Portfaix

This vessel was one of the two ships of the expedition of Jean François de Galaup, Le Comte de la Pérouse. The expedition vanished mysteriously in 1788 after leaving Botany Bay on 10 March 1788. Captain Peter Dillon in Research solved the fate of the expedition when he found remnants of Astrolabe and Boussole at Vanikoro Island in the Solomon Islands. Local inhabitants reported that a storm had wrecked both ships. Survivors from one ship had been massacred while survivors from the other ship had constructed their own small boat and sailed off the island, never to be heard from again.