

After the Norwegian ship the *Fram the Polaris was the strongest polar exploration ship in the world at the time. She was built in the Framnaes shipyards, Sandefjord, Norway in 1912. She was custom built for extreme polar conditions. She was designed to be used for exclusive cruises, catering for wealthy tourists and polar bear hunting parties in the Arctic. She was a three masted Barquentine, 144 ft long with a 25ft beam. She had both sail and power capacity with a 350 horsepower coal-fired steam engine capable of 10 knots. She had electric light throughout, ten large passenger cabins, a spacious dining saloon, a galley (kitchen) with accommodation for two cooks, a smoking room a bathroom and a dark room to allow passengers to develop photographs.
Being a new build, the designers were able to incorporate additional strength, resilience and ice compression resistance features from the beginning of construction. Special attention was given to the bow, the most vulnerable part of the ship. Additional frames of double thickness with cross bracing were added. She was planked with lairs of Norwegian fir and oak with an outer lair of greenheart sheathing. Greenheart is a very strong and dense South American hardwood. All the timber was carefully chosen to enable its natural shape to fit the curves of the Polaris without the need for bending. The propeller was two bladed in preference to the standard three bladed version. It was designed to stop vertically so it was protected from the ice by the rudder post. Losing a propellers to ice was common to ships sailing in the polar regions at the time.
Ernest Shackleton purchased the Polaris for his Imperial Trans-Arctic Expedition. He renamed her Endurance after his family motto: Fortitudine Vincimus — “by endurance we conquer.” He had the interior stripped back to the bare hull with the exception of the photographic darkroom. The cabins were converted into a hold to carry coal. Kennels were built on the deck for the sledge dogs and additional stores.
In his book: South – The Endurance Expedition (Penguin Books). Shackleton wrote about the Endurance “……. Endurance have been almost past belief again and again. She has been nipped with a million-ton pressure and risen nobly. …………. She has been thrown to and fro like a shuttlecock a dozen times. She has been strained, her beams arched upwards, by the fearful pressure; her very sides opened and closed again as she was actually bent and curved along her length, groaning like a living thing. It will be sad if such a brave little craft should be finally crushed in the remorseless, slowly strangling grip of the Weddell pack after ten months of the bravest and most gallant fight ever put up by a ship. The Endurance deserved all that could be said in praise of her”
*Fram, meaning ‘forward’, was an unusual ship. All ships at the time avoided, at all cost, being locked-in by ice packs. Fram, on the other hand, was designed to enter the ice and withstand the pressure of being locked-in for long periods and becoming a laboratory. She generated electricity with her own windmill. Her hull was shaped like a bowl with the keel inside her frames enabling her to lift out of the ice and rest safely on the surface, drifting with the currents and the wind conducting scientific research. Unlike the Fram, the Endurance had a conventional shape not capable of self elevating through the ice to safety. Her strength was in her bow which was used as a battering ram to take on the ice full-on. She was always in danger of being crushed along her length if locked-in. Which is what happened.
Survival! The journey home.
James Caird

The unintended voyage of the James Caird was a life-or-death rescue mission. The life of 28 sailors depended on its success or failure. It entailed Shackleton, Worsely, Crean, McCarthy, McNish and Vincent undertaking a 1,300 kms (800 miles) journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia in treacherous sea conditions in a small lifeboat named the James Caird.
When the crushing ice sank the Endurance on the 21st of November 1915, Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition came to an abrupt end. The situation now facing Shackleton and his men was dire. It was now a question of survival. After five months camping on a drifting ice floe the ice began to melt. Using three lifeboats, Shackleton decided to row to the remote Elephant Island. The voyage had now become a journey of hardship and suffering. At one stage they discovered that the currents had carried them 30 miles backwards. After a grueling seven days of cold, thirst and hunger they reached Elephant Island. There once again, they found themselves stranded without hope of rescue.
It was at this stage that Shackleton in a desperate situation, took the momentous decision to sail the James Caird the 800 miles to a whaling station on the island of South Georgia. The James Caird was named after a Scottish businessman, Sir James Key Caird, who part financed the expedition. She was a strong open 22ft 6 inches long whaler, specifically chosen by Endurance Captain Frank Worsley for the expedition. The expedition carpenter, Harry McNish was tasked with adapting and raising the sides, adding a shelter deck and a 7x5ft sleeping space for the hazardous journey in the roughest sea on earth. The only means of navigation was by sextant. If Frank Worsely miscalculated his position by even half a degree, they would miss South Georgia and be lost in the vast Ocean.
On the 24th of April 1916 the Caird set sail into the unknown. Seventeen days later, having survived a hurricane, cold wet and hungry against all the odds, they reached West South Georgia. This is considered to be the greatest sea journey in a small open boat in history. The Caird was damaged beyond repair. Shackleton, Crean and Worsley, had to make a 36-hour trek without sleep, across unmapped and dangerous terrain consisting of mountains, glaciers and deep crevices before reaching safety at a whaling station in Stormness. After 17 months, the sound of a steam whistle from the whaling station was the first sound they heard from the outside world. This was the first confirmed land crossing of South Georgia.
It would take more than four months, and four attempts for Shackleton to rescue his men left behind on Elephant Island. The 28 scientists, officers and sailors, including the photographer Frank Hurley who sailed from England on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition on the 8th of August 1914 survived. The whole rescue operation did not end until the 30th of August 1916.
The James Caird was brought back to England and is now on public display in The James Caird Museum in Dulwich College, London.
Tom Crean
