"Not all those who wander are lost..." - J.R.R. Tolkien
One of the most impressive feats of navigation occurred in the earlier parts of the twentieth century. On April 24, 1916, Earnest Shackelton, along with five companions, left Elephant Island in a relatively small craft, a lifeboat named the James Caird. Sixteen days later they made landfall at South Georgia Island, 830 nautical miles (1500 km; 920 miles) away. In order to grasp the significance of this voyage, some background information will be helpful.
Earnest Shackelton's third expedition to the Antarctic is well documented elsewhere (read "The Endurance" by Alfred Lansing), but I'll give a brief synopsis.
On 5 December 1914, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition left South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic for the Weddell Sea with the intent of landing a shore party near Vahsel Bay for a proposed traverse of the continent. Before the Endurance could reach her destination, she was trapped in pack ice east of the Ronne Ice Shelf and by the middle of February 1915, was held fast. The ship drifted slowly northward for eight months. On the 27th of October, the ship was finally crushed by the enormous pressure in the ice pack, ultimately sinking on the 21st of November, 1915. Shackelton and his 27 men were now stranded on the ice, thousands of miles from civilization.
An attempt to haul three salvaged lifeboats on sleds towards land was eventually abandoned and the crew drifted on the ice an additional four months further north towards the open sea. On April 8, 1916, the ice floe on which they were camped began to break up and the boats were launched. By the 15th of April, they made landfall on the north side of Elephant Island, described at the time as remote, uninhabited, and rarely visited by whalers or any other ship.
Shackelton and his crew were now in desperate straits. Although fresh water was available and they could hunt for food (mainly seal and penguin), the quality and variety were limited and the months of uncertainty and hardships were taking their toll. With the rigors of an Antarctic winter coming on, Shackelton decided to go for help. After much discussion with the expedition's second-in-command, Frank Wild, and the ship's captain, Frank Worsley, the decision was made to use the largest lifeboat, the James Caird, and head with the prevailing winds towards South Georgia Island. Shackelton chose five men to accompany him: Frank Worsley, Tom Crean, John Vincent, Timothy McCarthy, and Harry McNish.
It is difficult to imagine the magnitude of the proposition on those intimately involved. South Georgia is a very small landmass in the midst of a very large ocean, with some of the roughest seas in the world in between. The island is barely a hundred miles long and between 10 to 25 miles wide. The Atlantic ocean at this latitude is about 4000 to 5000 miles in breadth, depending on how one measures it, encompassing over 15 million square miles of water. Had they missed their mark the next landfall would've been South Africa, maybe, at just under 3000 miles distance. These exhausted men, poorly outfitted, and in horrific conditions, somehow managed to pull this off. It was the nautical equivalence of finding a needle in a haystack. It remains one of the greatest small-boat journeys of all time.
Their success depended on Worley's ability to navigate, and initially, only two sightings (one on the 26th and one on the 29th) were taken. After that, navigation became "a merry jest of guesswork" (Worley), as they began to encounter the legendary weather consistent in the southern seas, specifically the Drake Passage. One more sighting was accomplished on the 4th of May; after that, worse weather descended upon them. Three days later, from dead-reckoning calculations, Worsley told Shackelton he could not be sure of their position within 10 miles.
I step outside to walk my trails up behind the house. It rained last night and this time of the year the organic mass of leaves and such just gushes from the trees; the ground. Water is still dripping periodically from the canopy as a trailing mist slowly drifts through the understory. I interrupt various birds in their morning routine; Robins are prevalent as are the LBB's. The ubiquitous Raven sails by, and I finally spy the owl I heard a few mornings ago. The trails begin to take the shape of tunnels as the foliage thickens, their shafts and stalks bowed, assisted by the weight of the rain. I think of early mankind and try to imagine their inherent intimacy with the land; the weather.
The history of navigation is mostly a story of trying to find our way at sea. This study will explore the three main arenas mankind has historically had to deal with; land, sea, and air.
No comments:
Post a Comment