Australians to Sail Back in Time

The first English convicts sent to help settle the new British colony of Australia traveled free. Two hundred years later, there’s a $31,500 price tag for people wanting to retrace the convicts historic voyage on sailing ships.

Organizers say would-be adventurers are jumping at the chance of a berth on 11 “square-rigged” ships that will trace the route of the first fleet that brought 1,350 convicts and settlers from England in 1788.

The project, in the planning stages for a decade and costing $7.5 million, is the centerpiece of Australia’s 1988 bicentennial celebrations and the brainchild of Jonathan King, a Melbourne University historian who wanted to remind Australians of their heritage.

“After making three trips around the world and literally searching the Seven Seas, we have finally found 11 ships that are traditional square riggers of 18th-Century style,” said King, whose great-great-great-grandfather Philip King was an officer on one of the first ships.

King’s quest for sailing ships took him to the United States, Canada, Britain, India and Fiji. He chartered the Bounty from filmmaker Dino de Laurentis in Los Angeles. He found three ships in Australia. The oldest ship, from Britain, was built in the 1850s, he said.

Leaving Portsmouth, England, on May. 13, 1987, exactly 200 years to the day after their ancestors, the ships will take eight months to reach Botany Bay, near Sydney on Australia’s east coast, after a voyage of about 12,000 miles.

After stops at Tenerife, Canary Islands; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, and Freemantle in western Australia, the ships will sail into Sydney harbor on “Australia Day,” Jan. 26, 1988.

Organizers are booking passage for the full voyage or individual legs, ranging from $1,320 for the London-Portsmouth run to $7,280 for the 53-day journey from Tenerife to Rio de Janeiro. The full $31,500 fare includes the boat trip from London to Sydney, and return air fare, economy class.

Passengers are told not to expect luxury cabins or comforts that would be found on modern cruise liners. The passengers must be fit and ready to work.

“It really is an adventure travel package,” King said. “You’ve got to be a bit of a cavalier. You’ve got to be able to stand up on the deck in a storm, go aloft to pull in the sails and man the helm.”

Each passenger will sign a contract stating the terms of their “work passage,” said King. “This is the adventure of a lifetime. It’s a magical mystery tour that will never be repeated. People are buying the chance to go back 200 years.”

Passengers will sleep in hammocks or on deck in close quarters. The fare includes three meals a day, but there will be no salt beef or maggots in the biscuits, as was the case 200 years ago. There will be plenty of orange juice to reduce the risk of scurvy and, perhaps, a tot of grog before departure.

King said several people who have signed up are descendants of the 168,000 convicts transported to Australia up until 1868 for crimes ranging from sheep stealing and poaching to murder.

“The response has been overwhelming,” said Goronwy Price of Australian Himalayan Expeditions, which is selling tickets. “The phones have been running hot. We’ve already sold 20% of the berths. People are paying for an adventure that their ancestors probably would have been glad to have paid not to go.”