L'Astrolabe (La Perouse)
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:33 pm
The Astrolabe was a converted fluyt of the French Navy, famous for her travels with Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse.
She departed Brest on 1 August 1785 under Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle, along with the Boussole under La Pérouse.
The expedition vanished mysteriously in 1788 after leaving Botany Bay on 10 March 1788. The fate of the expedition was eventually solved by Captain Peter Dillon in 1827 when he found remnants of the ships the Astrolable and the Boussole at Vanikoro Island in the New Hebrides. 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.
The New Caledonia stamp does not delineate the ship, so we do not know if it represents the Astrolabe or Boussole.
France SG739 New Caledonia SG161/78, 202/10, 254/66, 540, 823, 835 Norfolk Island SG78, 434/5 Tonga SG1449 Vanuatu SG801 Wallis and Fortuna Is SG67/84, 116/25, 395, 530
For details of the expedition see http://www.shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=9326
She departed Brest on 1 August 1785 under Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle, along with the Boussole under La Pérouse.
The expedition vanished mysteriously in 1788 after leaving Botany Bay on 10 March 1788. The fate of the expedition was eventually solved by Captain Peter Dillon in 1827 when he found remnants of the ships the Astrolable and the Boussole at Vanikoro Island in the New Hebrides. 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.
The New Caledonia stamp does not delineate the ship, so we do not know if it represents the Astrolabe or Boussole.
France SG739 New Caledonia SG161/78, 202/10, 254/66, 540, 823, 835 Norfolk Island SG78, 434/5 Tonga SG1449 Vanuatu SG801 Wallis and Fortuna Is SG67/84, 116/25, 395, 530
For details of the expedition see http://www.shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=9326