The other ship depict on a stamp of this set is the ISABELLA.
1786 Was she built in Hull as a wooden whaler.
Tonnage 383 ton (bm), dim. 33.5 x 8.5m.
Crew 58.
Completed under the name ISABELLA.
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars the interest of the British Navy returned in scientific exploration, and in 1818 the Admiralty launched two expeditions for the Arctic waters.
Shipyards strengthened four whale-ships under which the ISABELLA for service in the Arctic waters as expedition ship for the Admiralty.
The ships were strengthened with athwart-ships oaken beams, exterior oak sheating and armed plated bows.
Two ships had to sail north with the plan by crossing the Pole to the Bering Strait and Pacific, but this expedition discovered all soon that they never could pass through the polar ice, and returned to England with small results.
The other two, the ISABELLA under command of John Ross and the ALEXANDER under command of Lt. William Edward Parry sailed in April 1818, in a convoy of whalers to Greenland.
They rounded the southern tip of Greenland before heading for the Davis Strait.
Leaving the whalers behind the two expedition ships pressed on till she had reached 75 degree North, through the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay as far as Melville Bay on the Greenland west coast, Melville bay was named by Ross after Viscount Melville, from which he had received his first commission in the Royal Navy.
The two ships crossed then to the southern end of Ellismere Island and sailed then south passing the eastern entrances to Jones Sound and Lancaster Sound, Ross did not known then that he had discovered the North- west passage.
The ISABELLA returned to the Hull whaling fleet in 1818.
In the whaling season of 1825 to Greenland waters the ISABELLA was badly stove in.
1827 She killed 23 whales which produced 250 tons of oil, that year she was under command of Capt. Humphrey.
1831 She produced 275 tons of oil.
26 August 1833 she rescued the crew of the VICTORY just to the eastward of Navy Board Inlet, she was still under command of Capt. Humphrey.
30 September she sailed homeward bound, and reached Stromnes on 12 October and the Humber on the 18th.
1835 She was wrecked in the early part of the season on 12 May off Whale Fish Island during thick weather, her crew got off but they were badly frost-bitten before they were rescued by the whalers LEE and CALEDONIA. She was that voyage under command of Capt. Carlill.
With a part of his crew he left the rescue ships in Lively harbour, to go home by the Danish brig packets.
Isle of Man 2007 £1.17 sg?, scott?
Greenland 2010 32.00 Kr sg?, scott?
Source: The Arctic Whalers by Basil Lubbock. Ships of the World. by Lincoln P. Paine. Some web-sites