A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 2: Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schoonerFlinders, Matthew
History
A Voyage to Terra Australis — Volume 2: Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803, in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland schooner
Flinders, Matthew
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Voyages and travels
In order to re-establish the health of the ship's company, I contracted
for a regular supply of vegetables and fresh meat; and such was the
favourable change in the state of the colony in one year, that the meat,
pork one day and mutton another, was obtained at the average price of
10d. per pound, which before, if it could have been obtained, would have
cost nearly double the sum. On my application to the governor, the
commissary was ordered to supply us with two pipes of port wine; and a
pint was given daily to all those on board, as well as on shore, whose
debilitated health was judged by the surgeon to require it.
The arrangements being made which concerned the health of the ship's
company, I inclosed to the governor the report of the master and
carpenter upon the state of the ship when in the Gulph of Carpentaria;
and requested that he would appoint officers to make a survey of her
condition. A plank was ripped off all round, a little above the water's
edge; and on the 14th, the officers appointed by His Excellency made the
survey, and their report was as follows:
Pursuant to an order from His Excellency Philip Gidley King, esquire,
principal commander of His Majesty's ship Buffalo.
We whose names are hereunto subscribed, have been on board His Majesty's
ship Investigator, and taken a strict, careful, and minute survey of her
defects, the state of which we find to be as follows.
One plank immediately above the wales being ripped off all round the
ship, we began the examination on the larbord side forward; and out of
ninety-eight timbers we find eleven to be sound, so far as the ripping
off of one plank enables us to see into them, ten of which are amongst
the aftermost timbers. Sixty-three of the remaining timbers are so far
rotten as to make it necessary to shift them; and the remaining
twenty-four entirely rotten, and these are principally in the bow and the
middle of the ship.
On the starbord side forward we have minutely examined eighty-nine
timbers, out of which we find only five sound; fifty-six are so far
decayed as to require shifting, and the remaining twenty-eight are
entirely rotten. The sound timbers are in the after part of the ship, and
those totally decayed lie principally in the bow.
The stemson is so far decayed, principally in its outer part, as to make
it absolutely necessary to be shifted.
As far as we could examine under the counter, both plank and timbers are
rotten, and consequently necessary to be shifted.
We find generally, that the plank on both sides is so far decayed as to
require shifting, even had the timbers been sound.
The above being the state of the Investigator thus far, we think it
altogether unnecessary to make any further examination; being unanimously
of opinion that she is not worth repairing in any country, and that it is
impossible in this country to put her in a state fit for going to sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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