Sextant by David Barrie

Author:David Barrie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062279361
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Flinders—Shipwreck and Captivity

Day 14: A grey dawn but still a fair wind and making 5 knots. Colin announced that we were halfway. The bread from Halifax has now turned almost entirely green so breakfast was scrambled eggs mixed with the remaining edible crumbs—surprisingly good. Seas still pretty lumpy so we stayed under No. 1 stays’l. Barometer still falling.

Colin complimented me on my sextant work today and let me do the mer alt and noon fix on my own: 44°23' N, 30°36' W.

Depression came through in afternoon. Low cloud, wind going round into SW and then rain and strong squalls as the warm front moved through. Force 6 to 7 but it quickly kicked up an uncomfortable sea. Wind later veered to W and started to ease though skies still thick with cloud. Finally, during the night, the wind veered to N.

During night Colin and I were up and down making several sail changes. Little sleep.

Having recovered his strength, and consulted the governor—Philip Gidley King (1758–1808)—Flinders set sail again in August 1803 aboard the small armed vessel Porpoise, in the hope of obtaining a new survey ship when he reached England, no suitable vessel being available in Port Jackson. The Porpoise was accompanied by two larger ships, both merchantmen—the Cato and the Bridgewater. On the way Flinders planned to extend his earlier examination of the Torres Strait and also to demonstrate that this route was reasonably safe by leading the two other ships through it. But luck was not on Flinders’s side. Long before they reached the Torres Strait, the Porpoise and the Cato were wrecked on an isolated and uncharted coral reef lying several hundred miles off the coast of Queensland. As Flinders was technically a passenger, he was not called when, during the night, breakers were seen ahead. By the time he reached the deck it was too late to save the ship:

On going up, I found the sails shaking in the wind, and the ship in the act of paying off; at the same time there were very high breakers at not a quarter of a cable’s length [150 feet] to leeward. In about a minute, the ship was carried amongst the breakers; and striking upon a coral reef, took a fearful heel over on her larboard beam ends. . . .

Our fore mast was carried away at the second or third shock; and the bottom was presently reported to be stove in, and the hold full of water. When the surfs permitted us to look to windward, the Bridgewater and the Cato were perceived at not more than cable’s length distance [200 yards]; and approaching each other so closely that their running abord [sic] seemed to us inevitable. This was an aweful moment: the utmost silence prevailed; and when the bows of the two ships went to meet, even respiration seemed suspended. The ships advanced, and we expected to hear the dreadful crash; but presently they opened off from each other, having passed side by side without touching.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.