Inspiration for the voyage
The circumnavigation of the 10-gun brig HMS Beagle in the 1830s was one of the most famous voyages ever carried out by a ship of the Royal Navy. She sailed from Plymouth at the end of 1831 and returned to England in the autumn of 1836. Her primary mission was to complete the hydrographic survey of the coasts
of the southern part of South America. Her second task was to carry out a connected sequence of longitude observations around the world. Thirdly, she was to return three Fuegian Indians to their homeland in Tierra del Fuego. The Beagle sailed with 74 people on board under the command of Robert FitzRoy. One of her people was Charles Darwin. He was 22 years old, and FitzRoy was only 26. The voyage of the Beagle was a young man’s expedition.
Ever since I was a schoolboy I had wanted to sail a small yacht around the world. In my late fifties I re-read two of Charles Darwin’s books, his Voyage of the Beagle and the Origin of Species. The charm of the Voyage and the interest of the Origin helped me to plan not just another voyage but to formulate a properly focused voyaging project. The voyage of HMS Beagle had never been re-done in detail. The plan that I formed was to follow the track of HMS Beagle around the world as closely as possible in my own boat. By following her in a yacht under sail I could explore parts of the world that were new to me, and I could interpret the Beagle’s voyage from the point of view of her people at their time.
My circumnavigation began at Plymouth in 2001 and finished at Falmouth in 2012. Many things occurred to me during the voyage, including a dismasting in the South Atlantic Ocean, a shipwreck in Patagonia, a big storm at sea in 52 degrees south, a love affair in Chile, a prosperous and tranquil crossing of the Pacific Ocean and being attacked by smugglers in the Timor Sea. I also had many days of fine sailing in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.
Book of the voyage
My book, Voyage of the Harrier, is intended both to describe the voyage of the Beagle and to give an account of my own voyage in my yacht Harrier of Down. I hope that the accounts of the two voyages illuminate one another, and that together they contribute to a reader’s knowledge of, and enjoyment of, the world. The voyage of the Harrier was my retirement project.
During my voyage I carried aboard Harrier a copy of the published travel diary kept by Darwin and also the account of the Beagle’s voyage written by FitzRoy and published in 1839. My text is therefore based upon my own first-hand experiences and on original textual sources. I claim that mine is the first ever fully detailed re-creation of the Beagle’s voyage. In Voyage of the Harrier I have been able to explain several aspects of her voyage for the first time. I believe that my text casts new light on some popular but ill-founded ideas about her voyage, and about those who sailed on board her. My book, I think, makes some small contribution to the history of science.