Exciting Finish for Scott Team
Published on 14.01.2012 - The Scott Amundsen Centenary Race
With 64 nautical miles to go to reach their destination, the Scott Team of the The Scott Amundsen Centenary Race is excited to know whether or not they will make it to the Pole before the Scott Centenary (Robert F. Scott arrived at SP on 17 January 1911).
Of course no one else but the weather will decide.
For the present time, Scott Team is lucky ; milder temperatures, better terrain, no sastrugis anymore, and no wind either. That makes the progression looking good : 15.6 nautical miles on 13 Januara and the same distance the day before. If the weather holds, Scott Team will arrive in time for the celebration. If not...
The day 70 (11 January) was an important and above all poignant day for the team because it has reached Sir Ernest Shalckleton's farthest south point, at 88°23' S when the 'Boss' was on his Nimrod expedition (1907-1909).
Here are some excerpts of our old antarctica.org website with the history of the South Pole : Sir Ernest Shackleton is another hero of legend. Attracted from an early date by great polar adventure, he was seen to accompany Scott in 1902 and to be one of those who had got closest to the South Pole. Once returned to his country, Shackleton set himself the idea of going off again; but this time he was to direct operations himself. The objective of this new voyage; to be the first to reach the South Pole. On 07 August 1907, he whose shipmates called the Boss left Torquay aboard the Nimrod, a run-down two-masted whaler that the explorer had had difficulty in buying as the funds had been so difficult to find; fifteen hand-picked men accompanied him. Gnawed with fear of not having enough food and all the time fearful of falling into a crevice, Shackleton and three of his companions were to walk for 128 days pulling their sledges (from 29 October 1908 to 05 March 1909) fighting the cold, hunger, depression and too soft snow, which often prevented their advance. They failed, half dead, some 180 kilometres from their goal...
For our visitors who would be specially interested to know more about the fascinating story of the conquest of the South Pole, we invite them to pay a visit at our old antarctica.org website where they will find quite a lot of pages describing in details all the steps of that fascinating odyssey.
