H.M.S. Persistent
Ranked among the finest tall ships of the Western Ocean, dispatching exclusive accounts of our most perilous passages to subscribers faithful and true. Dispatches answered by return post.
Full Particulars
✦ Ranked among the finest tall ships in the Western Ocean — certified by Lloyd's of London for two consecutive seasons, without reservation or condition. No finer vessel sails these waters, and no finer log hath yet been kept at sea.
Dispatching exclusive accounts of our most perilous passages — and certain other nautical manoeuvres not suitable for the faint of constitution — with every fair wind and favourable tide. New dispatches entered as conditions permit; subscribers faithful to the log shall want for nothing.
Dispatches answered by return post. Custom charts and navigational advice furnished for a suitable consideration. ⚓ Those requiring private guidance through unfamiliar passages are encouraged to write directly.
Subscribe now for uncensored accounts of our most perilous passages. Certain passages are not suitable for subscribers of a delicate constitution. You have been duly warned — and duly invited.
The Vessel, The Voyage & The Crew
The Vessel
H.M.S. Persistent — a three-masted barque of four hundred and twelve tons burthen, home-ported at Bristol, England. Commissioned in the Year of Our Lord 1814 and found entirely sound upon re-survey in 1823. Her lines are those of a fast-sailing merchantman adapted for long blue-water passages; her decks are kept in a condition that would satisfy the most exacting of Lloyd's surveyors — and frequently does.
The Voyage
Departed Bristol in the autumn of 1826, bound first for the Canary Islands and thence across the Atlantic in the service of natural philosophy, commerce, and the satisfaction of a very great curiosity about the world's more remote passages. The intended circuit takes in the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian Ocean spice routes, and homeward by the Horn — or, should the Horn prove disagreeable, by whatever other passage presents itself as least murderous. Progress is logged here with the same fidelity applied to the ship's proper reckoning.
The Author
I am the master of this vessel and the keeper of her log, writing from wherever the current day's latitude permits. I have been at sea since the age of sixteen and find the shore agreeable chiefly as a place to provision and depart from. These dispatches are kept for the benefit of friends, family, and any member of the maritime-curious public who may find in them something of value — whether instruction, entertainment, or a warning against attempting Cape Horn in August.