Swan (1808 ship)
UK whaler and merchantman 1808–1833

Swan was launched at Flensburg in 1806. By 1808 Samuel Enderby & Sons had acquired her. Between 1808 and 1810 she made one whaling voyage during which she rediscovered Bouvet Island. The Enderbys sold her and from 1811 on she traded widely. Then in 1823 the Enderbys repurchased her and she made two more whaling voyages for them, this time on a reconnaissance voyage to the waters around and north of the Seychelles. Although she herself was not very successful, her reports of abundant whales resulted in other whalers exploiting a new whaling ground. The Enderbys sold her again and she then became a West Indiaman. She was last listed in 1833.
Career
Whaling voyage #1 (1808–1810): Captain James Lindsay sailed from England on 10 June 1808. Swan was in company with another Enderby whaler, Otter, Thomas Hopper, master.
The public source identifies “Swan (1808 ship)” as uK whaler and merchantman 1808–1833. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Swan, ship and whaler.
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This entry incorporates text from “Swan (1808 ship)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.