Astrolabe (1811)
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The Astrolabe was a gabarre known as the Jules Dumont d'Urville's expedition ship .
It was built as a horse transporter at the shipyard in La Seyne-sur-Mer and named La Coquille on July 9, 1814 . She was later converted into an expedition ship by the French Navy and renamed Astrolabe in 1826 . The ship was named after a predecessor of the same name , the name is the French name for the navigation instrument astrolabe , a predecessor of the sextant .
Journey under Louis Isidore Duperrey
The circumnavigation of the world from 1822 to 1825 was under the command of Louis Isidore Duperrey . The first officer of the La Coquille was Jules Dumont d'Urville , ship's doctor and naturalist René-Primevère Lesson . In March 1825, Lesson and Dumont brought an impressive collection of animals and plants back to France. They had these on the Falkland Islands , on the coasts of Chile and Peru , on the archipelagos in the Pacific and in New Zealand , New Guinea and Australia .
During the voyage, the ship spent two weeks in the Bay of Islands on New Zealand's North Island in 1824 . On the return journey to France, the ship sailed through the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu ).
First trip under Jules Dumont d'Urville
1826 was La Coquille in honor of one of the ships of La Perouse in Astrolabe renamed. On April 22, 1826, she ran from Toulon towards the Pacific for a three-year circumnavigation of the world.
The Astrolabe explored parts of New Zealand. In January 1827, d'Urville arrived in Tasman Bay in the north of the South Island . A number of geographic features around the bay have been named after d'Urville and his crew, including D'Urville Island , French Pass, and Torrent Bay . D'Urville then sailed the east coast of the North Island. On March 12, 1827 the Astrolabe drove back into the Bay of Islands .
The astrolabe then visited Fiji , after which d'Urville drew the first relief maps of the Loyalty Islands (part of the French New Caledonia ) and explored the coasts of New Guinea . He confirmed the coordinates of La Pérouse's shipwreck in Vanikoro (one of the Santa Cruz Islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago ) and collected numerous remains of his boats. The journey continued with the creation of maps of parts of the Caroline Islands and the Moluccas . The astrolabe returned to Marseille on March 25, 1829 .
Second trip under Jules Dumont d'Urville
Dumont d'Urville wanted to explore the Pacific further. However, King Louis-Philippe ordered that the next expedition should lead to the Magnetic South Pole and that it should be taken over for France. If that was not possible, Dumont's expedition would cross the southernmost point of 74 ° 34 ′ S, which James Weddell had reached in 1823. So France became part of the international competition in polar research. The Astrolabe and the Zélée left Toulon on September 7, 1837.
After reaching the South Orkney Islands , the ship went to the South Shetland Islands and the Bransfield Strait . In spite of the thick fog, land was seen that had previously only been inaccurately sketched on the maps. Dumont d'Urville named "Terre de Louis-Philippe" (today Graham Land ), the Joinville Islands and Rosamel Island (today Andersson Island ). Since most of the crew suffered from scurvy , d'Urville accepted in late February 1838 that a further advance south was impossible. He further doubted that Weddell had actually reached the coordinates he had given. So he went to Talcahuano in Chile, where he set up a temporary hospital for those suffering from scurvy.
The ships then went to the Marquesas and then to Hobart in Australia. The expedition followed the coast of Antarctica and carried out experiments to determine the approximate location of the south magnetic pole. They sighted the porpoise of the United States Exploring Expedition under Charles Wilkes . However, he made an evasive maneuver and disappeared into the fog. On February 1, 1840, d'Urville decided to return to Hobart, which the ships reached 17 days later. They were there when the two ships of James Ross's Antarctic expedition arrived.
On February 25, 1840, the ships headed for Auckland Islands , where measurements of the earth's magnetic field were made. The expedition returned to Toulon via New Zealand, the Torres Strait , Timor , Réunion , Saint Helena , where they arrived on November 6, 1840.
Aftermath
The Astrolabe Subglacial Basin , the Astrolabe Glacier , the Astrolabe Needle , Astrolabe Island in Antarctica as well as the Great Astrolabe Reef (off Kadavu in Fiji) and the Astrolabe Reef in New Zealand bear the name of the ship.
The crew of the Astrolabe extracts drinking water from an iceberg, February 6, 1838.
The Astrolabe and Zélée stranded in the South Sea
Astrolabe in Anna Maria Bay
literature
- René-Primevère Alan Lesson : Notice historique sur l'amiral Dumont d'Urville . Imprimerie de Henry Loustau , Rochefort 1845 (French).
- Camille Lustiol : Dumont d'Urville. La grande legend de la mer . La Renaissance Du Livre , 1930 (French).
- Jacques Guillon : Dumont d'Urville 1790-1842 La Vénus de Milo Les épaves de Lapérouse L'Antarctique et la Terre Adélie . France-Empire , Paris 1970 (French).
- Alan Gurney : The race to the white continent . WW Norton & Company , New York 2000, ISBN 0-393-05004-1 , pp. 320 (English).
Web links
- Jules-Sebastien-Cesar Dumont d'Urville . 1790-1842. south-pole.com,accessed January 5, 2007.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Coquille . My Ancestor's Story.com , archived from the original on November 10, 2013 ; accessed on August 25, 2019 (English, original website no longer available).
- ^ Chambers, Keith S. and Munro, Doug: The Mystery of Gran Cocal: European Discovery and Mis-Discovery in Tuvalu . In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society . 89, No. 2, 1980, pp. 167-198.
- ↑ http://www.theprow.org.nz/d-urville-s-tasman-bay-odyssey/#.UPmE0B2R-So
- ↑ Astrolabe . In: Early shipping in New Zealand waters . Retrieved November 10, 2013.