Anyone Interested in Ships

[Mol_PMB]

Sounds more like a bar-room brawl than a naming ceremony!

[admiles]

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Not a restoration project.

 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10593291/Shackletons-lost-ship-Endurance-107-years-sinking.html

 

 

The state of preservation of Endurance is staggering.

[MarkC]

2 hours ago, admiles said:

 

The state of preservation of Endurance is staggering.

Very cold & deep water will have helped, also a lack of marine beasties which would have loved a meal of timber. It is indeed an amazing find, and what a day to find it too - 100 years to the day after the great man's funeral.

 

Apropos of nothing, I was privileged to be able to pay my respects to Shackleton by visiting his grave at Grytviken, back in 1985, whilst serving in "Scottish Eagle".

 

Mark

[laurenceb]

Let's hope that no details of where she is are released.

[drmditch]

Where is the James Caird now?

 

[davknigh]

5 minutes ago, drmditch said:

Where is the James Caird now?

 

Right here: https://jamescairdsociety.com/the-james-caird-today/

 

Cheers,

 

David

[rockershovel]

Those pictures are amazing, but the vessel itself! I can't envisage what it can have been like, sailing the Southern Ocean in such a vessel. Truly "wooden ships and iron men".

Edited March 9, 2022 by rockershovel

[KeithMacdonald]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Those pictures are amazing, but the vessel itself! I can't envisage what it can have been like, sailing the Southern Ocean in such a vessel. Truly "wooden ships and iron men".

 

By coincidence, just been watching this:

 

Four Masted Barque rounding Cape Horn 1928 - Captain Irving

 

A rather incredible film made nearly 100 years ago(!) , with an old sailing ship in storm waves that repeatedly submerge much of the deck. I commend it to the house!

 

 

[The Johnster]

7 hours ago, davknigh said:

Right here: https://jamescairdsociety.com/the-james-caird-today/

 

Cheers,

 

David

Must've been going helluva speed to get into that position...

 

My favourite part of this epic and truly inspirational story is that, having sailed the James Caird from Elephant Island to South Georgia, an incredible feat of seamanship and navigation in its own right, Shackleton and his men landed on the northwest coast of the islands and had to cross a not inconsiderable frozen mountain range in order to reach the whaling station at Gritviken.  They arrived in a blizzard and knocked on the station manager's hut door, to be welcomed in by the manager and his wife.  They were of course in a bit of a state and none too fragrant after their ordeal, and Shackleton apologised for their offensive odour.  The station manager, in a comment of diplomatic magnificence in its sheer humanity and understanding of the situation, told them not to worry; this was a whaling station, where everything stank all the time anyway!

 

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

By coincidence, just been watching this:

 

Four Masted Barque rounding Cape Horn 1928 - Captain Irving

 

A rather incredible film made nearly 100 years ago(!) , with an old sailing ship in storm waves that repeatedly submerge much of the deck. I commend it to the house!

 

 

Astonishing.

[rockershovel]

I've never understood why Shackleton and his crew didn't simply follow the coast until they reached Gritvyken. They knew where they were and the task of crossing the fearsome mountain range in their debilitated state was enormous. In the event they ended up undertaking a glissade with no real idea of whether it was even feasible, let alone whether any exit existed. 

 

It's also untrue, though widely believed that Shackleton "never lost a man" - the other party, laying depots for the further leg of the crossing fared badly and lost 3 men before finally rescued.

 

Shackleton also intervened to ensure that four members of the expedition didn't receive the Polar Medal, including the carpenter who did much of the preparatory work for the James Caird crossing and sailed with the party. 

 

Shackleton is a fascinating character but personally, I'd have given any enterprise under his control a wide berth.... 

Edited March 10, 2022 by rockershovel

[davknigh]

They only had sail for propulsion and given the wind, weather, and the weakened state of his crew following the coast was not an option. The Caird was in rough shape too and the south coast of South Georgia is strewn with hazards plus they would have had to weather the south east end. Time was of the essence and the overland route was shorter. I suspect that Worsley would have had a say too given his experience as a sailor and navigator.

Shackleton was a hard taskmaster who demanded absolute loyalty but gave it back in return. Remember that he could have had the pole in 1909 but turned back because he knew the team was too weak. Those were different times that we find hard to understand but those men were totally on their own with no prospect of outside help so there was no room for dissent or division. It was not a democracy.

