Ben Boyd's Kanakas has been written by Tony Ohlsson and is the only orginal research on the subject of Boyd's relationships with the Kanakas.
Click on the links below to download and read chapters of the book.
Ben Boyd arrived in Australia in 1842 in his top sail schooner, The Wanderer. In a locked box in his cabin there was 200,000 pounds in gold coin to finance his extensive plans. You can read the story of how he spent today's equivalent of $40 million AUD over the next 7 years. Read more here
The Project began in 2013 with a plan to build a Replica of the RYS Wanderer-the 25 metre top-sail Schooner that Ben Boyd sailed to Australia. After 4 years work,the Wanderer Replica keel had been half laid but the volunteer workers had disbanded, there was no foreseeable finance and no sustainable Business Plan was in place.