Richard Fidler

And what did that mean for him?

The next day, someone spotted Bruny Island.

Now, you'd been heading west...

But Bruny Island's just directly south of Hobart.

So the current must have, or the weather must have been pulling you back eastwards again then, I suppose.

What happened when you tried paddling towards Bruny?

Oh, drag in the water, right.

God, some on-ship biscuits.

How very 18th century that is.

What about water, fresh water?

It wasn't puncturing it.

Meanwhile, that part of the world, the Southern Ocean, just south of Tassie, there are all these rocky outcrops that just stick right out of the water like great big ugly jagged teeth or something.

So by Monday, the ship's absence had been noted.

There was a noticeable lack of activity, though.

Then the media got the story of the missing ship, but still no proper air and sea search for this missing vessel.

No awareness that it's even sunk.

What do you know now about what was going on there?

Why was the response so sluggish to the disappearance of the Blythe star?

It's just occurred to me that when the search began, they would have been looking for the ship, not the life raft.

Exactly right.