The Yelcho | |
History | |
---|---|
Chile | |
Name | Yelcho |
Owner |
|
Builder | George Brown & Company Greenock, Yard No 34, Engines by Muir & Houston, Glasgow |
Launched | 23 June 1906 |
Commissioned | 1908 (Navy) |
Decommissioned | 1945 (Navy) |
Reinstated | 1945-1958 as tender |
Honours and awards | Rescue of the Endurance crew of Ernest Henry Shackleton (1916) |
Fate | Scrapped 1965 |
Notes | Bow preserved in Puerto Williams |
General characteristics | |
Tonnage | 219 grt [1] |
Displacement | 467 t |
Length | 120 feet (37 m) |
Beam | 23 feet (7.0 m) |
Depth | 9.9 feet (3.0 m) [2] |
Installed power | 350 ihp |
Propulsion | compound steam engine by Muir & Houston Ltd, Glasgow |
Speed | 10 knots |
Crew | 22 men |
Armament | 1 Hotchkiss 37mm Cannon |
Notes | There are two others Yelcho in the Chilean Navy, Chilean tug Yelcho (AGS-64) and Yelcho (1971). |
The Yelcho was built in 1906 by the Scottish firm Geo. Brown and Co. of Greenock, on the River Clyde for towage and cargo service of the Chilean Sociedad Ganadera e Industrial Yelcho y Palena, Puerto Montt. In 1908 she was sold to the Chilean Navy and ordered to Punta Arenas as a tug and for periodic maintenance and supply of the lighthouses in that region. [1]
After the dramatic voyage of the James Caird, Ernest Shackleton had attempted and failed three times to rescue the crew left on Elephant Island: the ships Southern Sky (loaned by the English Whaling Co, 23–31 May 1916), Instituto de Pesca N°1 (loaned by the Government of Uruguay, 10–16 June 1916) and Emma [3] (a sealer, funded by the British Club, Punta Arenas, 12 July – 8 August 1916) all failed to reach Elephant Island.
In July 1916, Yelcho was authorised by the president of Chile, Juan Luis Sanfuentes, to escort and tow Emma to a point 200 miles (320 km) south of Cape Horn. [4] but this third attempt was also unsuccessful.
At dawn on 7 August Yelcho under the command of Captain Luis Pardo was ordered to Port Stanley in order to tug Emma and the British explorers back to Punta Arenas to make a fourth attempt.
The Chilean government offered Yelcho although she was totally unsuited for operations in Antarctic waters. With no radio, no proper heating system, no electric lighting and no double hull the small ship had to cross the 500 miles (800 km) of the Drake's Passage in Antarctic winter.
On 25 August 1916 at 12:15 am, she sailed bound for Elephant Island with 22 men under command of Pardo, carrying Shackleton, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean. After making it safely through the complex tides and channels of the west side of the Tierra del Fuego, Yelcho headed out into the Beagle Channel.
On the 27th at 11:15 am, she arrived at Picton Island, where she bunkered 300 sacks of coal (a total of 72 tons were in the ship) from the Puerto Banner Naval Station. [5] The process was completed within only 12 hours and on 28 August at 3:30 pm she weighed anchor and left for Elephant Island. 60 miles (97 km) south of Cape Horn the lookout spotted the first icebergs [6]
At 11:40 am on 30 August, the fog lifted and the camp on Elephant Island was spotted, and Yelcho immediately entered the bay. Within an hour, in two trips of a small boat, all the Elephant Island party were safely aboard Yelcho, which sailed for Punta Arenas.
The 23 crew of Yelcho at the rescue was: [7]
Crew | Name |
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Captain | Luis Alberto Pardo Villalón |
2nd in Command | León Aguirre Romero |
Chief Engineer | Jorge L. Valenzuela Mesa |
2nd Engineer | Jose Beltrán Gamarra |
Engineers | Nicolás Muñoz Molina, Manuel Blackwood |
Firemen | Herbito Cariz Caramo, Juan Vera Jara, Pedro Chaura, Pedro Soto Nuñez, Luis Contreras Castro |
Guard | Manuel Ojeda, Ladislao Gallego Trujillo, Hipólito Aries, José Leiva Chacón, Antonio Colin Parada |
Foreman | José Muñoz Tellez |
Blacksmith | Froilan Cabana Rodríguez |
Seamen | Pedro Pairo, José del Carmen Galindo, Florentino González Estay, Clodomiro Aguero Soto |
Cabin Boy | Bautista Ibarra Carvajal |
After the successful rescue mission of 1916 the name Yelcho has been given to streets and ships of Chile, particularly to Chile's southernmost coastal Puerto Williams, and it is there that the prow of the Yelcho has been preserved and is prominently displayed as a tribute to Captain Pardo's ship and crew.
In 1945, the ship was decommissioned and used as tender in the Petty officer School of the Chilean Navy. On 27 January 1958 Yelcho was retired by decree 190 and in 1962 sold to ASMAR under terms of Law 14.564 (5 May 1954) for 300,000 CLP. [8]
List of Antarctic exploration ships from the Heroic Age, 1897–1922
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan.
Elephant Island is an ice-covered, mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean. The island is situated 245 kilometres north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 1,253 kilometres west-southwest of South Georgia, 935 kilometres south of the Falkland Islands, and 885 kilometres southeast of Cape Horn. It is within the Antarctic claims of Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom.
