The drift of the Antarctic exploration vessel SY Aurora was an ordeal which lasted 312 days, affecting the Ross Sea party of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–1917. It began when the ship broke loose from its anchorage in McMurdo Sound in May 1915, during a gale. Caught in heavy pack ice and unable to manoeuvre, Aurora, with eighteen men aboard, was carried into the open waters of the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean, leaving ten men stranded ashore with meagre provisions.
Aurora, a 40-year-old former Arctic whaler registered as a steam yacht, had brought the Ross Sea party to Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound in January 1915, to establish its base there in support of Shackleton's proposed transcontinental crossing. When Auroras captain Aeneas Mackintosh took charge of activities ashore, first officer Joseph Stenhouse assumed command of the ship. Stenhouse's inexperience may have contributed to the choice of an inappropriate winter's berth, although his options were restricted by the instructions of his superiors. After the ship was blown away it suffered severe damage in the ice, including the destruction of its rudder and the loss of its anchors; on several occasions its situation was such that Stenhouse considered abandonment. Efforts to make Wireless contact with Cape Evans and, later, with stations in New Zealand and Australia, were unavailing; the drift extended through the southern winter and spring to reach a position north of the Antarctic Circle. In February 1916 the ice broke up, and a month later the ship was free. It was subsequently able to reach New Zealand for repairs and resupply, before returning to Antarctica to rescue the seven surviving members of the shore party.
The committee charged with supervision of the relief effort were critical of Shackleton's initial organisation of personnel and equipment for the Ross Sea expedition. Despite his role in saving the ship, after Auroras arrival in Port Chalmers, Stenhouse was removed from command by the organisers of the relief expedition, so the ship returned to McMurdo Sound under a new commander and with a substantially different crew. Stenhouse was later appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his service aboard Aurora.
Background
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, an effort to cross Antarctica on foot, comprised two parties. The first, under Ernest Shackleton, sailed to the Weddell Sea in Endurance, intending to establish a base there from which a group would march across the continent via the South Pole to McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea side. A second party under Aeneas Mackintosh in Aurora was landed at a Ross Sea base, with the task of laying supply depots along the expected route of the latter stages of Shackleton's march, a mission which Shackleton—who had explored much of the route in 1908–1909—thought straightforward.Shackleton, p. 242 Shackleton devoted little time to the details of the Ross Sea operation; thus, on arriving in Australia to take up his appointment, Mackintosh found himself faced with an unseaworthy ship and no funds to rectify the situation. Aurora, though strongly built, was 40 years old and had recently returned from Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition in need of an extensive refit.Haddelsey, pp. 25–28Fisher, pp. 397–99 After the intervention of the eminent Australian polar scientist Edgeworth David the Australian government provided money and dockyard facilities to make Aurora fit for further Antarctic service.
Of the Ross Sea party that eventually sailed from Australia in December 1914, only Mackintosh, Ernest Joyce, who was in charge of the dogs, and James "Scotty" Paton, the ship's boatswain, had significant experience with Antarctic conditions. Some of the party were last-minute additions: Adrian Donnelly, a railway engineer who had never been to sea, became Auroras second engineering officer,Tyler-Lewis, p. 50 while Lionel Hooke, the wireless operator, was an 18-year-old apprentice. Auroras chief officer was Joseph Stenhouse, from the British India Steam Navigation Company. Stenhouse, who was 26 years old when he joined the expedition, was in Australia recovering from a bout of depression when he heard of Shackleton's plans, and had travelled to London to secure the Aurora post. Although as a boy he had been inspired by the polar exploits of Fridtjof Nansen, Scott and William Speirs Bruce, Stenhouse had no direct experience of Antarctic waters or ice conditions.Haddelsey, pp. 16–23
In McMurdo Sound
Winter anchorage Aurora arrived in McMurdo Sound in January 1915, late in the season due to its delayed departure from Australia. Because the party was three weeks behind schedule Mackintosh decided that the depot-laying work should begin at once,Tyler-Lewis, p. 66 and took charge of this himself. By 25 January he was leading one of the early sledging parties, leaving Stenhouse in command of the ship. In the few weeks before the sound froze over for the winter, Stenhouse had to supervise the landing of most of the equipment and stores, and find a safe winter berth for the ship; Mackintosh's departing instruction had been explicit that this was Stenhouse's paramount duty.Tyler-Lewis, p. 112
