After threading his way through the island-strewn Bass Strait, often running on ded-reckoning in thick weather, he made landfall in Kiama after 92 days, going on to Sydney a few days later.

Brooks’ research in Japan focuses on the techniques and design secrets of the craft. These techniques have been passed from master to apprentice with almost no written record.

It was very, very important to both the authorities in London and those in the colonies that those who participated in this event were held to account. Somebody was going to swing for the piracy of the CYPRUS and they would swing in spectacular fashion.

They were a series of illustrated samurai manuscripts detailing an eleven-day cross-cultural encounter between locals and the crew of a mysterious foreign ship - a meeting which took place in 1830, at the height of Japan’s isolation period.