“Although the sea is still very high the ladies have all managed to crawl out for a short time having had a fair night; not quite so much rolling. This morning Arthur managed to fall into the scuppers & was obliged to change everything, as at that moment we had shipped a sea.

In the evening we were on the poop when we shipped a tremendous sea & the guv’nor, who was still in bed & had got the door open, got the full benefit of it all over his bed & wetting everything that was not more than 2foot from the deck. Wind dead against us all day & we are doing about 2 knots an hour which means about 55 miles during 24 hours whilst we should be doing about 200 to 300”

Extract from A.Whelen’s travel journal sailing from England to Australia aboard the Hesperides in 1878