Thomas Vasse

Thomas Timothée Vasse (27 February 1774 in Dieppe, Seine-Maritime – presumed 8 June 1801) was a French sailor who was lost in the surf on the south west coast of Australia in 1801, and presumed drowned. From Vasse's name is taken the name the Vasse for the land adjacent to where the incident occurred, and also a number of geographical features in the area including Vasse River and Vasse Inlet.

Born in Dieppe and baptised Timothée Thomas Joseph Ambroise Vasse, Vasse was a helmsman second class on the Naturaliste during the 1801–04 expedition of the Géographe and Naturaliste under Nicolas Baudin, which explored much of the south west coast of New Holland (now Western Australia). On 30 May 1801, the expedition anchored in a bay that they named Géographe Bay, and a party went ashore. On the evening of 8 June, during the onset of a wild storm, an attempt was made to return the landed party to the ships. One of the ships' boats was anchored beyond the surf, and ropes were used to haul people from the shore to the boat. Vasse, who was said to be a strong swimmer but was also said in some reports to have been drunk, was lost in the heavy surf and presumed drowned.

A number of stories subsequently emerged that claimed that Vasse had survived. Some time between 1804 and 1807, a rumour that Vasse had survived appeared in some Paris newspapers. Vasse was reported to have been washed ashore, walked 300 miles south, and been picked up by an American whaler which took him as far as the English Channel. He was then said to have been arrested by an English ship, and incarcerated in an English jail. According to François Péron, enquiries into the story concluded that it was a fabrication.

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