writingestexplorer

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From Richard Farr, Emperors of the Ice

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Not been here for a while, glad to see you are all still delightful

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From The Character of Meriwether Lewis by Clay Jenkinson. I love this. You don’t normally see professional historians admitting to what they wish had happened, and I’m all with him ❤️

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This makes my heart happy. He really was doing what he wanted to do, without regret. It is OK that he died. It is OK. It is OK.

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RFS letter to Kathleen. The “I rather love it” made me feel feelings

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More from my polar library

Today I got this first edition (!) of the bio of Scott written by Stephen Gwynn at the behest of The Mighty Kathleen. Some of these photos I don't think I've seen before. It has two fold-out bits, one with the obligatory map (for the benefit of those who couldn't draw it from memory, ahem) and one with a copy of a letter from RFS to KS. That handwriting!! Also one day I want to write or receive a letter with the address "At Sea".

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Should I buy a pith helmet? Because just look at this outfit

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A while back I bought this on Ebay. It's an album made by someone (I'm imagining a boy scout but given its appeal here it may have been a middle-aged woman) with some pretty fragile original press clippings and handwritten notes. I got it laminated so it didn't fall apart any further.

"Every possible thing was provided man could want, so it was nothing to do with food that killed them. after reaching the Pole they retraced their steps. after crossing the glacier, Petty Officer Evans died of concussion of the brain, through walking over rough ice. He was the strong man of the Party and the least expected to succumb. It left them a shaken party.

After journeying on through the average of 47° of frost they reached eleven miles from the one ton depot when a fearful blizzard began. Captain Oates, who had been ill & bearing suffering without grumbling, thought he was keeping back the party & said “I am going out in the blizzard & I may be gone a long time”. They new he was walking to his death, but knew it was the act of a British hero and an English gentleman. His body was never found. They had food enough for two days and only eleven miles more to go, all would have gone well, had not the blizzard detained them. The knew their end was near so this is a brief discription of what Cap. Scott wrote. He said he hoped people would help the relations etc. of people who died. They had taken risks and new it, but did it to show Englishmen could undergo hardships.

Relief parties were sent out and found dead bodies & Cap Scott’s letter."

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OK which one of you did this, own up

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A while ago Falynn K. asked this question on Twitter:

"So on a tall sailing ship you have the mast, and you have the yards across it--is the yard/spar actually attached to the mast, by like i dunno, a pin or something, or is it strictly roped/lashed to it?"

This is a totally reasonable question! A lot of folks who haven't sailed square riggers might think that the yard stays put, but in fact it needs to move up and down the mast so the sails can be fully set. (Y'know how everyone's always talking about halyards? They literally haul the yard up. You're welcome.)

So to answer the question: yards are held loosely to the mast by a looped line strung with large wooden beads called a parrel. The beads roll up the mast as the yard is raised and lowered. Here's a drawover that hopefully clarifies a little:

Once you start explaining things about tall ship anatomy it's hard to stop, so there's a bit more context for how the sails work:

(These are pages from my comic A Week at Sea with OHP, which you can read online here or grab as a print minicomic here.)

Hope this is helpful!

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Newest acquisition for my polar library

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So I’m reading about the Franklin Expedition (again) and found a reference to the “broadarrow”. I looked it up on Wiki and learned that this was a way government property was marked, with this symbol:

Here it is on a Franklin relic found in the 80s by Owen Beattie:

So in reading the Wiki article I click on a link for “pillory”. And what do I see?

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George Seaver, Edward Wilson of the Antarctic

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they don't know what they lost

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Storm on the Azov Sea (Detail), 1887. Oil on canvas — Ivan Aivazovsky (Russian-Armenian, 1817-1900)

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The heroic age of Antarctic exploration - after The Terror opening credits

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