Wrecks Reefs and Guano
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In about a minute, the ship was carried amongst the breakers; wrecks and and striking upon a coral head, took a fearful heel over onto reefs guano her larboard beam ends The Australian National On 17 August 1803 the great navigator On the evening of 17 August the convoy and charter of the Australian continent, was under reduced sail after sighting Maritime Museum has Captain Matthew Flinders RN, was some reefs and a sand cay in uncharted completed a second successful shipwrecked on an isolated, uncharted waters that afternoon. Porpoise was in the collaborative project with the coral reef off Australia’s east coast, while lead, Cato on its port stern quarter and returning to England with the precious, Bridgewater on the starboard. The watch Silentworld Foundation as yet unpublished charts, journals and on Porpoise sighted breakers but the ship, – an archaeological expedition manuscripts of his epic Australian unable to come around under reefed in tropical waters to learn more voyages. Wreck Reefs, which gained their topsails, struck the southern edge of a reef name from the loss of the ship that was and was driven up onto its platform by about the site of Matthew carrying Flinders – HMS Porpoise, and an the prevailing weather. Flinders’ dramatic shipwreck accompanying merchant ship Cato – are a group of low-lying coral reefs and sand …In about a minute, the ship was carried during his historic survey cays 18 nautical miles (25 kilometres) long amongst the breakers; and striking upon of the Australian continent. and lying 230 nautical miles (450 a coral head, took a fearful heel over onto This account comes from kilometres) east of Gladstone, Queensland. her larboard beam ends, her head being Flinders had not yet fully completed north-eastward… When the surfs permitted expedition leader and museum the survey of Australian coasts that had us to look to windward the Bridgewater curator and maritime been entrusted to him by the Lords and the Cato were perceived at not more of the Admiralty. His previous ship than a cable’s length distance; and archaeologist Kieran Hosty. HMS Investigator – on which he had approaching each other so closely, circumnavigated the continent and done that their running abord seemed masterful survey work – had become to us inevitable… perilously rotten and was unfit for further Matthew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, voyaging. No suitable replacement was London 1814 available in the colony, so he was returning to England to seek another Cato’s Captain Park, seeing Porpoise go up expedition ship. To get there, Governor onto the reef, had tacked to the east at the King had assigned him HMS Porpoise, same time Bridgewater tacked to the west, a 308-ton Spanish-built vessel captured by putting both vessels on a collision course. the Royal Navy in 1799 and commissioned Park ordered Cato to come off the wind, as a 10-gun sloop. Her master was but while this averted collision it resulted Lt Robert Fowler. His orders were to allow in further disaster, as Flinders relates: Flinders whatever time he needed to chart Torres Strait, and then to carry him to …the Cato struck upon the reef about two England by Flinders’ preferred route. cables length from the Porpoise, we saw On 10 August 1803 Porpoise left her fall over her broad side and the masts Sydney in company with two other ships. almost instantly disappeared… The 430-ton, English armed merchant ship Cato, John Park master, was bound Porpoise lay with its hull facing towards for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. the wind and seas, protecting the decks With them sailed a 750-ton, 32-gun and offering shelter to the crew and left: Toni Massey from Flinders University, SA, East India Company Extra Ship passengers on board. The Cato, however, inspecting an old Admiralty long-shank anchor, one of three bower anchors carried by HMS Porpoise. Bridgewater, master E H Palmer, bound turned side-on to the surf and rolled into for Calcutta. Taking the outer route the direction of the prevailing wind, top: A Brown-face Boobie and its chick on Porpoise Cay, Wreck Reefs. All expedition photography by around the Great Barrier Reef, the three exposing the decks to the pounding Xanthe Rivett vessels travelled in convoy. waves. The vessel quickly began to break 2 SIGNALS 90 MARCH TO MAY 2010 SIGNALS 90 MARCH TO MAY 2010 3 up and by morning had almost mile journey in 12½ days, another of those disappeared, with just the bow and amazing open-boat ocean passages that foremast chains exposed above the surf. the resolute sailors of those days seemed Three crew had drowned. to undertake quite routinely, when the The East India Company ship