AURORA (polar ship)

[shipstamps]

Built as an auxiliary wooden barquentine under yard No. 62 by Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd., Glasgow for account of the Dundee Seal and Whaling Fishing Company, Dundee.
Launched under the name AURORA.
Tonnage 580 gross, 386 net, dim. 50.30 x 9.30 x 5.70m.(draught)
One auxiliary compound steam engine, manufactured by Cunliffe and Dunlop, Glasgow, 98 nhp
February 1872 completed.

After completing used for whaling and sealing in the New Foundland, Davis Strait and Greenland waters.
In the season 1884 the AURORA under command of Capt. James Fairweather was used for the rescue mission of Lieutenant Greely, USA expedition and his party of 25 men who must be somewhere on the shores of Smith’s Sound. They were brought there in 1881.
Greely and six survivors were rescued by Lieutenant Colwell of the BEAR from Brevoort Island.

In the sealing season of 1885 the crew of the AURORA caught 12,345 seals.
In the season of 1886 she did not have much luck, soon after sailing from Dundee her helmsman was thrown over the wheel by a heavy sea and in which he broke some ribs, just before an other three crewmembers were hurt in a breaker coming on deck, one man suffered a broken leg.
09 March she arrived at St Johns, New Foundland after a bad passage, and was long overdue, at St Johns she took on board 140 local seal killers.
After she took 3,000 seals she became beset in the ice and drifted with the pack ice, and she was jammed against a grounded iceberg on Haypook’s shoal.
After trying to get her seal hunters back on board, still 69 men were on the ice, she got free from the ice when an other iceberg collided with the grounded one, and the pack ice broke open. When she reached Catalina harbour, there it was found that her missing men had made it safely to shore.
The AURORA after inspection did have a bent in her tail-end shaft, and she was leaking badly. The repair took some time before she sailed out again.
In the seal catching season of 1888 she got 25,000 seals, in the season of 1889 she got 11,166 seals.
During the season of 1890 she got 12,500 seals, in 1891 she got 16,731 seals.
In 1891 she rescued the crew of the POLYNIA, when she became beset in the ice on 10 July, and the crew had to abandoned her, the next day the POLYNIA was crushed and sank.
In the season of 1892 she went to the head of the Cumberland Gulf where she caught 340 white whales (beluga), then on 23 and 3 October she caught a whale in the northern fishing grounds, from where she sailed on 4 November arriving at Dundee 22 November.
1893 Season she killed 10 whales in Lancaster Sound in the end of June and the first fortnight in July.
In March 1893, Alfred Gabriel Nathorst appealed appealed for a relief expedition to search for Johan Alfred Björling and Evald Gustav Götrik Kallstenius who were attempting to cross Ellesmere Island. The AURORA found the remains of their ship the RIPPLE on 17.06.1893. Notes written by Björling were retrieved showing athe last entry of 12 October 1892. Rescue missions were launched, but failed to find the missing explorers.
27 September she killed two more whales in the Coutts Inlet and on 13 October she caught the 13th whale, before she headed home.
The season of 1894 she is not mentioned, so it looks she was staying home.
1895 Used again as a sealer in the Gulf of St Lawrence under command of Capt Jackman and he returned to St Johns with on board 29,916 pelts.
In 1897 she is again used for sealing, she caught 24,000 seals, 150 miles of Cabot on 15 and 16 March, on the 17th a heavy swell was running which was smashing up the icepack, given the men on the ice a hard time to get the seals on board the AURORA, four men of her crew died of cold and exposure. In all that season she got 27,941 seals.
In 1900 the crew of the AURORA caught 32,000 seals, and in 1901 they caught 32,407 seals.
1903 They caught 26,069 seals, and in 1904 they caught 34,849 seals from 12 March off Fogo Island drifting slowly to the south killing seal every day till she was back in port on her 16th day.
Thereafter is she not more mentioned as used for sealing or whaling.