 

Cheers,
 

David

[rockershovel]

Interesting comparison there with Scott, who of course had sent Shackleton home in his turn. Nor was Scott noted for loyalty or fidelity, although he certainly "played favourites" (notably P O Evans) and was capable of inspiring great loyalty (notably Wilson and Bowers). Oates considered Scott dangerously incompetent (certainly Scott's handling of something Oates knew about, the ponies, was seriously deficient) and "not straight", yet he followed Scott to disaster. 

 

There is also the case of Nansen, Amundsen and Johannson. 

 

One thing I came to understand during my own travels, was the extent to which the inner dynamics of these expeditions were sanitised and glossed over for public consumption. 

 

[drmditch]

1 hour ago, davknigh said:

I suspect that Worsley would have had a say too given his experience as a sailor and navigator.

Shackleton was a hard taskmaster who demanded absolute loyalty but gave it back in return. Remember that he could have had the pole in 1909 but turned back because he knew the team was too weak. Those were different times that we find hard to understand but those men were totally on their own with no prospect of outside help so there was no room for dissent or division. It was not a democracy.

 

Cheers,
 

David

Small boats and sailing ships can't be a democracy. (I don't know about big powered ships, but I suspect the same is true.) There needs to be someone in command, and when the sea does what the sea does you need a skipper who will make decisions and get you through. He/she doesn't need to be the best sailor, just someone who knows who the best sailor is, and know when to back their skill and judgement.

 

When the frontal systems changes direction and/or speed, and the 'weather window' turns out not to be a window at all, you don't need words, you need a seamanship and skill. If you have a Shackleton, or a Worsley, or even a Bligh (who may have been a difficult commander, but was certainly a superb sailor), or on a smaller scale one of several sailors whom I'm grateful to have sailed with, then be thankful for them, because they may save your life.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by drmditch

[rockershovel]

Scott doesn't appear to have been either. His naval career was undistinguished, to be charitable and owed much to Royal patronage in an age when that still counted. He was involved as Captain in a controversial collision at sea and spent much of his career as a technical specialist (torpedoes). 

 

He seems to have been dependent on the panoply of Naval authority, and struggled to lead or dominate men who didn't share those values, and some who did (notably "Teddy" Evans).

 

Shackleton was the complete opposite, although it's worth noting that there were those who he failed to impress in his turn. 

 

Many of those involved had colourful careers. Trygve Gran, the skiing expert employed (but subsequently largely ignored) by Scott was recruited under the recommendation of Nansen - yet he would break both Norwegian and British law by fighting in WW1 as a pilot in the RFC under an assumed name, then be prominently associated with the Quisling collaborationist party and be imprisoned in Norway as a traitor after 1945. 

 

Amundsen's brother, who performed the thankless task of acting as his representative and financial adviser must have had the patience of a Saint. 

 

 

[The Johnster]

Lee shore.  The prevailing wind is westerly in the Southern Ocean, and notoriously strong, so 'coasting' around to Gritviken would have involved constant beating off the coast and, given their general exhaustion and the deteriorating condition of the James Caird, would have very likely ended in disaster.  Once ashore, it would have been effectively impossible to sail back off, with the option of waiting for better weather not really a viable one, and the coast is far too precipitous to walk around, so over the mountains they went, but the decision could not have been taken lightly.

 

Shackleton is a complex character; being held as a hero and used as an exemplar of the best leadership qualities has perhaps cast some obscurity over his less admirable traits.  He was a domineering leader who had a long and unforgiving memory of those who had crossed him, demanding absolute and unquestioning obedience to his orders.  Expeditions are not democracies, and neither are ships; as Stubb, the 2nd mate in 'Moby Dick', says to Starbuck (who has said that Ahab thinks he is God), 'where I'm from, captains are God'.  Situations develop quickly on ships and it is necessary for orders to be obeyed, unquestioningly, fully, and now!!!

 

How this plays when a man is ordered to kill his cat in order to save resources on a long and dangerous trek over the ice, for example, is likely to cause resentment and conflict, and 'The Boss' (a telling enough nickname) harboured grudges. 

 

Polar explorers were beyond reproach in those days, especially if they were British, dammit Carruthers, and Scott had been virtually beatified for his undoubtedly herioc self-sacrifice and disciplined honourable deaths of himself and his men.  It was many years before criticism of his flawed planning and reliance on equipment then unproven in Antarctic temperatures surfaced, because it did not fit the heroic Brit narrative, and criticism of Shackleton has yet to seriously surface, for similar reasons, but he was not a perfect leader or a perfect man.  He was a good leader, all the same, and his trek to Elephant Island and subsequent voyage in the James Caird, dragged manually across the ice from the point of Endurance's sinking, is a truly heroic epic, as is his organisation of Endurance's stripping and preparation for the journey a superb example of how to 'do' logistics.  One doubts that any of them would have survived without him.

