London’s hot denial of Transglobe Expedition casualness in Antarctica

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 15

London’s hot denial of Transglobe Expedition casualness in Antarctica

From

KEN COATES

in London

Anthony Preston, the full-time London secretary of the Transglobe Expedition. snorted at the suggestion that his leader is ill-prepared for his ambitious bid to cross the Antarctic continent by motorised sledge later this year. “I tell you, Ran is an absolute fanatic for detail,” said the former R.A.F. pilot, waving towards banks of filing cabinets, maps, diagrams, and photographs in the expedition’s sixth-floor office near Regents Park. “He expects those who work for him to be the same.” Preston was referring to the third baronet. Sir Ranalph Twisleton-Wyke-ham-Fiennes, aged 36.

educated at Eton and a former captain in the Royal Scots Greys. Sir Ranulph and his party are at present hibernating from the harsh winter in a camp of insulated cardboard huts on the opposite side of- the Antarctic continent to Scott Base, 1100 miles from the South Pole. Their four huts are almost buried under snowdrifts piled high by 100 mile-an-hour blizzards.

An 80ft radio mast marks the site, close to a rocky crag called Ryvingen, ■■ the name they have given their camp. The advance party of the expedition faces many more weeks of waiting in the long Antarctic darkness, and stupefying cold. Sir

Ranulph is in touch with London by radio three times a week. At the end of the winter, Sir Ranalph and his two English companions, Oliver Shepard, aged 36, and Charles Burton, aged 39, will set off. each driving a 650 cc motorised sledge, or skidoo, to traverse the vast, icy continent. The planned crossing is part of a British industrybacked three-year journey around the world along the Greenwich meridian. It has been described in New Zealand as foolhardy and ill-prepared by Mr R. B. Thomson, superintedent of the D.S.I.R. Antarctic Division.

“To succeed he would have to be the luckiest

guy in the world, and the one thing you cannot do where he is going is rely on luck,” Mr Thomson is reported as saying.

In an interview in London, Mr Thomson found that Sir Ranulph was not the dynamic, forceful person he ■ had expected. The adventurer listened attentively but unconvinced to warnings that motorised toboggans were not suitable for the trek. “None have ever been made that would do the distance,” he was told.

The leader of an expedition. of this kind had to heed advice from experienced people, and Sir Ranulph had not done this, said Mr Thomson.

Sir Ranulph and his men on the ice know about the published criticism of Mr Thomson. “We couldn’t understand it,” says Anthony Preston, who joined the expedition three years ago. “Ran thought Mr Thomson, whom he met in London, was very friendly. He and his team have been planning this expedition for seven years. He is a man who works 18 hours a day and leaves nothing to chance. Preston admits that there is an element of foolhardiness and risk in facing 600 miles through an unknown area of crevasses. “But without this, there would be no excitement and challenge.” Just how well equipped and organised the English aristocrat adventurer and his companions are to face the long haul to the Pole and on, via Scott Glacier, to MacMurdo Sound, remains to be seen. Some clues can be gained from the nature of Sir Ranulph, a tall, lean, former Army officer, who has faced danger on several other exploits around the world. His family crest bears the motto; “Look for a brave spirit.”

Son of the second baronet, Lt Col. Sir Ranulph Fiennes who died of wounds suffered in action in Italy in 1943, the expedition leader is described variously as a photographer, signaller, and writer. He is author of five travel books.

He is a restless man. After seven years in the

British Army, in the Royal Scots Greys, he fought for two years in the Sultan of Oman’s armed forces. He has also led an expedition up the River Nile, and has landed by parachute on a glacier in Norway. He has a reputation in London among hard-bitten Army men of being "a tough character.” According to Preston, the expedition has great confidence in its equipment. As far back as 1975-76, gear was tested in the Cairngorms in Scotland. The team of five was selected from 42 volunteers in Snowdonia. Then came tests .of sledges, tents', and other equipment on the Greenland icecap, 600 ' miles north of the Arctic Circle, in conditions similar to those of Antarctica. It was a rigorous. workout. The three men who will make the ice-cap traverse over the South Pole — Sir Ranulph, Shepard, and Burton — made a 960-mile journey over the sea-ice from Cape Columbia to within 160 miles Of the North Pole. The winter of three years ago began extremely cold in those regions, but became much warmer, melting the ice s which started to break up.. The motorised sledges , had to be pulled out. -But as a training exercise, the team considered it invaluable. “It was more difficult than the Antarctic, with 30ft high ridges ad leads opening up in the ice all the time,” Preston says. “You have to zip across when the ice comes together and the gaps close.”

The Transglobe Expedition sees itself ambitiously in the same league as the climbing of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary in the 19505, and the solo journey around the world by Sir Francis Chichester in the 19605.

