‘Nancy’, 1805

When the 40-ton sloop ‘Nancy’ was built in 1803, she was the largest ship built on the Hawkesbury River, just north of Sydney.

Whilst on a voyage on 18th April 1805, carrying a cargo of 3,787 skins (the type of skin is not recorded), two passengers and a crew of five, she encountered foul weather just south of the entrance to Jervis Bay. A vivid description of what then followed was printed in the ‘Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser’ on 5th May 1805:

‘On the 17th appearances strongly indicating an approaching gale, she hauled off shore, and in the evening a dreadful hurricane set in, accompanied with very vivid lightning, and awful peals of thunder that rolled without intermission, together with an incessant torrent of rain. The rage of the elements increasing, split the mainsail… At midnight the gale became furiously violent, not a sail was left, and the sea making a fair breach over her…

At about two in the morning, the man at the helm gave notice of land to leeward, which was discernible by the lightning; and such was its appearance, being a chain of perpendicular cliffs against which the sea dashed with inconceivable violence, as to fill with horror and consternation the minds of those already hopeless of escaping a destiny presented in a variety of dismal shapes.
All above‐board was by this time washed away, and to avoid grounding in a situation where every person on board must have inevitably perished, all that remained to determined perseverance was effected, and by keeping her as much to the wind as her helpless condition would permit, she happily changed her ground, and striking on a small sand‐beach between two bluff heads, unhung her rudder at the first blow. (That beach is now known as Steamers Beach, to the east of Wreck Bay village)

(One man drowned.) The same morning the hull parted, and shortly after went to pieces, the continued violence and rapidity of the surf preventing any part of the cargo from being saved; and such few articles as were washed ashore were carried off by the natives, who, though they offered no personal violence, had become too numerous to be resisted. One of these people…cheerfully undertook to conduct (the) distressed party round to Jervis’s Bay, for which place they set out the morning of the 20th, and reached it the same evening; and next morning perceiving that the natives, possibly with no other design than the gratification of curiosity, were clustering round them from all directions, it was considered most advisable to…make the best of their way for Sydney by pedestrian travel.

Destitute of provisions, without a musket, except one that was useless and only borne to intimidate the natives, the proposal was readily concurred in, and after a terrible journey of eleven days, lengthened much by the inundated state of the country, they attained the much‐desired object on Wednesday night last (so, on 1st May), crippled by fatigue, and reduced to the last extremity by actual want.’