FAVORITE a shallop and the Hope Castle

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

FAVORITE a shallop and the Hope Castle

Post by aukepalmhof » Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:39 pm

By looking for info on another stamp I found this:

The French Southern & and Antarctic Territory stamp is designed after an engraving of Hope Cottage, built on Courbet Peninsula by the shipwrecked John Nunn and his crew in 1825. The stamp shows a small rowboat, most probably a skiff used by the sealers in the Antarctic to transfere men between the shallop and the shore.

The ROYAL SOVEREIGN and the shallop FAVORITE are not depict on the stamp.

The four men crew of the FAVORITE were abandoned by the British 400 ton whaler/mothership ROYAL SOVEREIGN from London in 1825 there, when the shallop FAVORITE which she used to sail from the mothership to the coast and bring back the blubber of the seals to the mothership.

FAVORITE sprung a leak and sunk, the crew made a raft and were lucky to get on shore.
While waiting two years and three months to be rescued when their shallop FAVORITE was shipwrecked at Kerguelen in 1825, the British sealer and cartographer John Nunn and his three men crew spent some miserable months trying to survive on Saddle Island (now called Île de l'Ouest), buffeted by the merciless westerly winds. Nunn concluded that there was a better chance of being discovered on the southeastern part of Grande Terre, the main island, so his group gradually skirted the southern coast in search of a place to settle in.
After passing Shoal-water Bay (now called Baie Norvégienne), they were eventually able to find an area suitable for monitoring passing ships at Long Point (now called Pointe Charlotte) on the east coast of Courbet Peninsula, where they built two comfortable cabins which they baptized Hope Cottage.
The group was finally spotted in 1827 by Captain Alexander Distant on the schooner SPRIGHTLY, belonging to the celebrated ship owner Enderby of London. Nunn and his crewmates joined the SPRIGHTLY in hunting whales and elephant seals until 25 March 1829, at which point they were finally returned to Harwich, England – four years after the shipwreck.
In 1997, the French post office issued a 20-franc air-mail stamp to commemorate the shipwrecks and the construction of Hope Cottage.

See: https://dlcs.io/pdf/wellcome/pdf-item/b29333271/0 Detailing the Adventures, Sufferings and Privations of John Nunn; a Historical Account of the Island, and Its Whale and Seal Fisheries: With a Chart and Numerous Wood Engravings." – John Nunn, W. B. Clarke (editor).

https://www.discoverfrance.net/Colonies/Kerguelen.shtml
French Southern and Antarctic Territories 1997 20F sg 370 scott ? (The image depict the shallop LOON, most probably the wrecked FAVORITE did look similar.)
Attachments
Image (25).jpg
1997 hope_cottage_1997-lg.jpg

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