Shackleton Epic voyage reconstruction expedition

Very good point. One wonders if Tim Jarvis (leader of this tribute expedition) selected the best crew for this expedition. Back in the day you had many chaps available who spent years at sea and learned all the subtle tricks of sea survival, repairing boats, etc.

In my opinion you would be hard pressed to find people alive today with such skills. You would have to search long and hard, as Shackleton did, to find just the right crew. Of course if your leader bails out early and opts to put the crew on the support yacht for the sake of safety, comfort and hot meals then that sort of pulls the plug on the heart and soul of this operation.

Shackleton and his men escaped with their lives and had no support yacht. They put on their oilies, toughed it out, pumped the vomit filled bilges and made it to New Zealand. They muched God-awful food as well. End of story.

The real Shackleton adventure is an epic tail of survival...life and death. Anybody who contemplates such an expedition must be willing to tell the support boat "Do not accept any crew on board under any circumstances
unless they are unconscious." or perhaps worse. The leader must also be willing to tough it out all the way.

At this point it's not even worth talking about. Their latest blog post states they're waiting out the weather at King George Island and doing sea trials in the replica boat.

http://shackletonepic.com/the-waiting-game/

In other words: "To be continued..."

Well, at least they're contemplating giving it another go. If sea trials don't go well because of how severe the Southern Ocean and their lack of seamanship they're really better off reading about what Shackleton and his men actually did and calling it a day.

 

Your points of choosing the right men for the job; having the correct skill set for the job; and necessity being the mother of survival all point to this not being a journey which can be recreated by "Made for TV" actors.

Am I right on that?

 

Who on the crew is a TV actor? Looking further, the leader appears to have a notch or two under his belt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Jarvis

We'll see if they can tough it out. On a little boat like that they'll be lucky if they can get a GoPro camera to operate for more than a few minutes at a time.

Oh, forgot about the support boat...regular camera jocks hanging off the gunwales. Would be fun to watch them duke it out with the waves in any case. I'd buy the DVD if they managed to pull it off.

 

Launched

http://shackletonepic.com/it-humour...out-sailing-such-a-grossly-underpowered-boat/

 

Still waiting for good conditions



http://shackletonepic.com/the-waiting-game-2/

 

The camera jocks are the really tough guys on these "expeditions". When you see the actor huffing and puffing climbing up the hillside, some camera and sound operators climbed before with hundreds of pounds of gear.

 

They could do a 'moon landing', and just take heaps of pictures in big waves, ship the little boat to South Georgia, do a few mountain climbing stills, and no-one would be the wiser.

Much safer option too

 

I love the idea LOL. After all this is a "made for TV" adventure. Hollywood types wouldn't have left the studio lot. They would be out renting swimming pools, buying snow machines, spraying fire hoses over the deck, etc.

Whatever it takes to get the visual effect across.

Of course after a day's shoot they're sipping martini's and sleeping in a warm bed.

 

Paul Larsen has put up an article about the reconstruction on bymnews.

http://www.bymnews.com/news/newsDetails.php?id=114271

 

Interesting points for me

" Tomorrow we head off to try and make a landing on the notoriously desolate Elephant Island. That is where our voyage will really start."

and

"The 'Alexandra Shackleton' sits at the other end of the speed sailing spectrum. She is just under 23 feet long and weighs 3 tons. 1 ton boat, 1 ton ballast, 1 ton humans and accessories. The rigs are tiny and everything on the boat is either 100 years old or designed and built with the same style and materials as the boat which she so closely mimicks"

 

They are away!
Better them than me.......
http://shackletonepic.com/
25 January – 1030hrs AEDT (24 January 2330hrs GMT/UTC)




Alexandra Shackleton 64 nautical miles from Elephant Island. Image Jo Stewart Shackleton Epic.


Day one and counting! After 24 hours at sea, Alexandra Shackleton is now approx. 64nautical miles from Elephant Island (click here to track the boat live). The crew are wet, cold, and hungry after shipping a lot of sea water over the top sides and bailing, pumping and bailing some more (just as Shackleton and his men did aboard the James Caird). In unusually light conditions, Alexandra Shackleton spent five hours averaging only 1knot. The wind has now picked up to over 20knots as predicted and at the time of writing the Alexandra Shackleton was doing 5knots in a 3 metre swell.

"I've been pleasantly surprised at the progress we've been able to make thus far. In the middle of the night, when there was no wind, we had to manoeuvre to avoid a collision with a big iceberg that was in our path. Regardless, we're trying to enjoy it and we had a fantastic encounter with a whale which was about 6-7metres from the bow of the boat – it was quite a magical experience for us," Tim Jarvis said.

Winds are expected to reach 35knots tomorrow, gusting to 50knots.

 

Hmmm....sounds like fun !!!

Great commercial for foul weather gear.

 

http://shackletonepic.com/stormy-weather/

And now
"January 26 - The Alexandra Shackleton has covered 229 nautical miles (since leaving King George Island). In the past 24 hours, she has covered 84 nautical miles – making good progress under a small jib. The past day has seen 7 metre swells and 30knot winds gusting to 50knots and confused seas"

 

What will they think of next?

 

Recent blog entries

January 30, The Meaning of Adventure, fluff piece must have been a boring day
http://shackletonepic.com/the-meaning-of-adventure/


January 29, life in the slow lane
http://shackletonepic.com/life-in-the-slow-lane/


January 28, Here comes the sun
http://shackletonepic.com/here-comes-the-sun/