INCREDIBLE STORY from the history pages of Lloyds of London
By Paul Miller
A cat features in this, my favourite story from the Lloyd’s archives. I post it every now and then, for those that haven’t heard it as it’s so extraordinary.
In 1829, 22 men and a cat were travelling from Sydney on a ship named the Mermaid when a huge storm sent her crashing in to coral, cutting her open. All were thrown in to the sea, left fighting for their lives and aiming for rocks 300 yards away. When they came to, all 22 men and the cat had survived.
They were picked up three days later but were again hit by a storm. The ship perished and once more, the men and the cat clambered on to nearby rocks. They were rescued once again but that ship caught fire, forcing the unlucky men and the cat to escape on a longboat. They were picked up by a passing ship but that was wrecked in a storm a week later, forcing them all in to the sea once more. At this point, their luck changed.
A ship named Jupiter that was travelling from Liverpool passed and all were soon rescued, surviving four shipwrecks in 20 days. A lady from Yorkshire called Sarah Richey was aboard the Jupiter, heading to Australia in a desperate attempt to find her son Peter who had run away from home 15 years before.
In a strange twist of fate, they were reunited sooner than expected. Peter was one of the 22 rescued men who boarded the ship on which she was travelling.
Could Sam the Unsinkable Cat be related?
