In the wake of Sir Ernest

Not our usual fare of carbon fibre, foils and 30 knot boat speeds, however two of our community, former Mini sailor Nick Bubb and ‘the fastest sailor on the planet’ Paul Larsen, are today leaving Ushuaia in deepest Tierra del Fuego as part of the Shackleton Epic expedition. This aims to faithfully recreate one of the most famous seafaring/survival tales when the Sir Ernest Shackleton-led expedition to become the first to cross Antarctica, went wrong and his ship, the Endurance, was lost to the ice. After spending five months over 1915-6 surviving on an iceflow, Shackleton and his crew of 28 took to three lifeboats successfully making the 120 mile passage to Elephant Island. Uninhabited, Elephant Island provided no opportunity for them to be rescued and so leaving the remaining crew to fend for themselves, Shackleton and five other departed on their boat, the 22.5ft long James Caird to make the 800 mile journey across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia. Remarkably using a sextant they found South Georgia and, surviving hurricane force winds on the approach, managed to land, only on the uninhabited southwestern side of the island. This forced Shackleton and two of the remaining able bodied men in his crew then to take on the mountainous glacial interior of South Georgia in freezing conditions without climbing gear or a map. After a three day trek they reached habitation. The remaining crew of the James Caird on the south side of the island were subsequently picked up as was the larger party back on Elephant Island. Set up by Anglo-Australian Tim Jarvis, who has previously recreated Sir Douglas Mawson’s 1912 ill-fated trek across Antarctica, the Shackleton Epic expedition aims to recreate the voyage from Elephant Island followed by the crossing of South Georgia by land. While there have been at