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HMS ''Mermaid'' was a
In 1820 ''Mermaid'' grounded at Careening Bay, Kimberley, Western Australia; gotten off, she only reached Sydney with difficulty. A survey resulted in her condemnation for survey work and her sale in 1823 to the colonial government.
In September 1823 ''Mermaid'' carried
cutter
Cutter may refer to:
Tools
* Bolt cutter
* Box cutter, aka Stanley knife, a form of utility knife
* Cigar cutter
* Cookie cutter
* Glass cutter
* Meat cutter
* Milling cutter
* Paper cutter
* Side cutter
* Cutter, a type of hydraulic rescue to ...
built in Howrah
Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is th ...
, India, in 1816. The British Royal Navy purchased her at Port Jackson in 1817. The Navy then used her to survey the Australian coasts. In 1820 she grounded and in 1823 was condemned for survey work. The Navy sold her to the colonial government which used her to run errands until she was wrecked in 1829.
Career
''Mermaid'' was launched at Howrah in 1816 and the Royal Navy purchased her at Port Jackson in 1817. Phillip Parker King used her between December 1817 and December 1820 to survey parts of the Australian coast thatMatthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...
had not already surveyed.
King circumnavigated the Australian mainland and conducted a survey of the Inner Route through the Great Barrier Reef.
In 1820 ''Mermaid'' grounded at Careening Bay, Kimberley, Western Australia; gotten off, she only reached Sydney with difficulty. A survey resulted in her condemnation for survey work and her sale in 1823 to the colonial government.
In September 1823 ''Mermaid'' carried John Oxley
John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley (1784 – 25 May 1828)
was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of British colonisation. He served as Surveyor General of New South Wales and is perhaps best known for his two exp ...
as he explored the Queensland coast south of Port Curtis, discovering the Brisbane and Tweed rivers. At Moreton Bay he rescued Thomas Pamphlett
Thomas Pamphlett (1788?–1838), sometimes Pamphlet, also known as James Groom, was a convict in colonial Australia. He is best known for his time as a castaway in the Moreton Bay area, halfway up the eastern coast of Australia, in 1823. He was mar ...
and John Finnegan, who had been ship-wrecked earlier in the year.
In September 1825 ''Mermaid'' transported Edmund Lockyer to Moreton Bay so he could explore the upper reaches of the Brisbane River
The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Go ...
.
In August 1826 John Richardson travelled on ''Mermaid'' from Fort Dundas, on Melville Island, to Timor to obtain seeds.
Around 1829 the ship was rigged as a two-masted schooner
A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...
.
Loss
Captain Samuel Nolbrow and ''Mermaid'' departed Sydney on 16 May 1829, bound for Port Raffles with government dispatches and provisions for King George's Sound. She proceeded on the inner passage to Torres Straits. At 6 a.m. on 13 June she struck an uncharted reef on the southern side of Flora Reef, Queensland. (Nolbrow gave the location as at .) She bilged and her crew abandoned her that evening with no loss of life.Post-script
An underwater archaeology team led by the Australian National Maritime Museum in early 2009 rediscovered the wreck.See also
* King Expedition of 1817Citations and references
Citations References * * Nicholson, Ian Hawkins (1996) ''Via Torres Strait – A maritime history of the Torres Strait route and the ship's post office at Booby Island''. (Roebuck Society Publication No.48). *External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mermaid (1817), HMS Cutters of the Royal Navy Shipwrecks of Queensland Australian Shipwrecks with protected zone