Explorer and navigator Matthew Flinders literally placed the name ‘Australia’ on the map after completing the first circumnavigation of our continent in 1803. With him sailed “my faithful, intelligent Trim,” as Flinders described his cat. “One of the finest animals I ever saw.”
Trim was a black-and-white moggie born at sea in 1799 as the HMS Reliance sailed around the Cape of Good Hope towards Australia. He went on to survive a shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef, and six years of imprisonment on French Mauritius with Flinders.
Cats have a long history of doing well on boats – since the early days of Egyptian trading, cruisers have taken cats to sea, and at one time the USA Navy gave them personalised ‘passports’. Some solo sailors swear that their faithful nocturnal felines keep them alert at all hours, while cruising couples and families say that cats soothe, comfort and calm everyone aboard.