Voyage of the James Caird - picture of the day

Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew launch a lifeboat, named the James Caird, which was salvaged from their ship, Endurance, after it was crushed by pack-ice; thwarting the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's plan to be the first to make a land crossing of the Antarctic. The stranded crew camped on drifting ice floes for months before reaching the remote Elephant Island, where Shackleton devised a plan to reach the whaling stations on South Georgia in an attempt to get help. The crew of the boat reached their destination after 16 days of sailing across one of the most dangerous stretches of ocean in the world, Shackleton returned on a Chilean tug after four and a half months to pick up the men they left behind
Illustration: Photograph: Frank Hurley/ Corbis