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Launching the James Caird from the shore of Elephant Island, 24 April 1916 The voyage of the James Caird was a journey of 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia, undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the stranded Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 ...
The expedition was sponsored by the Joint Services Expedition Trust with the aim of climbing, exploring and carrying out a preliminary scientific survey of islands in the Elephant group for the Directorate of Overseas Surveys. The expedition was transported to and from the island by HMS Endurance. During the course of the expedition several ...
Elephant Island is an ice-covered, mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean.The island is situated 245 kilometres (152 miles) north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 1,253 kilometres (779 miles) west-southwest of South Georgia, 935 kilometres (581 miles) south of the Falkland Islands, and 885 ...
Launching the James Caird from the shore of Elephant Island, 24 April 1916. Elephant Island was an inhospitable place, far from any shipping routes. Rescue by means of a chance discovery was very unlikely, so Shackleton decided to risk an open-boat journey to the South Georgia whaling stations where he knew help would be available. [152]
Elephant Island was remote, uninhabited, and rarely visited by whalers or any other ships. If the party was to return to civilisation it would be necessary to summon help. The only realistic way this could be done was to adapt one of the lifeboats for an 800-mile (1,300 km) voyage across the Southern Ocean, to South Georgia.
Point Wild is a point 11 km (6.8 mi) west of Cape Valentine, 2 km (1.2 mi) east of Saddleback Point, and directly adjacent to the Furness Glacier on the north coast of Elephant Island. It was named Cape Wild by the Shackleton Endurance expedition 1914–16, but Point Wild is recommended for this feature because of its small size and to avoid ...
The castaways managed to land themselves safely on Elephant Island, off the coast of Antarctica. Shackleton then led a crew of five aboard the James Caird, the best surviving open boat, through the Drake Passage, even though there were no sun appearances for precise navigation.
Caird helped to fund Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition of 1914 to 1916 on Endurance. The largest of the ship's boats, the James Caird, in which six of Endurance 's crew made their epic small-boat voyage of 700 nautical miles (1,300 km; 810 mi) from Elephant Island to South Georgia, was named in appreciation of Caird's contribution ...