The only known safe winter anchorage in McMurdo Sound was Scott's original Discovery Expedition headquarters from 1901 to 1903, at Hut Point, south of the projection known as Glacier Tongue which divided the sound into two sectors. Scott's ship had been frozen in the ice for two years, and had needed two rescue ships and several explosive charges to release it. Shackleton was determined to avoid this, and had given Mackintosh instructions, relayed to Stenhouse, to winter Aurora north of the Tongue.Tyler-Lewis, pp. 114–16 No ship had previously wintered in the exposed northern section of the sound, and the wisdom of doing this was questioned by the experienced seamen Ernest Joyce and James Paton in their private journals.Tyler-Lewis, p. 68Tyler-Lewis, pp. 120–21, 126 After the expedition was over, John King Davis, who was to lead the Ross Sea party relief mission, wrote that Shackleton's instruction should have been ignored and that Stenhouse should have taken Aurora to the safety of Hut Point, even at the risk of becoming frozen in.Tyler-Lewis, p. 221
Stenhouse first attempted to anchor the ship on the north side of Glacier Tongue itself.Haddelsey, p. 43 Disaster was only narrowly avoided when a change in the wind direction threatened to imprison Aurora between the Tongue and the advancing pack ice.Tyler-Lewis, pp. 118–19 With other options considered and rejected, Stenhouse finally decided to anchor at Cape Evans, site of Captain Scott's 1911 Terra Nova headquarters, six nautical miles (11 km) north of Glacier Tongue. On 14 March, after numerous failed attempts,Fisher, p. 402Bickel, pp. 69–70 Stenhouse manoeuvred Aurora into position, stern-first towards the shore at Cape Evans, where two large anchors had been sunk and cemented into the ground. Cables, hawsers, and a heavy chain attached these to the ship's stern. Two bower anchors were also dropped. By 14 March the ship was settling into the shore ice with, according to second officer Leslie Thomson, "enough hawsers and anchors to hold a battleship".Tyler-Lewis, p. 123
Blown away The unsheltered Cape Evans anchorage exposed Aurora to the full harshness of the winter weather. By mid-April the ship resembled a "wrecked hulk", listing sharply to starboard and subject to violent shocks and tremors as the ice moved around it.Tyler-Lewis, pp. 125–27 When the weather permitted, attempts were made to rig the wireless aerials that would enable communication with the shore parties and later, it was hoped, with Australia and New Zealand.Haddelsey, pp. 48–49 The remaining sledging rations for the depots were put ashore, but much of the shore parties' personal supplies, fuel and equipment remained on board, as it was assumed that the ship would stay where it was throughout the winter.Bickel, p. 71
At about 9 p.m. on 6 May, during a fierce storm, the men aboard heard two "explosive reports" as the main hawsers parted from the anchors. The combined forces of the wind and the rapidly moving ice had torn Aurora from its berth and, encased in a large ice floe, the ship was adrift in the Sound. Stenhouse ordered that steam be raised in the hopes that, under engine power, Aurora might be able to work back to the shore when the gale abated, but the engines had been partly dismantled for winter repairs, and could not be started immediately. In any event the engine and single-screw propeller lacked the required power.Bickel, p. 218 Slowly, the ship drifted further from the shore; the noise of the storm meant that the scientific party ashore at Cape Evans hut heard nothing. It would be morning before they found the ship had gone.Haddelsey, pp. 51–52
Eighteen men were aboard when Aurora broke away, leaving ten marooned ashore. Four scientists were living in the Cape Evans hut; six members of the first depot-laying parties, including Mackintosh and Joyce, were stranded at Hut Point waiting an opportunity to cross the sea ice and return to Cape Evans.
Drift
First phase
By 8 May a continuous southerly gale had driven the ship northwards, still locked in the ice, out of McMurdo Sound and into the open Ross Sea. In his diary for 9 May Stenhouse summarised Auroras position: "...fast in the pack and drifting God knows where [...] We are all in good health [...] we have good spirits and we will get through." He recognised that this was the end of any hope of wintering the ship in McMurdo Sound, and expressed concern for the men at Cape Evans: "It is a dismal prospect for them [...] we have the remaining Burberrys, clothing etc for next year's sledging still on board."Shackleton, pp. 309–13 During the next two days the winds reached a force that made it impossible for the men to work on deck,Haddelsey, pp. 53–57 but on 12 May the weather had moderated sufficiently for a temporary wireless aerial to be rigged, and Hooke began trying to contact the men ashore. His Morse messages failed to reach Cape Evans.Tyler-Lewis, p. 199 Although the transmitter's range was normally no more than , Hooke attempted to raise the radio station at Macquarie Island, more than away, again without success.
On 14 May the broken remains of the two bower anchors, which were threatening to capsize the ship, were hauled in.Shackleton, pp. 310–11 During the following days the pack ice thickened, and in increasingly turbulent weather the boilers were closed down, since attempting to manoeuvre under power in these conditions would merely waste coal. Replenishing the ship's supply of fresh water was a further difficulty. A large iceberg was in view, but too far away in the prevailing weather conditions to be accessible, so to obtain drinking water the crew had to gather snow. Food was less of a problem; they were able to augment Auroras food supplies from the penguins and seals that gathered around the ship. To boost morale the crew were given a ration of rum to celebrate Empire Day on 24 May.Huntford, p. 420