 

I would not particularly like to have gone on a polar expedition with either of them, but if I had to choose between them I think I'd choose the one that would have got me back alive no matter what, notwithstanding my opinion of the man's character and personality; I'm not exactly perfect myself!  One has to consider that Franklin was very popular amongst his men, and his expedition was an utter disaster that nobody came back from.  Amundsen, arguably the most successful of these explorers, went in fast and hard and got out the same way, and was famously as tough on his men as he was on himself, which was about as tough as they come; he was ruthless, brutal, and pitiless, a combination that worked well in a ruthless, brutal, and pitiless environment that he'd got the measure of, another flawed hero.

 

Perhaps we demand perfection from our heroes, and perhaps we shouldn't.

 

 

 

 

[rockershovel]

Which is perhaps, not quite the point. Scott's "heroic self-sacrifice and disciplined, honourable death of his men" is over-shadowed by Shackleton having decided (in essentially the same position, three years earlier) to turn back, and so survive. 

 

There was nothing new or unproven in Scott's use of ponies. It was well known that they could not cope with Antarctic conditions, Oates certainly knew this and the purchasing of them was hopelessly mismanaged. 

 

Nansen knew that skis and dogs were the answer. He pressed a ski expert on Scott, who largely ignored him; the same applied to the dogs, until it was far too late. Amundsen took dogs because he knew how to work them, and made sure that all his team could ski. 

 

Franklin isn't really a good comparison, because his mission was fundamentally misconceived, he was seeking something which wasn't there to be found. 

 

All heroes are flawed, from Achilles sulking in his tent down to the present day. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by rockershovel

[davknigh]

The thing that separates Nansen and Amundsen from the rest was their willingness to learn from the experts in polar travel, the Inuit. 
 

Cheers,

 

David

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

seeking something which wasn't there to be found

But it was, just not quite where Franklin was looking. Anyway, isn't that what explorers are supposed to do?

[rockershovel]

20 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

But it was, just not quite where Franklin was looking. Anyway, isn't that what explorers are supposed to do?

Matter of opinion, or definition. Amundsen was the first to identify that while it was possible to make the transit under certain circumstances, no commercial or strategically useful route existed, and there was no certainty of a route existing in any given year

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Matter of opinion, or definition. Amundsen was the first to identify that while it was possible to make the transit under certain circumstances, no commercial or strategically useful route existed, and there was no certainty of a route existing in any given year

Until the advent of nuclear submarines.

Edited March 11, 2022 by J. S. Bach

[billbedford]

On 10/03/2022 at 19:20, rockershovel said:

Franklin isn't really a good comparison, because his mission was fundamentally misconceived, he was seeking something which wasn't there to be found. 

 

Technology did for Franklin. With many of the crews suffering lead poisoning from the solder used on the then new bully beef tins. 

[The Johnster]

Not to mention that the London & Croydon steam locomotives that were fitted to Erebus and Terror proved inadequate to power the ships as icebreakers.  Technology did for Scott as well, amongst other things, due to the failure of the petrol sleds and the evaporation of fuel in the fuel dumps.  It is IMHO a bit harsh to assert that Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition was fundamentally misconcieved, as he was given the best equipment available and it would not have been reasonable to forsee that the steam engines would be a failure or that solder on food tins would cause lead poisoning at the time.  Domestic water supplies were being installed with lead pipes for many years after this. 

 

The contrast between the techno-centric approach of the Franklin and Scott expeditions does however contrast notably with the Inuit and Native American learned methods of John Rae, the Hudson Bay Company explorer who mounted the land-based search for Franklin's men and was ridiculed for suggesting that British (dammit Carruthers) had resorted to the Grim Measure of Final Desperation, as had been related to him by Inuit who had discovered some of their remains, and those of the 'fast and light with dogs' Amundsen.

 

The successful 1953 British Army expedition to climb Everest used a techno-centric and logistics-heavy approach similar in some ways to Franklin's and Scott's, but employing something more like Amundsen's fast-in-fast-out method for the actual summit assault teams.  The expediton leader, later Sir, John Hunt approached it as a military logistics operation, in his own words effectively laying siege to the mountain, establishing a series of camps. analagous to Scott's food and fuel dumps, at intervals along a prepared route to make the lives of the assault parties easier and using breathing apparatus and oxygen bottles.  This was a reaction to George Mallory's fast and light attempts of the 1920s, more in line with Rae and Amundsen's approach. 

