NavList:

>
> Henry Halboth asked-
>
> "The subject of emergency navigation has several times come up in recent
> posts. I have long wondered if, by chance, anyone has any knowledge of the
> navigation performed by William Bligh after having been set adrift by the
> HMS Bounty mutineers. This was, after all one of the more famous historical
> small boat voyages. Is there any record of a journal having been kept
> detailing the navigation performed?"
>
> Yes, a transcript of Bligh's log from that remarkable voyage to Timor in
> Bounty's launch has been printed in "Bligh and the Bounty", ed. Laurence
> Irving, 1936, and perhaps elsewhere, more recently.
>
> The mutiny occurred in 1789, in the Tonga group of islands, over 2000 miles
> East of the Australian continent. Bligh decided to aim for the Dutch colony
> of Timor, the nearest European settlement downwind. The alternative of
> heading for the new convict settlement of Sydney might have been available,
> but Bligh had left England in 1787, and the first fleet didn't arrive in
> Sydney until 1788, so he wouldn't have known about it.
>
> Bligh had not been through that passage North of Queensland (or "New
> Holland") before, which he called Endeavour Straits (named  after Cook's
> first voyage) ,and which we know as Torres Strait. He had no chart; just in
> his mind the intended passage that way, in Bounty, now frustrated. He had a
> quadrant (= Hadley octant) and a compass, but without a chart they would be
> of limited use. His journal records precise latitudes, but his longitudes
> were by dead reckoning.
>
> Just after the mutiny, Bligh stopped at the Island of Tofua, where one of
> the crew was killed by natives;. That was the only death, from 19 on board,
> in the 41-day voyage, of 3,618 miles as measured with their improvised
> log-line. After that, he avoided landing in other Pacific Island groups that
> were passed. It was latitude sailing, really. Bligh aimed for a latitude in
> which he knew he would reach Queensland, if he could pass the Barrier Reef.
> Then, after island-hopping around the North tip of Queensland, living mainly
> on shellfish, he knew he would be in the right latitude to reach Timor. It
> was a great feat of chart-memory.
>
> What is so remarkable is that Bligh produced chart information that became
> useful to mariners and geographers, collected from his observations,
> carefully recorded over that hazardous voyage.
>
> George.
>
> contact George Huxtable at george@huxtable.u-net.com
> or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
> or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
>
>  
>
>
>
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