Marooned! The Grafton Shipwreck

In January 1864, the five-man crew of the schooner Grafton wrecked off Auckland Island's coast and survived for 18 months. Led by French sailor Francois Rain and Captain Thomas Musgrave, the crew operated on a communal basis, shared resources, and worked together to create shelter, find food, and build a forge to manufacture tools. They constructed a sturdy dinghy, named 'Rescue', to navigate the 300-mile journey to New Zealand. Despite a violent storm, three crew members reached New Zealand, raised funds, and rescued the remaining two. The adventure was documented in books, inspiring literature such as Jules Verne's 'The Mysterious Island.' Their story is a testament to human resilience and cooperation.

00:00 The Wreck of the Grafton
00:38 Introduction and Host's Note
01:17 Setting Sail and Initial Challenges
03:30 Surviving the Wreck
06:30 Building a New Life
08:04 Desperation and Determination
08:32 The Escape Plan
10:25 The Rescue Mission
12:29 Aftermath and Legacy
13:37 Conclusion and Farewell

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Transcript

 In January of 1864, the five man crew of the schooner Grafton wrecked off the southern coast of Auckland Island in Carnally Harbor. They would band together and survive for 18 months alone on the island before fixing up a dinghy and rigging it to cross 300 miles of open ocean to reach New Zealand South Island.

So what happened? How did they survive on this sub Antarctic island? Let's find out.

Hello and welcome to History's a Disaster. I'm your host Andrew, and to start, I'd like to mention I double checked the pronunciation of Auckland Islands and a few other words. This episode, I did not want a repeat of the great smog episode. Where I kept referring to the River Thames as the River Thames all episode, but let's forget about that.

Tonight we're taking a dive into the wreck of the Grafton and how they survived for 18 months on an uninhabited island. Francois Rain was a French sailor who came to Australia seeking his fortune. He spent 11 years chasing after gold in Australia when he ran into a series of misfortunes from contracting, cholera and suffering from temporary from temporary blindness.

When his face swelled up to barely escaping a collapsing mineshaft, he was about to pack it up and head back to France. Once he recovered. When his friend and business partner Charles Sarpy talked him into going to the Campbell Islands to survey and search for a tin mine rumor to be somewhere on the island failing this, he could always take advantage of what was supposed to be a large number of seals on the island and make some money bringing back their skins and oil.

They hired Thomas Musgrave to captain to captain the ship with Francois serving as his first mate. They rounded out the crew with two experienced sailors named George Harris and Alec McLaren and Henry Forge serving as the ship's cook. The Grafton departed Sydney on November 12th, 1863. The five man crew set their sights on Campbell Island, hoping to find this rumor, Tim Tin mine before they could make land.

However, Francois fell ill, so Captain Musgrave led the expedition for the mine. After a month of surveying the island and with a lack of seals to hunt, they gave up and decided to head to Aquin Island, hoping to fill the hold with seals. With seal, skins and oil, they reached Auckland Island by New Year's Day, excited as they saw out the beach field with sea lions in great numbers.

They entered the north arm of Carly Harbor as they were hit by a massive storm. As they waited out the storm, it grew to hurricane strength. The anchor chain snapped and the Grafton was pushed further inland. Smashing upon a rocky beach, the bulk of the Grafton would block out part of the storm and allow a small but relatively calm channel between the boat and shore.

They used this to their advantage using ropes to tie their small dinghy to the Grafton. On one end and once closer to shore, Alex swam to tie the front of the dinghy to a tree. Creating a sort of pulley system so they could get back to the Grafton. They had the dinghy loaded down with Saul Thomas's chest, which included his navigational equipment, Francoise chest, which had his double barreled rifle along with powder and ammo for it, a chest of cooking utensils, and all the provisions they had.

Including 100 pounds of biscuit, 50 pounds of flour, tea, coffee, pork, and tobacco, all of which would be shared out equally. Equally amongst the crew, despite belonging to Francois and Thomas. This communal attitude was to prove crucial to, to their survival. The Grafton had only been stocked for a, for a four month voyage, and they had only two months of food left.

While the storm continued, the wreck Grafton stayed afloat. They let Francois to tend to a fire while the crew went to salvage ropes. Planks of wood tools. Sales from it to construct a small shack near the beach that they could all squeeze into as they slept. The storm continued to rage outside. The Grafton was battered against the rocks to the point of it being irreparable in the morning, they fashioned gloves and went out looking for Sea Lion puffs to help fill out their meager supplies.

