HMS Pandora (1779)
 The wrecked Pandora
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The HMS Pandora was a 24 gun-carrying frigate of Porcupine class , which in 1790 by the British Admiralty under the command of Captain Edward Edwards was sent to the mutineers of the Bounty to capture.
Find the Bounty
The Pandora left in November 1790 England, rounded Cape Horn , sailed into the Pacific and passed out of sight and without that Edwards knew this, the island of Pitcairn , the refuge is not based on Tahiti remaining Bounty -Meuterer. On March 16, 1791, Edwards mapped the Ducie Atoll, located about five hundred kilometers east of Pitcairn .
The Pandora reached Tahiti on March 23, 1791. No sooner had the ship anchored in Matavai Bay than three crew members of the Bounty (Peter Heywood, George Stewart and Joseph Coleman) volunteered on board. Edwards had her arrested immediately. Meanwhile, the ship's carpenter, built as a prison for the mutineers on the aft deck a 3.4 x 5.5 meter (11 x 18 ft) wide, massive shelter from the team following the Pandora's box called "Pandora's Box".
That same day, with the help of the local chiefs, Captain Edwards began looking for the rest of the Bounty's crew . In view of the British warship, some had fled into the mountains, others had sailed the day before to Papara on the south coast of Tahiti in a self-built boat. After two weeks, all the mutineers remaining on Tahiti were captured. Edwards could only learn about the fate of the Bounty and the other nine crew members that Fletcher Christian and eight others had sailed away to an unknown destination.
Edwards had the Pandora overhauled and supplied with provisions, on May 8, 1791, he lifted the anchor and went in search of the Bounty without the slightest hint of where the ship might be. The Pandora crossed the South Seas for three months , passed the Cook Islands , Tokelau , Samoa , Wallis and Futuna . In Palmerston, Cook Islands, a dinghy was drifted away and several crew members were likely killed. Since the search was concentrated on the more frequented western Pacific, the Bounty and its crew were not found in their hiding place on the island of Pitcairn, which is far to the east and incorrectly marked on nautical maps .
Return journey and sinking
In early August, Edwards sailed from Samoa to the Endeavor Strait , the strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea , to return to England. The Endeavor Strait was largely unexplored and poorly mapped. Edwards therefore had to look for a fairway through the Great Barrier Reef . On the evening of August 29, 1791, the Pandora ran onto a coral reef and took water so quickly that the crew could do little with the pumps. Edwards therefore had the boats deployed. The Bounty -Meuterer Coleman, McIntosh and Norman, the Captain Bligh had described as innocent, were freed from their prison, and the rest were tied up in "Pandora's Box".
Towards morning the ship had sunk so far that the upper deck was only partially above water. Ten prisoners, contrary to Edwards' orders, were freed from the Pandora crew at the last minute. Skinner, Sumner, Stewart, and Hillbrant drowned.
Of the ship's crew, 31 sailors drowned and 89, including Captain Edwards, rescued. With the Pandora's four open dinghies , they crossed the barrier reef and reached the York Peninsula . Then they made their way to the Dutch colony of Timor , where they arrived on September 16, 1791 after an adventurous journey of over 1,000 miles. As passengers of the Dutch East Indiaman , Captain Edwards, the healthy crew members and the ten surviving Bounty mutineers returned to England via intermediate stops in Batavia and Cape Town .
The Pandora today
In November 1977 the wreck was discovered by a Lockheed P-3 of the Royal Australian Air Force during a patrol flight. The ship is moored on the outer part of the barrier reef, about 120 kilometers east of Cape York in Queensland , Australia. The Queensland Museum conducted an archaeological survey that unequivocally identified the Pandora wreck . Apparently the ship sank to the starboard side and was partially covered with sand. The silted up parts were largely preserved.
In 1979 the wreck was placed under protection and a protection zone was established. Between 1983 and 1999 there were a total of nine archaeological expeditions carried out by the Queensland Museum, South Bank, Brisbane , which unearthed many relics. Some of them are on display in the museum in Brisbane. For reasons of cost and archeological inextricacy, it is unlikely that the remains of Pandora will be completely excavated .
literature
- John McKay, Ron Coleman: The 24-Gun Frigate Pandora. Conway Maritime Press 1992.
Web links
- Website Queensland Museum about the HMS Pandora (Engl.)
- Website Dead Man Secrets (Engl.) For DNA analysis of skeletons found
Footnotes
- ↑ John Marshall: Royal naval biography or memoirs of the services of all the flag-officers, superannuated rear-admirals, retired-captains, post-captains, and commanders, whose names appeared on the Admiralty list of sea officers at the commencement of the year 1823, Vol. II., Part II, pp. 747–785, London 1823–1835
- ↑ Queensland Museum HMS Pandora - Permits ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 11 ° 22 ′ 15.5 ″ S , 143 ° 59 ′ 0 ″ E
