had was a few pumpkins.  

    Map of the Pacific Ocean showing where the whaleboat was found.

    But Jose was not one to give up hope.   Once the weather abated, he planned to use the women’s dresses to make a new sail and then bear east towards the South American coast using the sun and stars to guide him.  

    With the new passengers on board and being cared for, the Wanderer continued north to Hawaii.   The whaleboat sank shortly after it was abandoned.   In time Jose and the others were landed at Maui to be reunited with their astonished and grateful families and friends who had since given them up for dead.

    The Wanderer continued on to San Francisco, but Boyd failed to strike it rich on the goldfields and decided to return to Australia.   On the homeward voyage, they stopped at Guadalcanal where he vanished while out hunting.   His body was never found.

    1.      Colonial Times, 31 May 1850, p. 4.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2022.

    Please enter your email address below to be notified of future blog posts.