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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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