YP Letters: Worsley's navigation skills aided amazing feat

I HAVE shared a respectful tot over Sir Ernest Shackleton’s grave at Grytviken (Frank Wild’s ashes are interred next to it at Shackleton’s ‘right hand’) and undertaken the journey between South Georgia and Antarctica, albeit in their summer (The Yorkshire Post, April 25).

Shackleton’s amazing feat in rescuing the crew left on Elephant Island was due to his qualities of leadership and the astonishing navigation skills of New Zealander Frank Worsley. Worsley managed to get the James Caird to South Georgia using a sextant. There were only very few glimpses of the sun during the journey, and the seas were so rough that Worsley only managed to get a reading if the other five men held him as steady as possible in the heaving boat, whenever a break in the cloud cover permitted.

I understand that the unimaginable climb over the South Georgia mountains was forced upon Shackleton as the seas and winds made it impractical to sail round the island to the whaling station at Stromness. Worsley’s skill is best seen in the perspective of what would have happened if his navigation had been out. If their boat had missed South Georgia and then maintained the same latitude, the next landfall would have been – South Georgia!