Shackleton's James Caird Endurance

Shipwrecked Antarctic Explorer's Lifeboat Expedition

Jul 22, 2008

More than a year after Antarctic ice claimed HMS. Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's 28-man crew improbably reached land -- but what followed demanded the impossible.

It was like aiming a bee-bee through a windstorm at a billboard a block away, with only directions on how to aim, and then the easy part of the challenge was finished.

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s leadership of England’s ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 has become a supreme example of effective command in crisis, and an inspiring story of survival. His twin achievements of seafaring and mountaineering on that same expedition receive less credit.

Shipwrecked on the Ice

The story of Shackleton’s ship, HMS Endurance; being lost to the ice, turning the historic tale into one of survival, has become commonly known. The details of what it took to return all 28 members of the crew home alive, after getting them off the ice, may be the most amazing part.

After abandoning melting northbound ice floes for three lifeboats, pure will and work took the men to Elephant Island. Their hopes remained dim. They could stick it out with starvation rations on the barren rock near the Antarctic Circle, but since they were the first who had ever stepped onto the island, little trust in rescue comforted them. Someone had to let the world know they were there.

An Open Boat and a Merciless Sea

Shackleton had his engineer, Harry McNish, rig the 22-foot open lifeboat, James Caird. Then with five companions he set out across 800 miles of the most treacherous seas in the world for South Georgia Island. Captain Frank Worsley, who had skippered Endurance earned a place among the best navigators in history, with a lifeboat.

The party arrived at South Georgia Island, but currents kept them from reaching the northeast side, and the whaling port where help could be found. This meant a journey across the island for three of them. Shackleton had failed at being the first to cross a continent only only to find his life, and 27 other lives, dependent upon being the first to cross a small island.

Nothing but a Mountain in the Way

It wasn’t just a matter of going up one side of a mountain and down another. Jagged peaks and massive glaciers filled South Georgia Island’s unmapped. Once as night came down cold, Shackleton and the two companions he’d selected for this leg of the journey, realized that they would freeze to death before completing a careful descent of a glacier. They chose to slide, and slide they did, 1,000 feet nearly straight down, with a gradual sloping end. It proved the easiest part of the entire adventure.

Then, in the lowlands, they still had to cross rivers, and even tumbled down a waterfall, before reaching the whaling station. Rescuers retrieved the three on the other side of the island, and a relief expedition to Elephant Island found the good fortune of one of the last days with the ice open enough to get through.

Shackleton is known for the awe-inspiring feat of leading 28 men shipwrecked in the Antarctic winter to final safety. He may have led a failed expedition, but in saving its members with the James Caird voyage, he achieved a near incomparable feat in maritime history.

The copyright of the article Shackleton's James Caird Endurance in Explorers is owned by Peter John Stone. Permission to republish Shackleton's James Caird Endurance in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.