Jump to content

SY Aurora

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 45.78.197.194 (talk) at 15:49, 27 May 2020. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

r |Hide header= |Ship country= |Ship flag= United Kingdom |Ship name= |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd. Dundee, Scotland |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= 1876 |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship honours= |Ship captured= |Ship fate= Declared lost by Lloyd's of London, 2 January 1918 |Ship status= |Ship notes= }}

General characteristics Class and typeSteam yacht Tonnage580 grt; 380 nrt[1] Length165 ft (50 m) Beam30.5 ft (9.3 m) Draught18.75 ft (5.72 m) Propulsion

  • Compound Steam Engine
  • Cunliffe and Dunlop of Glasgow
  • 98 bhp

Sail planBarquentine

|}

A 1912 envelope from the Aurora to New Zealand postmarked Hobart, 17 March 1913. From the John Clemente collection.[2]

SY Aurora was a 580-ton[1] barque-rigged[3] steam yacht built by Alexander Stephen and Sons Ltd. in Dundee, Scotland, in 1876,[4] for the Dundee Seal and Whale Fishing Company. It was 165 feet (50 m) long with a 30-foot (9.1 m) beam. The hull was made of oak, sheathed with greenheart and lined with fir. The bow was a mass of solid wood reinforced with steel-plate armour. The heavy side frames were braced by two levels of horizontaon== In 1910, she was bought by Douglas Mawson's deputy, Captain John King Davis, for £6,000 for his Australasian Antarctic Expedition.[5] On 2 December 1911 Aurora departed from Hobart, Australia for Macquarie Island, where a radio relay station was established. She left the island on 25 December, arriving at Cape Denison on 8 January 1912, where the main base was built. She departed on 19 January, heading west to find a location for the western base, which was eventually sited in what is now known as Queen Mary Land, on 1 February 1912. After the western party was established on the stable ice shelf, Aurora left on 20 February, arriving in Hobart on 12 March.

In December 1912, Aurora returned to Cape Denison to find that the sledging expedition of Mawson, Xavier Mertz, and Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis was overdue. Davis had to pick up the party at the western base and risked the ship being iced in over the winter if he left it too long. He waited until 8 February but just after leaving, he received a wireless message asking him to turn back as Mawson had reached the base. He turned Aurora around but severe weather prevented the landing boat being put ashore, so, on the evening of 9 February, Davis decided he must steam west to fetch the western base party. Aurora reached the western base on 23 February, loaded quickly and headed north, arriving in Hobart on 15 March.

Over the subsequent months, Davis raised extensive rescue funds, and had Aurora refitted. Departing from Hobart on 15 November 1913, Aurora collected the radio relay party under George Ainsworth at Macquarie Island, and sailed on to pick up the relief party at Cape Denison. She arrived in Commonwealth Bay on 3 December 1913 and left on 25 December. After an extensive coastal exploration and oceanographic work, she arrived back in Australia at Port Adelaide on 26 February 1914.

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Main article: SY Aurora's drift

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton tasked Aurora to help set up supply depots along the route for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. After being delayed by sea ice in McMurdo Sound in January 1915, Aurora managed to make her way further south, and sent teams off to set up the depots. Eventually she made her way to Discovery Bay on 12 March 1915, where she anchored and continued to offload supplies. In May, Aurora was trapped in the ice, and was carried out to the sea, stranding the men that were setting up the depots. She remained trapped in the ice for the better part of a year, drifting some 1600 nautical miles. It was not until 12 February 1916 that the ship escaped from the ice, making it back to Dunedin, New Zealand on 3 April.

1917 Ross Sea Party rescue

The Australian, New Zealand and British governments agreed to fund the refit of Aurora for the rescue of the Ross Sea Party. An Advisory Committee was established in Melbourne, consisting of Rear Admiral Sir William Cresswell, Professor Sir Orme Masson, Captain J.R. Barter, Commander John Stevenson and Dr Griffith Taylor.[6] 

the seven survivors of the original ten members of the Ross Sea Party were headed back to Wellington, New Zealand aboard Aurora.

Fate

Aurora was last seen in 1917, when she departed Newcastle, New South Wales, bound for [[

Message on a bottle

In 1927, a Mr. G. Bressington was walking along the beach near Tuggerah, New South Wales and noticed an old wine bottle partly buried in the sand. Upon examining the bottle he saw an engraving of the picture of a ship and on the other side the following message: "Midwinter's Day, 1912, Shackleton Glacier, Antarctica. 'Frank Wild, A. L. Kennedy, S. Evan Jones, C. Arch. Hoadley, Charles T. Harrisson, George Dovers, A. L. Watson and Morton H. Moyes".[7]

The story of the bottle is that it was one of three given to Sir Douglas Mawson when his expedition left England in 1911. The bottles were given by Mr J. T. Buchanan who had them left

Tributes

A number of Antarctic features are named for Aurora. These include:

Captains

This is a partial list of Captains of Aurora:

See also

List of Antarctic exploration ships from the Heroic Age, 1897–1922

References

  1. ^ a b Davis, John King, With the "Aurora" in the Antarctic, p. 177. London: Andrew Melrose. 1919.
  2. ^ The John Clemente collection of Tasmania postal history. Spink, London, 2016, p. 87.
  3. ^ A.L. Rice D.Sc. (1986) British Oceanographic Vessels 1800–1950. Minerva Press, Brentwood, Essex CM13 1TF p.16 ISBN 0903874 19 9
  4. ^ "Alexander Stephen & Sons, Dundee Yard-list". Maritime History Virtual Archives. Retrieved 2 July 2012.
  5. ^ SY Aurora – Ships of the Polar Explorers, coolantarctica.com.
  6. ^ Mill, Hugh Robert (March 1917). "The Relief of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party". The Geographical Journal. 49 (3): 218–221. doi:10.2307/1779498. JSTOR 1779498.
  7. ^ "The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania)". Strange Sea Story. 26 May 1927. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  8. ^ Rycroft, Nancy (2005). Captain James Fairweather Whaler and Shipmaster. Ripponden, West Yorkshire, England: Fairweather Books. p. 53. ISBN 09551739-06.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=SY_Aurora&oldid=959193863"