1910 Was the AURORA sold to Douglas Mawson for his planned Australasian Antarctic Expedition, she sailed under command of Capt. John King Davids from London to Hobart with a team of Greenland dogs, arrived Hobart on 04 November 1911.
There fitted out for a voyage to the Antarctic, and on 02 December 1911 she sailed out from Hobart under Capt Davis with on board Douglas Mawson for Macquarie Island.
11 December Macquarie Island was sighted, after landing on the island a base hut and wireless station were erected, before the AURORA headed south again.
07 (08) January 1912 she anchored in Commonwealth Bay in the Antarctic where the expedition’s main base was erected known as “The Hut”.
Thereafter the AURORA sailed north to Hobart in order not to be frozen in, leaving behind Mawson’s party.

The next spring she returned with fresh food and provision, to find out that Mawson and two men had set out on a sledge expedition on 17 November 1912 with 18 Greenland dogs and were overdue.
08 February Mawson returned to “The Hut” from Cape Denison, however Xavier Guillame Mertz and Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis both lost their lives.
Just before the AURORA had left, leaving behind six men to search for the missing three men.

12 December 1913 the AURORA returned to the Commonwealth Bay to pick up the seven men and return to Australia.

1914 The AURORA was sold with her stores for £3,200 to Ernest Shackleton at Hobart. Command was taken over by Æneas Mackintosh, after a refit at the Cockatoo naval yard at Sydney at the cost of Australian taxpayers, she sailed from Hobart to McMurdo Sound to lay depots for Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
When she sailed from Hobart she left without any ship papers and left many unpaid bills behind.
09 January 1915 she reached Cape Crozier at the junction of Ross Island and the Ross Ice Barrier, when almost at her destination she was running in thick fog, and not believing that she were so close to the ice barrier, when the crew sighted the high ice cliffs the engines were put astern full speed but refused to answer, and the ship crashed up against the ice cliffs and broke her jibboom.

After she came at anchor in the McMurdo Sound her crew unloaded stores and sent teams out to set up depots. The landing party was led by Capt. Mackintosh. The command on board the AURORA was taken over by the Chief Officer J.R.Stenhouse.
06 May 1915 she was blown from her moorings at Cape Evans out to sea, leaving four men marooned in a hut behind.
She became frozen in and drifted with the pack-ice northwards, with most of the equipment and supplies still on board needed by Mackintosh and his nine companions, now marooned at McMurdo Sound.

14 March 1916 a wireless message was picked up from the AURORA in Australia.
Hull severely strained. Ship released from ice March 14th (1916) … drift 500 miles … Wireless appeals for relief ship sent during winter no acknowledgment. Ship proceeding Port Chalmers, New Zealand. Jury rudder no anchors short of fuel
Signed Stenhouse.

03 April 1916 she arrived at Dunedin, New Zealand.

She was then used by Shackleton after his loss of the ENDURANCE and the ordeal thereafter to reach safety.
Command of the AURORA was taken over by Capt. John King Davis who was appointed to search for the missing men of the AURORA in the Antarctic, Shackleton was not in command this trip, he signed on as a supernumerary officer with a salary of one shilling a month.
December 1916 AURORA sailed from Dunedin to McMurdo Sound and on 9 January 1917 Mount Erebus was seen, 10 January the AURORA entered to McMurdo Sound. She hoved to off Cape Royds, where Shackleton went ashore to see his old hut, which was empty, only a note told the men that the party had left for Cape Evans.
At Cape Evans when she arrived there, figures could be seen coming across the sea ice. Shackleton met there the men who had not any contact with the outside world since December 1914.
The seven men were in a worse state, they were filthy, ragged and unkempt, two men were missing most probably killed when she tried to cross from Hut Point to Cape Evans. An other man died just before the rescue vessel arrived.

After a search of 10 days for the two missing man not a trace was found and on 25 January the AURORA headed for New Zealand, and on 9 February she entered Wellington.

Soon after arrival in Wellington the AURORA was handed back to Shackleton free of liability, as had been promised.
Due to the war, ships were sold at a premium, and the AURORA was sold for £10.000 to an American firm.