 

It underlines that, while some types of approach may be better than other in some circumstances, and that you could probably argue that Amundsen was better prepared than Scott, luck plays a huge part, and the weather was very much against Franklin and Scott.  Both men were experienced polar veterans and skilled navigators and surveyors who knew what they were at; Franklin had previously mapped the Arctic Ocean coast of Canada eastwards from the Bering Straights to within 50 miles of what was probably his ships' position of abandoning.  He was himself dead by that time of course and matters had deteriorated into a survival situation.  Mallory was probably ill advised to take the inexperienced Irving with him, but needed a competent photographer; we may know more of this from his injuries if Irving's body is ever found.

 

Interesting to contrast the attempts to find the Northwest Passage with the various Russian and European voyages that opened up knowledge of the Northeast Passage, the sea route in the Artic Ocean around to the north of Russia.  This had its disasters and setbacks as well, and discoveries of skeletal remains in desperate camps, but took place in a much steadier and progressive way, in stages, over very many centuries.  The story begins with the Pomors in the 11th and 12th centuries, traders who sailed along the Arctic coast in seach of furs, in small groups using small ships of about 40 feet called Koches, something like a 2-masted version of a Viking Knarr, but strengthened inside and shaped so that it would be pushed upwards on to the top of the ice rather than being crushed and trapped in it; Nansen's Fram used the same principle and one has to say that Shackleton might have been better served by such a vessel. 

 

The Russian Arctic coast and its great river mouths was opened piecemeal, and while the principle motivation was to open a trade route, this proved ultimately impossible until modern times and even then only on good summers, the later expeditions were carried out in a spirit of scientific and geographic knowledge, and without any particular attention being paid to national prestige.  In the end the Trans Siberian Railway and the branches to the Gulags were what finally opened up the vast resources of Siberia, a Russian dream since the days of Ivan Grozny and before.  Knowledge was extended in stages, and within the capabilities of the various expeditions to a large extent, though they depended on luck just as much and bad luck could easily be lethal.

 

The Northeast Passage has limited potential as a commercial route, and the Northwest Passage has none, at least not in current climatic conditions, but further global warming may well reduce the sea ice and deepen the draughts of some of the shallower passages in future.  The alternative is to use submarines as cargo vessels, and this is only economically viable for drug dealers.  Autonomous submarines might be feasible.

Edited March 12, 2022 by The Johnster

[rockershovel]

All of which is true to varying extents; but Amundsen demonstrated that Franklin could not have achieved his goal. 

 

Amundsen's navigation of the NW Passage during 1903-6 was achieved using a vessel (Gjoa) of only 47 tons displacement, capable of operating in less than 1m draft. It had a crew of 6 and principally served as the support to a programme of on-shore dog-sled travel conducting research into, among other things  the location and behaviour of the North Magnetic Pole. Franklin could not possibly have followed Amundsen's route. 

 

Frobishere, Franklin, Ross et al demonstrated over time that a route existed, under varying conditions, as far as Franklin's final limit. Amundsen, Rae , Franklin and others demonstrated (employing techniques and information learned from both Inuit and the European  courers du bois long since active in the region) how to get about on land, and the general geography of the area. Franklin and generations of West Coast whalers had mapped, or at least knew the Western end of the route. 

 

Franklin's expedition was highly controversial. Experienced "Arctic Admirals" like Parry and Ross, believed it impossible. Franklin himself knew the ground, yet made no meaningful preparations for a possible abandonment and escape overland. 

 

It's a common theme of the "Heroic Age of Exploration". Franklin had no real idea of the performance of the steam engines in Erebus and Terror. Scott repeated Shackleton's failed methods of 1909, whereas Shackleton knew better than to try twice  and would die in his own bed. Scott employed a horse expert and ignored him, a ski expert to no useful effect, and conducted no meaningful trials of the motor sleds despite the opportunity to do so in Norway. 

[6990WitherslackHall]

On 09/03/2022 at 12:51, KeithMacdonald said:

Not a restoration project.

 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10593291/Shackletons-lost-ship-Endurance-107-years-sinking.html

 

I heard about this! Despite being underwater, it's surprisingly in good condition compared to previously sunken vessels like Titanic