Puerto Williams is a city, port and naval base on Navarino Island in Chile, and is also the southernmost populated settlement in the world. It faces the Beagle Channel. It is the capital of the Chilean Antarctic Province, one of four provinces in the Magellan and Chilean Antarctica Region, and administers the communes of Chilean Antarctic Territory and Cabo de Hornos. It has a population of 2,874, including both naval personnel and civilians. Puerto Williams claims the title of world's southernmost city. The settlement was founded in 1953, and was first named Puerto Luisa. The town was later named after John Williams Wilson, a British man who founded Fuerte Bulnes, the first settlement in the Strait of Magellan. It has served primarily as a naval base for Chile. The Chilean Navy runs the Guardiamarina Zañartu Airport and hospital, as well as nearby meteorological stations. Since the late 20th century, the number of navy personnel has decreased in Puerto Williams and the civilian population has increased. In that period, tourism and support of scientific research have contributed to an increase in economic activity.
The voyage of the James Caird was a journey of 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia, undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the stranded Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. Many historians regard the voyage of the crew in a 22.5-foot (6.9 m) ship's boat through the "Furious Fifties" as the greatest small-boat journey ever completed.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
Cape Yelcho is the northwestern extremity of Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It was named by the UK Joint Services Expedition, 1970–71, after the Chilean steam tug Yelcho.
Pardo Ridge is the second highest part of Elephant Island, South Shetland Islands, reaching an altitude of 853 meters. It extends from The White Company in the west to Cape Valentine in the east. It was mapped by the UK Joint Services Expedition, 1970-71, and named by the UK-APC after Captain Luis Pardo, commander of the Chilean tug Yelcho which rescued shipwrecked members of Shackleton's Endurance from Elephant Island's Wild Point in August 1916.
Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe, also known as Puerto del Hambre, is a historic settlement site at Buena Bay on the north shore of the Strait of Magellan approximately 58 km (36 mi) south of Punta Arenas in the Región de Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena, Patagonia, Chile.
John Robert Francis Wild was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.
The Chilean Antarctic Territory, or Chilean Antarctica, is a part of West Antarctica and nearby islands claimed by Chile. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and between longitudes 53°W and 90°W, partially overlapping the Antarctic claims of Argentina and the United Kingdom. It constitutes the Antártica commune of Chile.
Luis Alberto Pardo Villalón was a Chilean Navy officer who, in August 1916, commanded the steam tug Yelcho to rescue the 22 stranded crewmen of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance, part of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The crewmen were stranded on Elephant Island, an ice-covered mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean.
Punta Arenas is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. Although officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, the name was changed back to Punta Arenas in 1938. The city is the largest south of the 46th parallel south and the most populous southernmost city in Chile and the Americas. Due to its location, it is also the coldest coastal city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Latin America. Punta Arenas is one of the world's most southerly ports and serves as an Antarctic gateway city. Punta Arenas is the world's southernmost city with more than 100,000 inhabitants and claims the title of southernmost city in the world, although this title is also claimed by Ushuaia in Argentina, which lies farther south but is slightly smaller than Punta Arenas.
Dr Robert Selbie Clark was a Scottish marine zoologist and explorer. He was the biologist on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, and served as the director of the Scottish Home Department Marine Laboratory, at Torry, Aberdeen.
MS Explorer or MV Explorer was a Liberian-registered cruise ship, the first vessel of that kind used specifically to sail the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean. She was the first cruise ship to sink there, after striking an iceberg on 23 November 2007. All passengers and crew were rescued.
Point Wild is a point 11 km (6.8 mi) west of Cape Valentine, 2 km (1.2 mi) east of Saddleback Point, and directly adjacent to the Furness Glacier on the north coast of Elephant Island. It was named Cape Wild by the Shackleton Endurance expedition 1914–16, but Point Wild is recommended for this feature because of its small size and to avoid confusion with Cape Wild on George V Coast.
The Nao Victoria Museum is located in Punta Arenas, Chile, and has been open to the public since 1 October 2011. The museum is private, the owner has received the Medal of the President of Chile for his work in promoting national identity during the celebrations for the bicentenary of the independence of the South American country. Spanish Vice Consul in Punta Arenas gave the entrepreneur the prize "Hispanic Identity" for the building of the Nao Victoria Replica.
Between 1883 and 1906 Tierra del Fuego experienced a gold rush attracting many Chileans, Argentines and Europeans to the archipelago, including many Dalmatians. The gold rush led to the formation of the first towns in the archipelago and fueled economic growth in Punta Arenas. After the gold rush was over, most gold miners left the archipelago, while the remaining settlers engaged in sheep farming and fishing. The rush made a major contribution to the genocide of the indigenous Selk'nam people.
Piloto Pardo was a Chilean Navy auxiliary ship from 1959 until 1997. After decommissioning she was converted to an Antarctic expedition cruise ship and operated as such until 2012 under the name MV Antarctic Dream.
South is a book by Ernest Shackleton describing the second expedition to Antarctica led by him, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917. It was published in London by William Heinemann in 1919.
"Sur" is a short story by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in The New Yorker on February 1, 1982. It was included in The Compass Rose, a collection of stories by Le Guin first published in July 1982.