2024 Pitcairn Islands Artefacts of the Bounty Launch Stamps

Four stamps issued by Pitcairn Islands featuring Artefacts of the Bounty Launch.

The Mutiny on the Bounty played a pivotal role in Pitcairn Islands’ history, the events that followed led to the mutineers finding a haven on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean and establishing a home to many descendants which remain to this day.

Following the mutiny, Captain Bligh and eighteen loyalists were cut adrift on the Bounty launch (a small vessel designed to carry a maximum of 15 over a short distance) and adequately supplied for a short journey. It would seem that the assumption of Fletcher Christian was that the launch would head for the relatively close Tongan Islands (30 nautical miles away).

However, on arrival the island’s hostile inhabitants attacked them, however, and John Norton, Quartermaster on the Bounty, was killed. They were chased from the island by several canoes but managed to distract their pursuers by throwing pieces of clothing overboard.

What followed is the most famous open-boat voyage in maritime history: 3,618 nautical miles by Bligh’s makeshift log from Tofua to Timor in a 23-foot launch with no more freeboard than the length of a man’s hand, without charts, with now meager provisions, and with the constant threat of imminent death.

Bligh’s subsequent achievement in navigating a tiny, crowded launch over such a distance in unfavourable weather conditions and limited rations, cemented his name next to those of Captain James Cook and Admiral Horatio Nelson as the most famous naval men of their generation.