How Captain Bligh Helped 1941 Navigator

Northern Advocate, 19 November 1941, Page 4

How Captain Bligh Helped 1941 Navigator

I When Captain Bligh, of the ship ' Bounty, wrote the log of his voyI age in an open boat from Tahiti to Timor, in 1789, he helped another 1 mariner similarly situated in 1941. The Bounty had been to Tahiti for a [cargo of bread fruit, on the food value of which Dampier had reported in ! 1638 and Cook in 1770, for ihterested merchants in the West Indies and the j botanists of Kew Gardens, London. The I return voyage had hardly begun when ; the crew mutinied and cast off Bligh and 13 others who remained loyal to him in an open boat which Bligh sailed 3618 nautical miles in 47 days tc | Timor with only one casualty on the | way. j Bligh became the hero of a lad who 1 lived in Toorak, a suburb of Mel- | bourne, and he not only poured over I his log but he built a model of the Bounty. Then he joined the navy, and j on his way to a post in the British liner Britannia he studied the log again. In March of this year the Britannia was in the South Atlantic and was sunk by a German raider. Eighty-two survivors found themselves afloat in a lifeboat built to hold 50, and the 21-ycars-old sub-lieutenant from Melbourne (his name is withheld because he does not wish publicity) was asked to take charge because he knew more of navigation than anyone else aboard. Hints From Log Plere was where Bligh stretched out a hand across the 150 years intervening, for he included in his log many useful hints. For instance, when the Bounty men were drenched with rain he insisted that they dip their shirts in salt water before they wrung them out and put them on again to prevent chills from the fresh water, adding: “I advise all others who find themselves in similar circumstances carefully to follow this advice” The land nearest to the Britannia’s men was Africa, and they wanted tc make for it, but the young naval man decided that as the prevailing winds and currents would be against them they would have a better chance il they sailed for South America. 1535 Miles It might take about a fortnight, he thought, but because of a risk ol' being becalmed in the doldrums, he ordered that rations should be divided to last a month. When the boat landed at Curupu, an island off the coast of Brazil, 23 days later, after having sailed 1535 miles, j it was found he had been only two degrees out in his course. Daily rations were one ship’s biscuit, a lick of condensed milk—a smudge from a spoon on each one’s hand —and an eggeup of water, later increased to about as much as a sherry glass would hold. A storm they regarded as a blessing, for it enabled them to wash out the sail and use it as a drain-pipe to replenish their water tank. It also enabled them to have their first real drink. The sub-lieutenant—he had his 22nd birthday in October and cabled to say he had become engaged to an English girl—makes no mention of the horrors of the 44 men dying in the course of the voyage. Only five of those who perished were Europeans. The rest were natives. But there were a few terrible incidents mentioned. Two Hindus drank salt water and jumped overboard. The others were too weak to rescue them. An Englishman screamed deliriously for his wife till he died. By the end of the second week, many were out of their minds. Near the end of the terrible trip, the Melbourne officer had enough strength of will to forbid any rash attempts at a landing. There was a wild surf and he did not want to risk the boat in the oncoming darkness. So they coasted during the night and landed next day at low tide. )