Hello all -
Happy Sunday!
Imagine you’re 12,000 miles from home. You have no communications, no backup. You’re on the high seas with no engine, just sailcloth and temperamental winds to drive you. Even your maps are vague, incomplete and sometimes completely wrong. There’s a massive land mass somewhere nearby about the size of Europe, but you can’t find it!*
You’re at sea for weeks without sight of land. Your food supply is limited (and pretty disgusting at that). Your living quarters are cramped and the threat of mortal disease lurks around every corner. Sound like fun?
That was life for the 18th-century European voyagers who literally threw caution to the wind in the pursuit of mapping the world, documenting natural history, searching for prosperous trade routes and, above all, hoping to lay claim to new lands for colonial expansion.
This Thursday marks the 258th anniversary, 22 August 1766, of the departure of Samuel Wallis and Philip Carteret, captains of the Royal Navy, from Plymouth in their respective ships HMS’s Dolphin and Swallow. Their mission - to discover Terra Australis Incognita, the unknown Southern land that ‘must’ have existed to balance out the land mass of the North.
The Dutch had discovered some parts of this land 100 years earlier. However, Abel Tasman, Dirk Hartog and their compatriots focused more on seeking new trade routes than scientific exploration. Only when you’ve mapped a complete land mass can you confirm it isn’t just a collection of islands.
Wallis and Carteret became the first Europeans to find Tahiti, but they failed to debunk the mystery of Terra Australis Incognita.
That honour fell to Captain James Cook exactly four years later. He departed from Plymouth on the HMS Endeavour in August 1768 to map what we now know as the east coast of Australia.
I recently finished the book Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage by Australian author Geoffrey Blainey. It paints a vivid picture of Cook’s voyage and challenges even the most indifferent souls to become energised about the lives and times of these extraordinary explorers.
On Cook’s leg from Botany Bay heading North, he looked to make quicker progress by sailing through the Great Barrier Reef at night. It was a rare miscalculation, and the ship hit the reef (a spot today known as Endeavour Reef).
Badly holed below the waterline, the Endeavour limped towards mainland Australia. In danger of sinking at any moment, Cook identified a suitable estuary (unmapped, of course) where he could run the boat aground to carry out repairs.
Hang on a minute. You’re on the other side of the world; no cranes, no dry dock, no extra manpower. The ship, your only means of returning home, has a gigantic hole in its hull below the waterline. What to do?
Cook and his men spent six weeks grounded on the Endeavour River. To patch the hull, he employed the most extraordinary technique: careening.
As the tide receded, the ship lay over to one side, allowing repairs to the exposed area of the hull. Once completed, the ship refloated on the next available tide.
As the following low tide approached, the crew attached ropes from mastheads to fixed points onshore. The ship then dutifully lay down on its opposite side to allow repairs to the remainder of the hull. Once completed, one more high tide and they were back afloat. Extraordinary.
726 days after departing from Plymouth, the HMS Endeavour reached Possession Island on the north tip of the Australian continent. Here, Cook claimed the East Coast of Australia for Britain (let’s save thoughts about the idea of ‘claiming’ other people’s lands for another day). That date is also marked this Thursday, 22 August 1770.
*Interesting fact: Australia is wider than the moon; 4,000km v 3,400km.
Latest podcast episode…
Episode 42. Battling the Breeze in the 2003 America’s Cup
On 22 August 1851, exactly 81 years ago after Captain Cook’s official claim on Australia, the schooner America won a yacht race around the Isle of Wight. Presenting the Royal Yacht Squadron’s £100 Cup, Queen Victoria asked who came second and was told, “There is no second, ma’am.”
As it transpired, that race became the first in a series of challenges still fought today, rivalling any sporting competition in the world - The America’s Cup (named after the boat, not the country).
With the preliminaries for the 37th America’s Cup starting on Thursday in Barcelona, my thoughts turned to a recent conversation with an old rugby mate, Simon Fry. He had participated in the 31st America’s Cup contest in Auckland, New Zealand (2003) with the GBR Challenge team; downwind trimmer by day and head of the sail program at all other times.
It was a fascinating insight into the world of elite professional sailing and highlighted the madness that is today’s America’s Cup.
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music or just about any other podcast player of your choice. Check out the 42. Battling the Breeze in the 2003 America's Cup for the links and transcript to learn more.
My favourite quotes from the episode...
You can have all the budget in the world. You’ve got 300 million, but you’ve got 18 months - the same as every other team. Well, if you can’t spend that money wisely and apportion your time appropriately, you’re not gonna win anything. The only thing in life you can’t buy is time.
