SY Aurora's Drift

SY Aurora's Drift

The drift of the Antarctic exploration vessel SY Aurora was an ordeal which lasted 312 days, during the Ross Sea chapter of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. 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 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 Aurora's 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, as the drift extended through the southern winter and spring, to a position north of the Antarctic Circle. In February 1916 the ice finally 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 surviving members of the shore party.

Despite his role in saving the ship, after Aurora's arrival in Port Chalmers Stenhouse was removed from command by the organisers of the Ross Sea party relief expedition, so the ship returned to McMurdo Sound under a new commander and with a substantially different crew. For his service aboard Aurora, Joseph Stenhouse was later appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).