Castlemaine author and Monash University adjunct research associate, Cathrine Harboe-Ree AM, recently released her first book with a special launch event at Buda Historic Home and Garden.
The Unlucky Viking: A Saga of Sealing & Shipwrecks in the Southern Ocean and its companion offering, Diary of the 1906-07 Voyage of HNMS Cathrine of Tønsberg, detail the fascinating life of her adventurous, seafaring Norwegian grandfather Captain Anders Harboe-Ree.
Cathrine told the Express the unique project began after her father was sent her grandfather’s original diary by a relative living in the Faroe Islands.
“My Dad passed away not long after and the precious document fell to me,” she said.
“With the assistance of my mother Eva Harboe-Ree and daughter Anna Ree-Cutler, I have translated and edited the original diary into English and the story evolved from there.”
The Unlucky Viking tells the extraordinary tale of a young Harboe-Ree who at 25 was shipwrecked on his first voyage at the helm of small sailing vessel ‘Cathrine’, the author’s namesake, while seal hunting on the remote and desolate subantarctic Crozet Islands in 1906.
Determined to save his 14-man crew, the captain and two companions attempted to sail a 5.8 metre whaleboat 7300 kilometres to Australia across the wild Southern Ocean to raise the alarm.
On the ninth day of this perilous journey, the trio were fortunate to cross paths with another ship, the remaining crew were subsequently rescued. Harboe-Ree returned home to Norway a hero and was even knighted for his bravery.
But two years later Harboe-Ree was involved in a second shipwreck of a larger vessel, which saw 75 men stranded on the equally bleak Prince Edward Islands.
This time there was much more at stake and Harboe-Ree was ridiculed and subjected to lengthy court battles on his return.
Cathrine said these were the most dramatic but not the only misfortunes faced by this unlucky, modern-day Viking.
Echoing the old Norse sagas, this book is a gripping story about shipwrecks and survival and an important contribution to sealing and Antarctic history.
Her grandfather even painted a landscape of the second shipwreck where it lay beached in the Prince Edward Islands that now hangs on Cathrine’s wall.
“The diary was a wonderful source of information and also features some fantastic sketches, as well as entries by 61-year-old expedition leader Norwegian antarctic explorer Henrik Johan Bull who was highly respected in his field,” Cathrine said.
The book was officially launched by Dr Andrew Lemon, author of the book Poor Souls They Perished, the story of the wrecking of ‘Cataraqui’ Australia’s worst ever civil maritime disaster, in which 400 lives were lost in Bass Strait in 1845.
The afternoon also saw a performance of songs about the shipwrecks by Cathrine’s daughters Anna and Karolina Ree-Cutler.
The books are available now at local bookstores and online.
So what’s next for Cathrine? Well, the author plans to explore the life of another Norwegian adventurer, the zoologist and polar explorer Johan Koren who was shipwrecked with her grandfather in 1906.
