''Astrolabe'' was a converted flûte of the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

, famous for her travels with Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse. She was built in 1781 at

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...

as the flûte ''Autruche'' for the French Navy. In May 1785 she and her sistership ''Boussole'' (previously ''Portefaix'') were renamed and rerated as frigates, and fitted for round-the-world scientific exploration. The two ships departed from Brest on 1 August 1785, ''Boussole'' commanded by Lapérouse and ''Astrolabe'' under

Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle (1 August 1744, château de Kerlouët at Quemper-Guézennec, Côtes-d'Armor – 11 December 1787, Maouna, Samoa) was a French vicomte, académicien de marine, naval commander and explorer. He was second in c ...

Disappearance

The expedition vanished mysteriously in 1788 after leaving

Botany Bay Botany Bay ( Dharawal: ''Kamay''), an open oceanic embayment, is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and the Cook ...

on 10 March 1788. Captain

Peter Dillon Peter Dillon (15 June 1788 – 9 February 1847) was a ship's captain engaged in the merchant trade, explorer and writer. Dillon discovered in 1826–27 the fate of the La Pérouse expedition. Early career Peter Dillon was born in Martinique, the ...

in solved the mystery in 1827 when he found remnants of the ships ''Astrolabe'' and ''Boussole'' at Vanikoro Island in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

. Local inhabitants reported that the ships had been wrecked in a storm. Survivors from one ship had been massacred, while survivors from the other ship had constructed their own small boat and sailed off the island, never to be heard from again.

Legacy

The fate of Lapérouse, his ships and crew was a subject of mystery for some years.

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

reportedly often inquired whether any news had come from the expedition, up to shortly before his execution. It is also notably the subject of a chapter from ''

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (french: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne. The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre- ...

'' by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...

. Objects recovered from the wreck are part of the collection of the

Maritime Museum of New Caledonia Maritime Museum of New Caledonia, also Musée Maritime de Nouvelle Caledonie, is a maritime museum in New Caledonia. It is largely dedicated to the history of French colonial exploration in the Pacific and the collection includes objects retrieved ...

Note

Its crew included French priest

Louis Receveur Claude-Francois Joseph Louis Receveur O.F.M. Conv., (1757 – 17 February 1788) was a French friar priest, naturalist and astronomer who sailed with Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Receveur was also considered a skilled botanist, ...

the first

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and second non-indigenous person to be buried in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

References

Exploration ships 1781 ships Maritime incidents in 1788 {{ship-stub

Disappearance

Legacy

See also

Note

References