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Frank has wasted no time in getting to grips with the log of the Bounty
voyage, and that of the Reaper, and mapping them out for us. Commendable,
and useful, he has created the best map I've seen of the Bounty voyage.

Thanks for pointing-out of the website at www.fatefulvoyage.com , which was
quite new to me. Does anyone know who put that website together? It seems a
very competent job, but there's no name that I could find. Actually,
Internet Explorer failed on me whenever I tried to get in to that site, but
Firefox managed it successfully.

Besides the recently accessible CORRAL website, and that at
www.fatefulvoyage.com  there exist printed sources of information from the
Bounty log. It was transcribed in 1937, in 2 volumes, published by Golden
Cockerell press, in a limited edition of only 300 copies, which is probably
expensive now. More accessible is R M Bowker's "Mutiny", of 1978, which
includes a transcription of the "major part" of the original log. Bowker,
as a sailing man himself, wrote with some knowledge. And there exists a
facsimile edition available, which I haven't seen yet, published about 20
years ago.

Bligh was on a government-backed enterprise in a Royal Navy ship, to take a
consignment of breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies, for the
benefit of the British slave-owners as a source of cheap food for their
labourers. He was provided with the best, so it was in no way a typical
voyage at that early period. His timekeeper was K2, Kendall's  next product
after the successful creation of K1, which went with Cook.

The history of K2 is somewhat romantic. When Bligh was put into the boat,
K2 remained with the mutineers in the ship. It went to Tahiti, and then to
Pitcairn, where it was taken ashore. When a trading vessel happened to
call, in the early 19th century, the chronometer changed hands, and was
taken to South America by her American skipper. It then changed hands
several more times, eventually finding its way back to Britain, where it is
now on display at the National Maritime Museum, as also is K1 (and K3).

I have one suggestion. That map, being of nautical tracks, could be
improved, in my view, by being put on to a Mercator chart, which preserves
rhumb-line courses without distortion.

George.

contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.

   

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