Experiment
The Experiment was a Bombay-built copper-hulled snow, a type of brig, that weighed 102 tonnes.1 The Experiment and the Captain Cook were part of James Charles Stuart Strange's 1785 trade and exploration voyage to the Northwest coast.2
The expedition, which departed from India in 1785, was plagued with problems.3 The Experiment was damaged in Indian waters and sought repairs in Batavia (Djakarta, Indonesia); moreover, many of the crew members contracted scurvy.4 The expedition reached Nootka Sound in June of 1786, too late in the season to trade. The expedition was considered a financial disaster.5
  • 1. Barry M. Gough, Distant Dominion: Britain and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1579-1809 (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1980), 58.
  • 2. Robin Fisher, Strange, James Charles Stuart Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
  • 3. Ibid.
  • 4. Ibid.
  • 5. Ibid.
  • 6. Ibid.
Mentions of this vessel in the documents