James Caird part II

[RodSBT]

So there you are on Elephant Island longing for warmer latitudes. The penguin is getting a bit stale and you have decided it's time to sail for S. Georgia for a cup of coffee and swap a few tales with a whaler.

At your disposal is a well stocked shop with power, tools and Miss Makita hanging on the wall. You have your choice as to what wooden boat design you need to build for the voyage.

Modifications to original plans allowed so long as it doesn't exceed the original dimensions of James Caird by 5% and must be powered by sail and oars only.

So as not to let Ms. Makita become bored, what's your design choice and why?

[J. Dillon]

I was always fascinated with that yarn so I popped this out one night.


JD

[Thorne]

??????

(advance warning - I really dislike "what if" tests that are too vaguely worded to be sensibly answered. Suffered through too many "team-building exercises" about wilderness travel written by people who had obviously never been outdoors in their lives...)

Crew size and skills? Complete duplicate of the originals? Navigation tools?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_James_Caird

I got to see her at the Falmouth Maritime Museum in 2006 -

http://www.nmmc.co.uk/index.php?page...90&choiceid=80


my photo of the main hall, there were a lot of rooms full of Shackleton exhibits and movies.

[RodSBT]

J. Dillon, that post of your painting sent me to looking up a little more info. on the James Caird and hence this post (What small shop built wooden vessels of today would handle the voyage as well as the J.C. ?).

[RodSBT]

Don't worry Thorne, no team building seminar here. Other than keeping with the design parameters I laid out, you can go to town, Let your imagination fly.

[J. Dillon]

"Chippy" the carpenter built up the topsides from scrap. He never got any recognition from Shackleton.

JD

[RodSBT]

I'm thinking a Caledonia yawl with a little more free board and full decking might do pretty well. I would suspect a smaller sail plan would be in order. Add built in flotation chambers and plenty of ballast.

[keyhavenpotterer]

I've read the book and greatly admire the man and his voyage and survival. One thing I wondered. His ship was stuck in the ice some time before he left with his small crew to get help. Why didn't Shackleton canibilise his massive ship with all its greenheart, fittings, sails, ballast etc available and build himself another more suitable boat right then and there? He had ships carpenters all versed in carvel or lapstrake/ clinker construction, loads of manpower, ample time before he left, and they were all a practical bunch. It could have been built in a month. Anyone else wondered this? Instead they let it crush and sink, and left in vulnerable boats slightly adapted, in effect just the small tenders to his ship. I'm not criticising in any way, just didn't they have a big pile of the best boat building materials sat there right infront of them?

[Brian Palmer]

That is a good question.

I think Chippy actually did want to build a single larger boat with timbers from the ship, but Shackleton discouraged him for one reason or another. They tried dragging the boats they had over the ice but it was very hard. It may have been impossible to move a larger boat, and the larger boat could have been crushed in the breaking ice before they could get to clear water.

Brian

[Thorne]

Hard to beat the original design and materials, as anything much lighter might have been crushed or holed, anything heavier could not have been pulled across the ice.

Here they are launching off Elephant Island for the trip in 1916 -

[obscured by clouds]

Once you have actually seen the boat 'in the flesh' as it were, then you get an appreciation of how well she was built, and how tough these guys were.

I took a pilgrimage to London last year and went and had a look at her in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

I told my g/f of the time the story behind the boat beforehand. She was totally gobsmacked and refused to believe me until she read the story for herself

[Captain Blight]

Hard to beat the original design and materials, as anything much lighter might have been crushed or holed, anything heavier could not have been pulled across the ice.

Here they are launching off Elephant Island for the trip in 1916 -

+1

Every time I think my life has taken a dive, I think about Shackleton & Co.

And my miserable life looks a lot better by comparison. I'm not fighting frostbite, salt-water boils, scurvy, and 60-foot seas in a 22-foot half-decked boat all at the same time. I'm not worrying about getting out of pack ice to convince a government to effect a rescue for my stranded men. I don't have my clothing rotting off my back, and I can take a long hot shower anytime I choose. I can eat to my hunger with a balanced diet every single day.

Shackleton and Endurance and her crew. By God, they were men in those days, and no mistake!

