3-066-012 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cruise of the Prince of Wales's sons: H.M.S. Bacchante in a squall, 1881. 'Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales, serving their Queen and country on board H.M.S. Bacchante, have had to look out for squalls. [Our sketch] represents the condition of the Bacchante when caught in a heavy squall in the South Indian Ocean...She had her sails split, several sheets carried away, the fore-topgallant mast sprung, and the topmast studsail carried clean out of the bolt-ropes, as the wind shifted suddenly to the starboard beam. Again, when the Bacchante approached Cape Leeuwin, the south-west point of Australia, three hundred miles south of that point, she met with another disaster. The wind suddenly shifted..., and the ship "broached to," and was struck by a heavy sea. One life-boat was carried away from her quarter, while the other was forced in-board, breaking the davits, and striking the rudder-head. It gave such a violent wrench to this, that the rudder was disabled, and it became necessary to rig up a temporary steering-apparatus...The Bacchante was enabled, by these means, safely to be steered into the port of Albany, West Australia, where she was laid up for brief repairs. The two young Princes went on to Adelaide and Melbourne'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.