Ships

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©Botany Bay. Sirius & convoy going in: Supply & agents division in the bay. 21 Janry 1788 (detail). William Bradley, watercolour from his journal ‘A Voyage to New South Wales’, 1802+. State Library of New South Wales: safe 1/14.

Ships

At daybreak on the 13 May 1787 Captain Arthur Phillip gave the signal for the First Fleet to weigh anchor. Their destination Botany Bay, chartered just 17 years earlier by James Cook, was 24,500 kilometres away.

No new ships were built for this expedition; the British Government sent two of its naval vessels and hired suitable ships from a number of private ship owners. Six of these ships were fitted out as convict transports and another three were loaded with every imaginable item to establish the settlement and feed and clothe its people for two years.

The voyage of the First Fleet signalled the start of the world’s largest and longest-running system of convict transportation.