James Caird launching, credit: SPRI
It’s a question that leads to an extraordinary story. This small lifeboat, transformed by shipwright Harry McNish, became the vessel that carried Ernest Shackleton and some of his men to find help after Endurance was trapped in the ice.
Shackleton was in charge with Worsley navigating. Alongside were the Polar veteran Tom Crean and three seamen, Vincent, McCarthy and McNish. James Caird entered King Haakon Bay on 10 May 1916 after Shackleton’s rescue party had been at sea for 17 days.
After its legendary voyage, the James Caird returned to England in 1919.
Shackleton gave the Caird to John Quiller Rowett in the summer of 1920, after Rowett promised to cornerstone what would become the Shackleton-Rowett (Quest) Expedition. Following Shackleton’s death in 1922, Dulwich College (where John Quiller Rowett and Ernest Shackleton had been at school together) put out an appeal for a Shackleton memorial. John Quiller Rowett offered the college the Caird. Today the lifeboat remains on display at Dulwich College.
A replica of James Caird is also found in the South Georgia Museum. It was built by Robert Wallace in Massachusetts in 2000. It was used in the film Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure, which tells the story of the hero’s greatest triumph. Robert sailed the replica as Sir Ernest Shackleton. The replica was purchased by the South Georgia Heritage Trust in 2007.
The replica James Caird at South Georgia Museum