Were she mine, did I have the chance to choose how to change her? Increase the scantlings by 10% all around. Rig for a heavy lead shoe on the keel, that she might gain stability but still not draw too much for a landing through the surf.

Rig for proper bunks and water and food storage.

Would want provision for a kite, to lead through an eye just for'd of the mainmast for additional speed (speed saves lives). Re-rig through a bow eye for long downwind watches.

Rig a dodger! The contemporary accounts have them suffering in the heavy weather, which coincided with like all the flippin' time, down there in the deep latitudes. Does this scenario let us wear Gumby suits, or are we still stuck with oil-tanned elkskin?

Spare rudder, spare tiller, spare sails, spare everything. God help you if the tiller breaks halfway down the face of a breaking Cape Horn roller. Maybe a better chest of tools, and a carpenter who wasn't quite so obstreperous.

[Captain Blight]

I've read the book and greatly admire the man and his voyage and survival. One thing I wondered. His ship was stuck in the ice some time before he left with his small crew to get help. Why didn't Shackleton canibilise his massive ship with all its greenheart, fittings, sails, ballast etc available and build himself another more suitable boat right then and there? He had ships carpenters all versed in carvel or lapstrake/ clinker construction, loads of manpower, ample time before he left, and they were all a practical bunch. It could have been built in a month. Anyone else wondered this? Instead they let it crush and sink, and left in vulnerable boats slightly adapted, in effect just the small tenders to his ship. I'm not criticising in any way, just didn't they have a big pile of the best boat building materials sat there right infront of them?

Well. As the small tenders survived the trip in fairly good shape, it could be argued that they were the best possible choices for the task at hand.

One of them even survived the savage trip from Elephant Island to South Georgia, heavily modified with minimal tools and materials, carrying all souls aboard intact to a safe landing in a calm harbour. She's known as the James Caird.

[Yeadon]

A double ender with a split rig. Lug yawl. Lug ketch. Maybe a gaff rigged schooner. Something easily reefed, and where you could change out your sail combinations to match the insanity you'd experience.

What about a Bristol Bay gilnetter, decked over like the James Caird?

Here's CWB's.

[RodSBT]

Captain Blight, Gumby suits are fine. My main reason for posting this thread was to gain insight into what others would consider a comparable or better boat design for the task of making the journey if given free range of design choices, the only caveat being no motor and no more than 5% increase in size. All safety/survival gear accepted. Bring what you want as long as it will fit in the boat, will not deter from making progress (and not propel the boat, unless sail or oar).

I am mainly interested in the boat design choices. Survival gear, radios, gps etc. are a given in todays world and in some ways doesn't really matter if the boat and crew aren't up to the task (and lets assume the crew is).

[Hwyl]

As has been said by others, the boat type they used for their bufoonery had been evolved over a couple of hundred years and was therefore suitable. Given composite materials of today, it could be made llighter and stronger with more of a turtle shaped deck and perhaps some kind of shelter. I'm always impressed by those lifeboats that can be ejected from tne back of big ships and that is what I'd consider to be the latest evolution of the type.

As to whether they were brave, well my grandfather was n the battle of Jutland at about the same time as these upper class twits were communing with penguins. You tell me

[rbgarr]

Or maybe a design based on the modern ocean crossing rowing craft with allowances for sail.

[Lincoln C]

As to whether they were brave, well my grandfather was n the battle of Jutland at about the same time as these upper class twits were communing with penguins. You tell me

None of the crew, including officers, were "upper class." They were professional seaman, born mostly to working class parents. 2 were illegitimate. They wanted jobs and the expedition left before Britain was involved in the war. After the expedition almost all served in the royal navy for the rest of the war. 3 were killed in action, 2 badly wounded. Shackleton himself was the only one who could be called "upper class," and that was only after the expedition. But he was frequently bankrupt or near bankrupt his whole life. James Caird, the man, was upper class, a major supporter of the expedition.

As for an updated version of the boat, this doesn't fit much of the criteria, but it is an open oar/sail expedition boat. Dodger, cuddy (they would have been dumbstruck that it's used for the head), deck boards would make it somewhat more comfortable. Self-bailing. Probably over-canvassed for the southern ocean.