Rower’s quest in honour of Shackleton’s carpenter
Scot to recreate 950-mile Antarctic journey of ‘forgotten hero’ of ill-fated 1915 Endurance voyage
HE HAS been called the “forgotten hero” of Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Endurance voyage. But now the ship’s carpenter who made a lifeboat for the crew seaworthy is to be honoured by a British adventurer following in his footsteps.
Just months after undergoing open heart surgery, Jamie Douglas-hamilton, 41, is to row the 950-mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia that Harry Mcnish took after repairing Endurance’s lifeboat when the ship was sunk by pack ice.
Mcnish, from Port Glasgow in Inverclyde, was one of the only members of the Endurance crew not awarded the Polar Medal after the expedition in October 1915 owing to his differences with Shackleton, who wrote in his diary: “Everyone working well except the carpenter. I shall never forget him in this time of strain and stress.”
Mr Douglas-hamilton, who holds seven world records, was the first person to row across the Drake Passage from South America to Antarctica, and is calling for the Polar Medal to be awarded posthumously to Mcnish.
The Harry Mcnish Row will follow the route sailed by the James Caird lifeboat, in what is considered one of the world’s most treacherous seas where waves can reach 80ft in stormy conditions.
After Shackleton’s Endurance became stuck in and later destroyed by the ice, the crew sought safety on dry land. The route the Harry Mcnish Row will take is the same one Shackleton and five others took after they left Elephant Island to seek help for the rest of the crew.
The expedition was originally planned for December last year but had to be postponed which has turned out to be a stroke of luck for Mr Douglashamilton, who at the time was unaware he had a heart condition that could have killed him.
“If I had gone on this expedition as planned last year I would have definitely died,” he said. “I was born with a bicuspid aortic valve where you’ve only got two valves going to the aorta not three. It had been leaking for 20 years but got worse last year and after having Covid I had to go to get it checked out.
“I was told I needed immediate open heart surgery. I couldn’t believe it, I went in there trying to get antibiotics
and then had to go through this process, my heart was double the size.”
Mr Douglas-hamilton, who is the same age as Mcnish was when he took the journey, is the only British member of a team of six who will row three at a time in 90-minute shifts around the clock over the course of the journey next month which is expected to take two and a half to three weeks.
Mr Douglas-hamilton, from Edinburgh, hopes his expedition will raise awareness about the heroic actions of the carpenter, who was nicknamed Chippy, and hopes to raise £100,000 for the British Heart Foundation.
“Harry Mcnish was the real hero of the Endurance expedition. He was portrayed as a mutineer, he wasn’t given a Polar Medal and it’s a great injustice,” said Mr Douglas-hamilton.
“He was the one who managed to save them all, who built the boat that got them from Elephant Island to South Georgia, he built the crampons to get them over the ice, the mountains to the whaling station, at every stage he was behind them getting through.
“He was the real hero of the story, a forgotten hero of the Shackleton mission, who died destitute.”
Mcnish used the mast of another of the boats, the Stancomb Wills, to
strengthen the keel and build up the small 22ft James Caird, caulking it with seal blood and flour and built a makeshift frame using wood and nails taken from packing cases and the runners of the sledges.
While Shackleton had his differences with Mcnish one other crew member wrote in his diary that it was a “grave injustice” that he did not receive a medal and that “of all the men in the party no one more deserved recognition than the old carpenter”.
Mcnish died 15 years later and his ancestors said they were touched that his legacy was being honoured at last.
John Mcnish, his great nephew, said: “Our family are incredibly touched that Jamie is rowing the treacherous seas of the Antarctic which my great uncle sailed in the early 1900s and that the journey will be made in honour of him.
“Our family is incredibly proud of my great uncle, and we have always believed it to be very unjust that Chippy wasn’t given the Polar Medal.
“It is very exciting that this expedition, The Harry Mcnish Row, will highlight just how brave and courageous my great uncle was.”