They found the meat almost as repulsive as the act of obtaining it. By the end of February, they became accustomed to the taste, but the act of getting it never sat right with the men. They would also use the rifle to shoot native birds and hooks they found in the chest to catch a small amount of fish and muscles came from the nearby shore.

They would scavenge for berries in the woods and even manage to use rhizomes to make beer. Rhizomes being a subterranean plant that had roots and shafts and stuff for all you non botanist types. This beer would actually help the men to fight off scurvy. By March 5th, Francois who had experience in making huts led the men in making a rather large hut.

They named a pig weight at Thomas's suggestion, the name coming from Native Americans, and meaning a home by the waves. They used wood salvage from the Grafton and the nearby forest. Epic weight was large enough for everyone to have a cot, a fireplace with a stone, chimney, and a desk. They even made lamps to keep the inside of it.

Their food supply was getting slim with only a few pounds of flour and mustard left. They quickly devised an impromptu government with rules that were read every Sunday. Captain Musgrave would hold reading lessons with some of the men when they were not out scavenging mussel from the beach or collecting water.

They passed time playing cards or chess and dominoes with pieces, Francois card by hand. The cards, however, did not last very long. Francois ended up deciding it would be best to destroy them since Thomas was just a bit of a sore loser when it came to cards. As their clothing wore out, they fashioned new clothes and shoes from seal skins as winter CRE closer seals became harder to find as they've migrated away from the island.

When the autumn storms ravaged the island, they buckled down to shelter for the winter, knowing no ships would come near the island. During the winter months, the crew would grow despondent with the lack of rescue and food. As the weather improved, the sea lions returned, but the men still remained despondent when it became obvious.

No rescue was coming. They became determined to make their escape on their own by ship. However, their little dingy was not big enough for the journey, and they had very few tools. They made a forge and used it to make their own tools and nails to build up their ship. Francois made of bellows from wood, metal and seal skin to help heat the forge.

Worked metal from the grafting into tools like chisels and nails. As winter became closer, they red redoubled their efforts. They originally thought to make a ship to replace the rec grafting, but Francois was unable to make an auger after several attempts. So they settled on reinforcing the dinghy. They came ashore on.

By June, the dinghy was ready. Freshly planked and caulked with seal, oil and lime. A Norwegian pine from the Grafton, fitted as a ma, fitted as a mast and a pump retrofitted to use in the boat. Originally, only 12 feet long and low sided. Think rowboat from Looney Tunes, and you'll have a good idea of what a dinghy is.

It was now a fully decked boat, 17 feet long, six feet wide, and three feet deep. They named her rescue as good as their work was. However, it was not stable enough for everyone to safely sail aboard. Two men would have to stay behind and wait for the others to make it back and mount a rescue operation.

George Harris and Henry Forge stayed behind and watched as their crew mates set out the little boat. They could made good time and they expected to hit New Zealand within three days. That first night, however, fucked that plan up, a storm came raging in. That lasted for four days. The tiny rescue was battered and knocked about as the men struggled to keep her afloat.

The pump worked furiously to keep the water out. Captain Musgrave would refuse to leave the deck and fought the storm to stay afloat. And on course, on the morning of the fifth day, land was spotted and the storm abated, and with it the wind. The rescue was dead in the water. The men had no strength left to road as shore.

After finally drifting in the shore, they landed at Port Adventure where they met the captain of the flying Scud named Cross, who took them in for the night. In the morning, captain Cross sailed with them to Invercargill on New Zealand, south Island. Once there, they used public fundraising to raise the money needed to pay for the rescue operation back on Auckland Island.

The last two crewmen, George and Henry were barely surviving on the rats they managed to catch. This would eventually lead to tension between the two. They both agreed to separate two opposite ends of the island. Until rescue arrived, it would be a few weeks before the ship got there and all the men were returned safely to New Zealand.

Alec, Francois and Henry would return to Melbourne on the schooner. Swordfish. Thomas would leave out on a steamer whose captain he was friends with. George Harris would remain behind in New Zealand to form the Beatles. Wait, no, no, no. That was George Harrison in the 1960s in England. This George Harris stayed behind to look for gold.

Thomas had kept a diary while they were on the island when he eventually ran out of ink. He used seal blood to keep writing. Both him and Francois would write books about their time marooned there. Francois's book became very popular and once translated into English, was titled Wrecked on a Reef, and as one French scholar, Christian Mo Speculates was the inspiration for Jules Vern's book, the Mysterious Island.

That was the tail of the graft and shipwreck. These men are a testimony to the resiliency and resourcefulness of man when they work towards a common goal of survival. Thanks for listening, and if you like the show, please leave a rating or review on your Apple choice, or you can reach out at History is a disaster@gmail.com.

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