French ship Astrolabe (1781)
| Career (France) | French Navy Ensign |
|---|---|
| Namesake: | Astrolabe instrument |
| Builder: | Le Havre |
| Launched: | 1781 |
| Christened: | Autruche |
| Reclassified: | Frigate in 1784 |
| Fate: | wrecked on Vanikoro 1788 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Fluyt |
| Displacement: | c. 500 tonnes |
| Length: | 38.7 metres |
| Beam: | 8.5 m |
| Draught: | 5 m |
| Propulsion: | Sail |
| Complement: |
10 officers |
| Armament: | 6 to 20 6-pounders |
| Armour: | Timber |
The Astrolabe was a converted fluyt of the French Navy, famous for her travels with Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse.
She departed Brest on 1 August 1785 under Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle, along with the Boussole under La Pérouse.
Disappearance
The expedition vanished mysteriously in 1788 after leaving Botany Bay on 10 March 1788. The fate of the expedition was eventually solved by Captain Peter Dillon in 1827 when he found remnants of the ships the Astrolable and the Boussole at Vanikoro Island in the New Hebrides. The ships had been wrecked in a storm.
Survivors from one ship had been massacred while survivors from the other ship had constructed their own small boat and sailed off the island, never to be heard from again. [1]
Note
Its crew included French priest Louis Receveur the first Catholic and second non-indigenous person to be buried in Australia.
References
- ↑ Australian Shipwrecks - vol1 1622-1850, Charles Bateson, AH and AW Reed, Sydney, 1972, ISBN 0 589 07112 2 p24
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