I think in any high-end sport, people will always tread a very, very thin line on what is perceived to be legal and illegal. And if you ever said to any of the people who are treading that slightly sketchy line, “You’re cheating”, they would be offended. And that’s the craziness of the America’s Cup.
Dates with History...
Tomorrow...
750 years ago tomorrow, 19 August 1274, Edward I was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. It was two years since he had taken the crown as he had been away fighting in the 9th Crusade. Edward ‘Longshanks’ was the Hammer of the Scots and scourge of the Welsh, as the 17 castles he built in the north of Wales stand to testify. Many of these castles are still in fine condition today; Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris, Harlech.
Wednesday….
Vincenzo Peruggia was born in 1881 in the modest comune of Dumenza, northern Italy, close to the Swiss border. Before August 1911, few people had heard of Dumenza. No one had heard of Peruggia. But all that was about to change.
Vincenzo moved to Paris in 1908 and secured a job at the Louvre Museum. The Louvre, with its iconic glass pyramid entrance, has been prominent on our televisions for the last few weeks, providing a glorious backdrop for the Paris Olympic Games.
It was also prominent 113 years ago this Wednesday, 21 August 1911. That night, Vincenzo walked out of a side entrance of the Louvre with Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa rolled up inside his trousers.
Two years later, he was caught and imprisoned, having tried to sell the master to an unsurprisingly suspicious art dealer. A short stint in prison and a period in the Italian Army during World War I followed. Peruggia lived out the rest of his life back in Paris as a modest painter and decorator. He died on his 44th birthday from a heart attack.
This was the first and last time the Mona Lisa was ever stolen.
Captain Cook’s 1768-71 expedition to the antipodes opened the way for Arthur Phillip to sail into Botany Bay in 1788. On board was the first shipment of 800 convicts to relieve Britain’s overcrowded prisons. (Sound familiar?)
It wasn’t until 1803 that Hobart Town, on the Southern Australian island of Tasmania, became a penal colony to relieve the prisons in New South Wales. On the back of this industry, Hobart achieved City status just under 40 years later, on 21 August 1842, remembered this Wednesday.
The French were inspired by the British practice of sending convicts as far from home as possible. They also set up penal colonies abroad, the most infamous of which was Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana in 1852. I learned about Devil’s Island from one of my stand-out childhood reads, Papillon, by Henri Charriere.
The cruelty and high mortality on the Island attracted huge international condemnation. The penal colony was eventually closed down 71 years ago this Thursday, 22 August 1953.
By the way...
84 years ago today, 18 August 1940, the RAF experienced The Hardest Day in the Battle of Britain against Hitler’s Luftwaffe. The Germans attempted to suppress British air defences to soften the path for the planned invasion, but the RAF stood defiantly in their way. At the end of that day, 137 planes had been destroyed, tit for tat. The Luftwaffe had launched 850 sorties. The RAF responded with over 900 sorties but with only a quarter of the aircrew. This was a monumental effort.
Two days later, 20 August 1940, Winston Churchill rose in the House of Commons to deliver these timeless words:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Question of the week...
This week, on 24 August AD 79, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, not far from today’s city of Naples in Italy, was buried under a deluge of volcanic ash from which volcano?(answer at bottom of newsletter)
And finally...
Miriam Margolyse is a one-off; Actress, author, raconteur, octogenarian. Half British, half Australian, half Jewish, half posh-bird, half mother-earth and one hundred per cent lesbian. She is as hilarious as she is crude - she might say “unapologetically candid”.
Behind her unfiltered front end, Miriam is warm, funny, very intelligent, and thoughtful. She has a knack for extracting the deepest thoughts from those she speaks to.
Last week, I watched an episode of her latest exploits in Australia. She was speaking to a black hairdresser living in Perth who had developed coping mechanisms for the prejudice that often follows people of colour in white-dominated parts of the world.
Margolyse was fascinated by her blue-dyed hair. The hairdresser picked up on this interest and said:
My blue-dyed hair causes quite a stir. By the time they realise I’m black, it’s too late.
Profound and right out of the blue!
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Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!
Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.
Answer to Question of the week: Mount Vesuvius. The buildings, artefacts and bodies that were preserved by the ash continue to provide unique insights into Roman architecture and general living from that time. The volcano last erupted towards the end of World War II in 1944 but is still closely monitored.
NEXT WEEK'S BREEZER
Ashes to ashes, ducks to ducks
LAST WEEK'S BREEZER
Cars, Cautionary Tales and Bridget Driscoll
Attribution (cover page): Captain Cook at Possession Island: Samuel Calvert (1828-1913), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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