Three Sheets to the Wind

De: Adam Courtenay

Narrado por: James Saunders

A rollicking account of a little known event that changed the course of Australian history from best-selling author Adam Courtenay.

By the best-selling author of The Ship That Never Was, how a motley crew of merchant seamen walked 600 miles to save 7,000 gallons of rum.

When Campbell & Clark, Scottish merchants based in India, dispatched an Indian ship hurriedly renamed the Sydney Cove to the colony of NSW in 1797, they were hoping to make their fortune. The ship's 'speculative' cargo included all kinds of products to entice the new colony's inhabitants, including 7,000 gallons of rum intended to be sold to the Rum Corp, which ruled the fledgling colony with an iron grip, despite the arrival of Governor John Hunter. But when the ship went down north of Van Diemen's Land, cargo master William Campbell and 16 other crew members decided to walk the 600 miles to Sydney Town to get help and rescue crew and cargo.

Clark and just two others made it, having been assisted by at least six Aboriginal Nations and seeing far more of the country than Joseph Banks ever did. Clark's reports to Hunter led to Bass and Flinders' 'discovery' of Bass Strait and the beginnings of a sealing industry. And the rum? Some of it was saved, and returned to Sydney and into the hands of the Rum Corp.

©2022 Adam Courtenay. Adam Courtenay asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this Work. First published in English by HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited in. (P)2022 Bolinda Publishing. This audio version produced by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited.

Compelling tale of human struggle and survival

This book was very hard to "put down". It's the gripping and little known tale of the doomed sea voyage in 1796 of the trading ship, the "Sydney Cove", from India to Sydney Town and the crew's battle for survival, not only on the wildest of oceans but in the wildernesses where they are ultimately stranded, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlements and with seemingly no hope of rescue. But "Three Sheets to the Wind" is much more than just a wild-ride story about the thrills of 18th century seafaring and human survival. The author captures, at times with chilling foreboding, the ebbing power of the common purpose of survival shared by these late 18th century sailors, their Indigenous helpmates and even pre-colonial Australian wildlife populations. In the end they are all destined to become subjugated to the vaulting private ambitions of the powerful, the privileged and the entitled rising to the fore in early colonial Australia. The narration performance is first rate and with "Three Sheets to the Wind" Adam Courtenay has once again produced a compelling and highly readable account of a truly fascinating period in Australian history. Highly recommended.