necessity arose! Bridgewater missed the reefs and Captain For six weeks the rest of the survivors, Palmer made what some would call a half- under the command of Porpoise’s Fowler, hearted attempt to work back to subsisted on Porpoise Cay. With them windward to the reefs, to determine the was Flinders’ brother Samuel, a capable fate of the wrecked ships and their people. navigator who had accompanied the Instead of coming to their aid Palmer explorer to Australia, and who spent some continued to his destination India, where of his time accurately plotting the location some of the crew left the ship in protest of Wreck Reefs. Naval discipline prevailed over his actions. But fate had not finished and the men salvaged what they could with Palmer; Bridgewater disappeared from the two wrecks and began work with the captain and his remaining crew constructing two small, ‘rakish schooners’ on its very next voyage, somewhere in the from timbers salvaged from the wrecks. Indian Ocean. They completed one, which they named Before dark, five Back on Wreck Reefs, 18 August Resource, and used it to visit Bird Islet, the dawned with slightly more hope than the eastern-most cay in the group and a rich hogsheads of water, preceding desperate night. In the words of dietary source of sea-birds and eggs. some four of salt meat, Flinders, who was the senior naval officer Fortunately for the survivors it was not and quickly took charge of the survivors: the cyclone season, since a strong tropical rice and spirits were cyclone would have swept them from the landed, with such of the … with the daylight appeared a dry sand low sand cay. Instead, on 7 October, they bank, not more than half a mile distant, used their salvaged carronades to fire pigs and sheep as had sufficiently large to receive us all with a salute to Flinders who had returned what provisions might be got out of the to rescue them with not one but three escaped drowning ship … At low water, which happened ships – the merchant ship Rolla and two about two o’clock, the reef was dry very colonial schooners, Francis and near to Porpoise, and both officers and Cumberland! Flinders called this men were assiduously employed in getting triumphal return ‘one of the happiest upon it provisions and their clothes … moments of my life’. before dark, five hogsheads of water, In Port Jackson the resourceful some four of salt meat, rice and spirits Flinders had secured the help of Governor were landed, with such of the pigs and King to contract the visiting merchant sheep as had escaped drowning … ship Rolla, bound for Canton, to sail via Wreck Reefs and rescue some of the Of equal or greater concern to Flinders shipwrecked men. Others would return were the precious charts, journals and to Port Jackson on the Francis, a small notes from his surveys in HMS schooner that was one of the first sea- Investigator, most of which he salvaged going ships built in the colony. The third although some were water-damaged. rescue vessel was the government Most of the Australian botanical schooner Cumberland, launched in Port specimens he was carrying back Jackson in 1801. Flinders had obtained to England were lost. The crews from both Cumberland to continue his voyage vessels set up camp on the small sand through Torres Strait to England. island that they named Porpoise Cay, The officers and crew ofPorpoise and erecting tents from spars and sails. Cato were distributed among the flotilla. On Friday 26 August, leaving his Rolla sailed on to China, Francis and the Australian survey charts sealed in boxes ‘rakish schooner’ Resource built on on Porpoise Cay, Flinders set sail for Port Porpoise Cay by the survivors returned to Jackson in the largest of the surviving Port Jackson, while Cumberland sailed for above: Matthew Flinders, lithograph, 1814. ANMM collection ship’s cutters, which they renamed Hope. England under the command of Matthew It carried three short, demountable masts Flinders, carrying most of his Australian opposite top: The survivors’ encampment on Porpoise Cay in 1803, with the hull of the wrecked and lugsails. With him were Captain Park survey materials. But unfortunately for HMS Porpoise on the reef at the left. Engraving of Cato and a dozen sailors – enough to him war had broken out between France by I Pye, based on the drawing by expedition artist provide two watches to man the six oars and England and when Flinders arrived William Westall, from Matthew Flinders’ A Voyage to Terra Australis, G & W Nicol, London 1814 when the wind failed or was adverse – in Mauritius in December 1803 he was plus three weeks’ provisions and two half detained as a spy by the island’s right: A school of Blue Parrotfish, also known as Mini-fin Parrotfish, on the southern edge hogsheads of water.