Description
CONDITION: Brand New
Dimensions: 216 x 216 mm
Pages: 232
Bind: paperback
Author: Philip Temple Publisher: Lodestar Books
Publication Date: 01-08-2016
HEARD ISLAND, an improbably remote speck in the far Southern Ocean, lies four thousand kilometres to the south-west of Australia—with Antarctica its nearest continent. By 1964 it had been the object of a number of expeditions, but none reaching the summit of its 9000-foot volcanic peak ‘Big Ben’. In that year Warwick Deacock resolved to rectify this omission, and as-sembled a party of nine with impressive credentials embracing mountaineering, exploration, science and medicine, plus his own organisation and leadership skills as a former Major in the British Army. But first they had to get there. Heard had no airstrip and was on no steamer route; the only way was by sea in their own vessel. Approached from Australia, the island lay in the teeth of the prevailing westerlies of the ‘Roar-ing Forties’and ‘Furious Fifties’. One name, only, came to mind as the skipper to navigate them safely to their destination, and safely home—the veteran mountaineer turned high-latitude sailor H. W. ‘Bill’ Tilman, already renowned for his ‘sailing to climb’ expeditions to Patagonia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, and the sub-Antarctic archipelagos of Crozet and Kerguelen, to the north-west of Heard Island. He readily ‘signed on’ to Warwick Deacock’s team of proven individuals and their well-found sailing vessel Patanela. In this first-hand account, as fresh today as on its first publication fifty years ago, Philip Temple invites us all on this superbly conducted, h
Dimensions: 216 x 216 mm
Pages: 232
Bind: paperback
Author: Philip Temple Publisher: Lodestar Books
Publication Date: 01-08-2016
HEARD ISLAND, an improbably remote speck in the far Southern Ocean, lies four thousand kilometres to the south-west of Australia—with Antarctica its nearest continent. By 1964 it had been the object of a number of expeditions, but none reaching the summit of its 9000-foot volcanic peak ‘Big Ben’. In that year Warwick Deacock resolved to rectify this omission, and as-sembled a party of nine with impressive credentials embracing mountaineering, exploration, science and medicine, plus his own organisation and leadership skills as a former Major in the British Army. But first they had to get there. Heard had no airstrip and was on no steamer route; the only way was by sea in their own vessel. Approached from Australia, the island lay in the teeth of the prevailing westerlies of the ‘Roar-ing Forties’and ‘Furious Fifties’. One name, only, came to mind as the skipper to navigate them safely to their destination, and safely home—the veteran mountaineer turned high-latitude sailor H. W. ‘Bill’ Tilman, already renowned for his ‘sailing to climb’ expeditions to Patagonia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, and the sub-Antarctic archipelagos of Crozet and Kerguelen, to the north-west of Heard Island. He readily ‘signed on’ to Warwick Deacock’s team of proven individuals and their well-found sailing vessel Patanela. In this first-hand account, as fresh today as on its first publication fifty years ago, Philip Temple invites us all on this superbly conducted, h