STORY OF CAPTAIN SCOTT'S VESSEL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 83, 24 April 1937, Page 13

STORY OF CAPTAIN SCOTT'S VESSEL

The Discovery's Famous Maiden, Voyage in Which She Spent Two Winters Frozen in Antarctic Ice. Her Future As Sea Scouts' Ship

A FEW WEEKS AGO it was announced that Captain Scott's old ship, the Discovery, had been acquired by the Scouts' Association fOr a nominal sum and was to be moored in the Thames, , probably off Temple Gardens; as a living memorial to the • Antarctic explorer. The vessel will be used as a training ship for Sea Scouts and a hostel for overseas scouts visiting London. During her 36 years of life, says the Port of London Authority monthly ptib- ■ lication the Discovery has had many adventnres; she has been frozen fast in the ice of the Antarctic arid plougked her way through the floes of the north. The history of .this staunch little 'ship deserves * to be remembered fof its owh sake' as . well as for that of the gallant men who sailed in her. About "the beginning of the century the Eoyal Society and the Eoyal Geographieal Society made an appeal for funds to equip an expedition to the Antarctic, and finally, * idrgely thanks to the untiring efforts of Sir Glements Markham, the' keel of n research . ; ship was Iaid- by the Dundee Shipbuilding Company in March, 1900. The hull of this ship was built entirely of wood, the fr'ames being llin.' thick and made of solid oafe. The inside lining had a thickness - of * 4in.' and outside were two layers of 6in. and. 5jn.respectiyely. The frames were placed very close together so that there is virtually a solid wall of oak 26in. thick for most of the length of the vessel. The Discovery was, of course, specially • biiilt. for the Polar expedition — incidentally she was the flrst British ship to be built for research purposes— and the enormous streiigth of her bows was necessary to withstand the pressure of tlie ice which would ' crumple up an iron hull like so much paper. • She was barquentine rigged and had an auxiliary engine. Captain Scott's cabin ' .was next to -the boiler foom ajid ho writes. -in:lris diaiy: • i'This posifcion' was by uo > . .means a catch, for .in 1 the . tropics, when steam was . up it had the doubtful beiieflt of the heat given off by the boilers, where- : as in the Polar winter, when we had no steam, the engine room naturally beeame the coldest place in the ship and the after cabin suffered accordingly. " When the Scouts take .possession this cabin will probably be kept as a kind of museum contain . ing saraples of Polar gear such as a sledge,. skis and an explorer 's outflt. Scott's Discovery was not the flrst vesseel to c-arrv this name but

it had a worthy family treo. Tho flrst Discovery was an East Indiaman of only 55 tons which sailed in 1G02 in search of the North West Passage. Altogether this •little ship made five more voyage* in Arctic regions; in 3610, urideT ■ "Henry Hudson,. the Hudson Bay was discovered, and in 1615, with Baffin on board, the flrst passage was made through the strait now known after him. Another Dis covery sailed under Cook on his third voyage in 1776. Vancouver's ship Discovery, built on the Thames in' 1789, afterwards beeame a convict hulk and ' was finally broken up at Deptford in 1834. The present Discovery 's immediate predecessor ' was the former whaler Bloodhound, built at Dundee in 1873, and used for the Go\ ernment Arctic expedition in 1874. Scott's Discovery was launched on the Dee in 1901 and in June of the same year she arrived at East India Dock to take in stores for the expedition, After seyeral busy weeks she Ieft tho Thames for New

