de Freycinet

The Search for de Freycinet's Ship L'Uranie.

In 1817, Captain Louis de Freycinet was appointed by the French Government to lead a scientific expedition around the world in the corvette L'Uranie. They visited South America, South Africa, Mauritius, Timor, the Moluccas, the Carolines, Australia, Tahiti and finally the Falkland Islands, where they were wrecked. Eventually, they were rescued by a passing ship and arrived back in France in November 1820.

Making this story doubly of interest, de Freycinet had secretly taken his wife Rose de Freycinet on board. Her subsequent book on the journey is one of the very rare accounts of the life of a woman on board an exploration vessel. In 2001, the Western Australian Maritime Museum undertook a journey to the Falkland Islands to find the remains of the Uranie. This is the story of the Western Australian Maritime Museum's 2001 expedition to find the de Freycinet's Uranie. It is comprised of excerpts from Michael McCarthy and his teams report.