Page 17 - Bulletin 22 2019

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was a privately owned ship which had once been chartered by the EEIC for a round voyage to

Madras and Bengal during 1820 and 1821. In 1822 she made a single voyage transporting
184 male convicts to Tasmania, two of whom died on the way.

She was a heavily armed ship, but what made her unusual was that she had an uneven number
of guns which were also unconventional in size. She was carrying carronades of unusual

dimension which indicated that whoever filled out the form, or transcribed it, had exchanged

the guns for carronades. (Fig. 1.15.)

A carronade was a powerful, short range anti-ship and anti-crew weapon. It was light in

weight and only required a small crew to operate. The carronade weighed less than a ton,
which was a quarter of the weight of the same bore standard cannon which weighed on

average 3 tons. The advantage of the carronade was that it was very manoeuverable.

Although the carronade was as effective as the same bore cannon of greater weight, the Royal

Navy were reluctant to adopt the guns, as there was great mistrust of the Carron Company in

Scotland who had developed a reputation for incompetence and sharp dealings.

It was also strange that at her time of wrecking she was armed with only two cast iron

cannons, which were carronades. One of the cannons may be seen today mounted outside the
Simon’s Town post office. (Fig. 1.16.)

Simon’s Town

On 7 October 1786 the Katwyk ann Rijn, a VOC schooner sank off Simon’s Town. But very
little is known about this ship, or her whereabouts. Katwyk ann Rijn is a small town off the
North Sea and lies slightly inland of Katwyk ann Zee. The town is approximately 16 km

north of The Hague on the River Rhine.

In 1792 the Drie Gebroeders, a VOC flyt of 88 tons was stranded on the beach opposite

Simon’s Town station. The short road which runs from the main road to the beach is named

after this ship.

A flyt is fairly similar to a galleon: between 200 - 300 tons and 80 ft in length (24 m). (Fig.

1.17.) They were designed to carry only cargo for trans-ocean delivery. They were not built
for wartime conversion and were able to carry double the amount of cargo of a galleon of the

same size. Another advance is that they only required a small crew to sail them. A flyt is