Zealand where Captain Scott made his final preparations. The ship was loaded with * every ounce Of coal and provisions she could carry, and a deckload of 23 dog3 and 45 • sheep completed the list. A straight pas- ' Bage was made through the Eoss Sea, but during the following winter the Discovery became ice-bound; however, her stout oak frames did their job well and held firm. (Sir Ernest Shackleton's vessel, the Endur- . ance, was smashed up by the pressure of the ice in 1915.) In' January 1903 the Morning was sent out from Lyttelton with . stores, but was unable to get uear the Dis covery on account of the ice. SCott, mturniilg exhausted from a long expedition iiito the unknown land of ice, did not 'at flrst realise that the pack showed no signs of breaking up. Attempts to blast and saw a passage through the 36 miles of ice many feet deep proved ineffectual and finally it was decided to transfer the stores from the Morning, and the expedition made their pre- ^ para'tions for spending a second winter in • - the ' Antarctic. This artiple, does not .purport to deai with the history, of the expedition, but must confine itself to the adventures^ pf the ship which' formed the base for numerous expedition's into the interior. Meaniyhiie, in ' . England conviction was gradually growing that " the Discovery would never be ®free" , v again, ahd two relief ships, the Terra Nova, In which Sco'tt made his last f atal expedi- ' tion in 1910, and the. Morning, were sfint out from New Zealand _ with orders that Seott was to abandon the Discovery and returh With his crew on the relief ships if the Discoyery showed no signs of breaking free. After weeks of anxiety on board, for the whole crew thought it would be little- less than a catastrophe to have to abandon their ship, the ice sheet began to sway, and a. fortnight later the Hoes broke up and" a huge cheer went up as the, two " . ;reljcf ships raced through. Dynamite' .was i. Iaid to blast away the last pf the ice,' a narro'w crevice became a broad streak of black water, and the Discovery floated again after two long winters. But her troubles were not yet over. A terrible storm- blew up and steam was only raised just in time to stop the combined forces of sea, wind and current battering the vessel , - to pieees against the iee. Shattering blows brought her thudding dcwn onto the bottom and splintered the rudder-head so that the

spare one had to be shipped. At last the tough little ship fought her way through and arrived at Lyttelton where two months were spent re condi'tioning before returning ■ home where she arrived on September 9th. 1904. ' . In JanuaTy, 1905, the Discovery was bought by the Hudson Bay Company to trade between London and Canada in place of the Stork which had been detained by ice, and she left London in June, 1906, for James Bay following the route of her old seventeenth century namesake. During the following years the Discovery traded regularly between the West India Docks and James Bay, often figh ting her way through heavy pack ice. The flrst two years of the war she spent under charter to the French Government bringing provisions over from Canada, yet curiously enough it was an event in no way connected with th'e turmoil in Europe which brought the Discovery back • to southern, waters 'once more. Twenty-tw.o merpbers of the Shackleton expedition which left' for • the Antarctic in 1914 had been stranded on Elephaht Island, and after three unsuccessful attempts had been made bv Sir Ernest Shackleton to reach these men, the Govern ment " decided to dispatch a wooden ship to the rescue, and in view of ther magnificent record of the Discovery it was decided that the owners should' be approached. - The French Government' .released her from Chartor and the Hudson . Bay .Company placed her at the free disposal 'of the; Adiniralty. The Discovery was fitted out at Devonport and left Plymouth on the night of August 10th., 1916, for Port Staiiley where she was to collect. Shackleton, on the way, In the meantime, Shackleton's own fourth attempt to break through was successful, and the Discovery was handed baek to tho Hudson Bay Company in .December, 1916. ' In the following year she; traded- between Montreal and St. Johns' „ Newfpundlahd, and in 1938 left Halifax Liverpool. Owing to the pressing demand for tonnago just after the war she was diverted to European waters apd in 1920 arrived in the Thames from Constantinople. After lying up for two years she was, sold by the Hudson Bay Compatiy to the Crown Agents . for the ColOpies, and in 1923, .'after being reeonditioned, she sailed on a three years ' voyage "under Lt. J. E. Stenhouse for the purpose of obtaining scientiflc data - ■ fVirt trifTvnfAvv a nf w"hnlfi«

UU lilC J .. and making oceanographical and meteorological surveys. On August 1, 1929, now showing Port Stanley as her new port of registration, the- DiscQvery left South West India Dock on what was to be her last voyage.- After calling at Capetown to • talce - on board Sir Douglas Mawson, the leader of the expedition, she sailed for the *Ierguelen Islands on a joint mission for the British, Australian and New Zealand Governments. During the winter months the Discovery lay in Melbcurne while the scientiflc survey work and the marking of whales was carried out in the summer. On August 1, 1931, two years to the day after she left London, the Discovery nosed her way up the Thames and for the last five years she has been lying up in the East India Dock, thus by a strange coincidence coming to rest in the same dock from which she started on her memorable maiden voyage.