Special Report Two: Shackleton's Remarkable Survival Story
Because we are navigating similar waters and visiting some of the same places, and because we all come from sailing backgrounds, Shackleton is probably our favourite of the Antarctic pioneers, if only because of his remarkable survival story which included probably the most stunning ocean passage achievement of all time.
Shackleton and the other 27 members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition were on the other side (eastern) of the Antarctic Peninsula to us – in the Weddell Sea – when, on 18 January 1915, their vessel Endurance was beset by ice off the Luitpold Coast.
They stayed with the vessel, locked in the ice and drifting north with the pack, until 27 October 1915, when the pressure finally proved too much for Endurance and she was crushed. Shackleton and his party took to the ice and contemplated their options. They were at 69.5S and 51.30W, alone on the ice pack, nobody aware of their predicament, and rescue a very remote prospect indeed.
The crushed Endurance was finally released by the ice and sank on 21 November 1915, at 68.38S and 52.28W. Shackleton and party were left on their drifting pack ice, awaiting their chance to launch the Endurance‘s three boats and strike out for one of the islands to the north.
They had to wait until 9 April 1916, when the ice floes parted enough to give them a chance in the boats. Clarence Island or Elephant Island were their destination, some 50 to 60 miles north of their position.
After an horrific six-day voyage, battling gales, currents and ice, they finally made it to barren and desolate Elephant Island on the NE tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was only a rather tenuous, 30 x 15 metre shale beach clinging to towering cliffs, but they staggered ashore and set foot on land for the first time in 497 days since Endurance had departed South Georgia for the Antarctic mainland on 5 December 1914. During that time they had been exposed to just about everything the often-savage Antarctic Ocean could throw at them and, incredibly, the party was still intact.
It wasn’t finished however. Elephant Island was too remote to expect rescue. They would have to reach somewhere known to be visited by whalers if they were to have any chance of salvation. Shackleton and Worsley determined that there were three options – Cape Horn, 500 miles to the NW, the Falkland Islands, 550 miles to the north, and South Georgia Island, 800 miles to the NE. All three involved crossing the Drake Passage and, with winter approaching, the conditions would be predictably nasty in the most challenging part of any ocean on earth.
The journey would be attempted by one boat only – the 7-metre open whaler James Caird. The crew of six would comprise Shackleton, Frank Worsley (the Endurance’s captain and navigator), Thomas Crean (Endurance’s 2nd officer), Harry McNeish (the ship’s carpenter), John Vincent (able seaman) and Timothy McCarthy (able seaman). They were hardly in the prime of health and were ill-equipped to say the least. The remainder of the party would remain on Elephant Island until rescue could be achieved.
South Georgia would be the destination. It was further in distance but it offered the best prospects of success given the prevailing conditions in Drake Passage, including a current that could carry them 60 miles a day to the east.
The James Caird and her crew departed Elephant Island on 21 April 1916. The whaler was built of Baltic pine planking over a framework of American elm and English oak. McNeish had raised her topsides 15 inches with lumber from the Endurance but, even so, when fully loaded for the strike north and east, she still had only two feet of freeboard.
For the next 16 days they were subjected to just about everything the Southern Ocean and Drake Passage had to offer – almost continuous gales from SE, SW, N and NW, two full storms with the wind gusting 60 knots, icing so heavy that the James Caird nearly sank, and being overwhelmed by a huge rogue wave that left hem floundering and bailing for their lives.
Despite all of this, they still made a precise landfall at South Georgia where they staggered ashore late on 10 May 1916, almost back to where they had started in Endurance 522 days before. If you think that was enough for anyone – there was more.
The James Caird’s landfall was on the inhospitable and unpopulated south-west coast of South Georgia, completely exposed to the westerlies and south-westerlies roaring through Drake Passage. To find help for their comrades back on Elephant Island, they still had to reach the whaling stations at Stromness or Leith Harbour on the northern coast – a trip of another 130 or so miles by sea, around the southern tip of the island and then north along the coast. But Shackleton’s men were past such a voyage and he determined that the only solution was for three of them to cross the island on foot – a trip of only 30 miles as the crow flies.
The only problem was that the crow didn’t fly in South Georgia, some of whose peaks climb to 3000 metres. Plus, the island had never been crossed on foot.
After a few days’ rest, Shackleton, Worsley and Crean set out for the Stromness whaling station from where Endurance had set out for the Antarctic Continent on 5 December 1914. With screws into the soles of their boots to provide grip in the snow and ice, they again embarked on a journey that healthy, well-rested men would have deemed unachievable, if not impossible.
They almost perished in the freezing cold as they clawed their way over 1200-metre ridges, but two days later, in the late afternoon, they strolled into Stromness whaling station and calmly asked for the factory manager. Were those men, or were those men?
As a footnote to the above, the crossing of South Georgia, as far as is known, has been achieved by only one other party – in 1955 by a fully-equipped British survey team under the leadership of one Duncan Carse. Carse was to observe: ‘I do not know how they [Shackleton, Worsley and Crean] did it – except that they had to. Three men of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration with 50 ft of rope between them – and a carpenter’s adze.’
Shackleton, at the third attempt, and in a third different vessel, returned to Elephant Island in the seagoing tug Yelchin (obtained from the Chilean government). On 30 August 1916, the main party was rescued and one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of exploration, human fortitude and endeavour was complete.
Peter.
Sir Peter Blake
"Having vision is not enough. Change comes through realising the vision and turning it into a reality. It is easy to espouse worthy goals, values and policies; the hard part is implementation."
Learn about Sir Peter Blake and his journeys around the globe