After loading coal in Newcastle N.S.W she sailed from this port bound for Iquique, Chile. She was posted missing by Lloyds on 02 January 1918, most probably a casualty of the First World War. Not a trace of her of her crew have ever been found.

Source: The Arctic Whalers by Basil Lubb
bock. Shackleton by Roland Huntford. Some web-sites.
The Encclopedia of Exploration, Vol. 3by Raymond John Howgego, 2006, published by Hordern House, ISBN 1-875567-41-0.

Aust Ant Terr SG37, 126

[aukepalmhof]

This is the first in a four-year program of stamps celebrating the centenary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE). The series will be made up of five stamps issued each year until 2014 using the overall themes of departure and journey, arrival and exploration, science and triumphant return.
The initial five stamp strip shows the key moments in the departure of the AAE from Hobart and the journey to the Antarctic.
The SY Aurora carried the AAE to and from Hobart. The stamp photograph was taken by expeditioner Xavier Mertz and the map in the stamp shows the AAE's route.
Captain John King Davis, Captain of the SY Aurora, and second-in-command of the expedition.
The SY Aurora on Antarctic voyage. The stamp photograph was taken by expeditioner Andrew Watson and the postmark image is taken from a message sent by Bob Hodger on the SY Aurora.
Landing at Macquarie Island. The main photograph was taken by the Aurora's Second Officer, Percy Gray.. The background image, shows the Aurora off Macquarie Island and was taken by expeditioner Frank Hurley.
Birdlife on Macquarie Island. The main photograph was taken by expeditioner Harold Hamilton.
The background landscape image used across the five stamps was taken by expeditioner Leslie Blake and is held in the Home & Away Collection in the SLNSW.
Australian Antarctic Territory 2011 60c sg?, scott?
Australian Post.

This is the second in a four-year program celebrating the centenary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), under the command of Douglas Mawson. The AAE left Hobart in December 1911 and returned to Adelaide in February 1914. The series comprises a 20-stamp sheetlet to be released in 2014 and made up of five stamps issued each year until 2014.
The stamps follow the same design style across the four years and feature a combination of images depicting the environment, the men, their work and their lives so that by the conclusion of the series there will be a comprehensive mosaic of this extraordinary feat of exploration. The overarching theme for this year's issue is Arrival & Exploration and focuses on the activities of the AAE undertaken in 1912.
The SY AURORA, carrying the AAE, anchored a mile off Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay in January 1912. Materials and supplies were unloaded and building of the main expedition base began immediately. The Main Hut and outbuildings at Cape Denison were among the first structures to be erected on the continent and are recognised as Historic monuments by the Antarctic Treaty Parties. Another base was established further to the west, leaving 18 men under Commander Douglas Mawson at Cape Denison and an eight-man party under Frank Wild on the Shackleton Ice Shelf. It was from these base camps that the men of the AAE spent two years exploring the frozen continent's unknown interior.
Tragically, two of the three men of the Far Eastern exploratory party, Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz, died and only Mawson, near death himself, returned. Ninnis, the AAE's dog handler, died on 14 December 1912 when he plunged more than 150 feet into a snow-covered crevasse with a team of six dogs and the sled containing most of the food. His body was never recovered. Mertz, a Swiss national, expert skier and dog handler, died on 8 January 1913 on the harsh journey back to the main camp. Mawson's survival entered Australian folklore. A Memorial Cross, still standing, was erected at the main base in memory of Mertz and Ninnis.
Issue highlights
An attractive se-tenant presentation (one for each denomination) tells the story of the arrival of the expedition group at Cape Denison.

Australian Antarctic Territory 2011 $1.20 sg?, scott?

This is the fourth and final issue in a four-year program celebrating the centenary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE).
The stamps follow the same design style across the four years and feature a combination of images depicting the environment, the men, their work and their lives.
A comprehensive mosaic of this extraordinary feat of exploration is the final result.

The stamps
Mawson on motor launch
Frank Hurley with cinema camera and AURORA in background
Mawson holding large net
Returning party on board the AURORA.
Mawson
Australia 2014 60c/$1.20 stamps and MS sg?, scott?

Australian Philately Bureau info.