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The voyage of the ''James Caird'' was a small-boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean, a distance of . Undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions, its objective was to obtain rescue for the main body of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–17, stranded on Elephant Island after the loss of its ship ''Endurance''. Polar historians regard the voyage as one of the greatest small-boat journeys ever undertaken. In October 1915, ''Endurance'' had been sunk by the pack ice in the Weddell Sea, leaving Shackleton and his companions adrift on a precarious ice surface. Throughout the duration of their survival, the group drifted northward until April 1916, when the floe on which they had encamped, broke up. They then made their way in the ship's lifeboats to Elephant Island, where Shackleton decided that the most effective means of obtaining rescue would be to sail one of the lifeboats to South Georgia. Of the three lifeboats, the ''James Caird'' was deemed the strongest and most likely to survive the journey. It had been named by Shackleton after Sir James Key Caird, a Dundee jute manufacturer and philanthropist, whose sponsorship had helped finance the expedition. Before its voyage, the boat was strengthened and adapted by ship's carpenter Harry McNish, to withstand the mighty seas of the Southern Ocean. Surviving a series of dangers, including a near capsizing, the boat reached the southern coast of South Georgia after a voyage lasting 16 days. Shackleton and two companions then crossed the island's mountainous interior to reach a whaling station on the northern side. Here he was able to organise the relief of the Elephant Island party, and to return his men home without loss of life. After the end of the First World War, the ''James Caird'' was brought back from South Georgia to England, and is now on permanent display at Shackleton's old school, Dulwich College. == Background == On 5 December 1914, Shackleton's expedition ship ''Endurance'' left South Georgia for the Weddell Sea, on the first stage of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It was making for Vahsel Bay, the southernmost explored point of the Weddell Sea at 77° 49' S, where a shore party was to land and prepare for a transcontinental crossing of Antarctica. Before it could reach its destination the ship was trapped in pack ice, and by 14 February 1915 was held fast, despite prolonged efforts to free her. During the following eight months she drifted northward until, on 27 October, she was crushed by the pack's pressure, finally sinking on 21 November. As his 27-man crew set up camp on the slowly moving ice, Shackleton's focus shifted to how best to save his party. His first plan was to march across the ice to the nearest land, and try to reach a point that ships were known to visit. The march began, but progress was hampered by the nature of the ice's surface, later described by Shackleton as "soft, much broken up, open leads intersecting the floes at all angles". After struggling to make headway over several days, the march was abandoned; the party established "Patience Camp" on a flat ice floe, and waited as the drift carried them further north, towards open water. They had managed to salvage three lifeboats, which Shackleton had named after the principal backers of the expedition: ''Stancomb Wills'', ''Dudley Docker'' and ''James Caird''. The party waited until 8 April 1916, when they finally took to the boats as the ice started to break up. Over a perilous period of seven days they sailed and rowed through stormy seas and dangerous loose ice, to reach the temporary haven of Elephant Island on 15 April. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Voyage of the James Caird」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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