Routes of the HMS Investigator during the exploration of Flinders (red)
The Investigator was built as a coal freighter in Sunderland in 1795 and was used under the name Fram in north-east England until 1798 for appropriate transports. It was bought by the British Royal Navy around 1798 . After extensive reconstruction, it was armed with 22 cannons and put into service as a small escort ship or sloop under the name Xenophon . As a result of the subsequent and improvised conversion, in which the gun ports were cut, the ship had several structural weak points and leaked chronically in certain places. In 1801 it was rebuilt again, converted for a larger expedition and named Investigator . On January 25, 1801, Lieutenant Matthew Flinders took command and made his famous voyages with the ship, where he sailed around Australia completely for the first time. Finally, was investigator in such a miserable state that they are in Port Jackson ( Sydney had to be made) out of service. After some major repairs and rebuilding, however, it was able to return to England in 1805 and remained in service until 1810. Then she was sold and served again as a merchant ship under the name Xenophon until 1853 . The last change in ownership was recorded around 1868. In 1872 the ship was finally scrapped in Melbourne .
literature
A Voyage to Terra Australis, with an accompanying Atlas . 2 volumes. - London: G&W Nicol, July 18, 1814 (one day before Flinder's death) picture text
Matthew Flinders: The first circumnavigation of Australia. After the first German edition by Ferdinand Götze, re-edited by Wolf-Dieter Grün.– Stuttgart: Edition Erdmann 1984. - ISBN 3-86503-217-6 . (further shortened compared to the original, only added in a few places after the English original edition)
Sidney J. Baker: My Own Destroyer: a biography of Matthew Flinders, explorer and navigator . - Sydney: Currawong Publishing Company, 1962
KA Austin: The Voyage of the Investigator, 1801-1803, Commander Matthew Flinders, RN - Adelaide: Rigby Limited, 1964
Trivia
The comic -Magazine mosaic treated from issue 430 (10/2011), the fictional adventures of Abrafaxe during the circumnavigation of Australia on the investigator with Matthew Flinders.