On September 2, 1979, the Benjamin BcAvring (formerly the Kista Dan) sailed from Greenwich to Cape Town, and the expedition and its gear, paid for by 650 to 700 firms (87 per cent British), left Cape Town at the end of last year for the ice-bound coastline of Antarctica, aboard the Benjamin Bow-

ring. The Bowring group of insurance companies is a sponsor. It arrived at Sanae. a South African : scientific base, on January 4, clamped together a prefabricated hut, and unloaded 200 tons of supplies. It was not long before the expedition members tasted the lash of the region’s treacherous climate. Under the fury of a sudden storm, the ice in Polarbjom Buchte (Polarbear Bay) began to break up alarmingly. The ship’s moorings parted during the gale and she had to ride out the storm in the bay. Members watched helplessly as 10 drums of precious fuel floated out to sea on a chunk of ice, and a motor-cycle slid to a watery grave, from an ice floe. Fuel is the lifeblood of the expedition and 1100 drums were ferried 230 miles in the expedition’s supporting aircraft, a skiequipped, Canadian-built, de Havilland Twin Otter aircraft, to a mountain base at Ryvingen. The three “ice group” members of the expedition set out on their motorised sledges, powered by twostroke engines, to climb 6500 feet over crevassed terrain. They made the journey, towing stainless steel sledges at the end of special ropes, in two and a half days. In theory, if the skidoos get into trouble by plunging down a crevasse, the rope with the tow-sledge will brake the fall by biting into the ice. The driver, harnessed to the skid.oo, will either climb Cx'be hauled, to safety. Sir Ranulph’s wife, Virginia, a former secretary, who is known as “Ginny”

to everyone in the expedition, has a key role. She is responsible for two radio sets which ■ give communication to the outside world. She is at the base camp on the coast with Simon Grimes, cook and mechanic, and two “reserves,” David Mason, a former army officer, and Anthony Birkbeck, who has an honours degree in economics and worked in a French bank.

In keeping with the love of dogs possessed by the English, the Fiennes have with them their Jack Russell terrier called Bothie.

At the end of March this year, with the onset of the long, dark Antarctic winter, the Benjamin Bowring sailed for Fiji; the Twin Otter returned to the Northern Hemisphere where it is on charter in Scotland.

Captain Giles Kershaw, the expedition’s pilot, has spent each working season since 1947 in the Antarctic as official pilot for the British Antarctic Survey parties.

Sir Ranulph is far from idle, in spite of being holed up far from home and prevented from moving by darkness and weather. He is writing to sponsoring firms and, in between radio calls to London, listens to the 8.8. C. world news, plans the logistics of his northern polar journey, and gets on with writing a spy thriller novel.

The three men plan to emerge from their winter camp early in October and then strike out with their tinv skidoos and sledges carrying survival rations, signal flares, pyramid tents, sleeping bags, and spare fuel. As soon as the weather allows, the Twin Otter

aircraft will provide support in the form of fuel and food depots every 200 miles.

The party has made a good start, but unknown dangers lie ahead on the 1100-mile journey to the South Pole, and on 700 miles further across the Continent. According to Preston, Sir Ranulph is confident of handling the crevasses

the partt' expects to meet. “It is the cold which he sees as the greatest danger — temperatures down to at least minus 80 degrees, when it takes less than 25 seconds for exposed flesh to freeze.” The ice plateau beyond the mountains and glaciers of the Borga Massif is unexplored, but is known to harbour hundreds of miles of tumbled ice with deep fissures and yawning crevasses. Officially, Transglobe headquarters in London says: “The time to get to the South Pole depends on the severity of the unknown crevasse area, the weather, and the fortitude of man and machine.” The progress, especially over 600 miles of unknown terrain, will be keenly watched from the air — when weather permits. As soon as the trio reach the Pole, air support will be given from the other side of the continent, with the Otter flying in from McMurdo. The expedition has not yet sufficient fuel on the ice for the full journey. So far, the Americans, who maintain a base at the Pole, have not agreed

to help out with supplies from there. Preston says that further fuel can be obtained from the South Africans, who are supplied by the vessel Agulhas. But, clearly, fuel from the United States base would save a considerable amount of flying. It is unlikely that the explorers will become lost for long, unless they

all disappear down a deep crevasse. Each will carry a small, transmitting homer beacon, with a 60mile range, which will enable their position to be pin-pointed. And they will be in constant radio contact with their base, which will, in turn, be in contact with the Twin Otter. The aircraft itself has a radio altimeter which will provide precise information enabling the pilot to land in almost white-out conditions. David Mason, the “first reserve,” and Anthony Birkbeck reserve,” and Simon Grimes and Virginia Fiennes will be flown to McMurdo with the radio gear once the overland party reaches the Pole. From McMurdo, the expedition will visit Auckland and Sydney, and from Sydney, the Benjamin Bowring will sail to Suva, the Aleutians, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, to the mouth of the Yukon River. The team will continue its journey in one-man inflatable boats with skids fitted for use on ice, and will push up the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers to the 3000mile north-w’est passage.

It then plans to travel north to the Arctic coast of Ellesmere Island where it will spend the next winter before setting out to cross the Arctic Ocean via the North Pole. Following the southerly movement of ice into the Greenland Sea, the team plans to head for northwest Spitsbergen to meet the expedition ship again at the edge of the packice; it will then head south to the North Sea and home to Greenwich to complete the first polar journey round the world.

That is at least two years away; the biggest test facing Sir Ranulph' and his men will be the Antarctic crossing. They could complete the 1800mile journey at the earliest by the end of December this year, and at the latest by midFebruary, 1981. Transglobe is backed by an impressive group of people, including the Prince of Wales, who is patron. Lord Ballantrae, a former New Zealand Gov-ernor-General, is an associate member of the executive committee. ' The days 'when expeditions such as Transglobe could be financed privately by amateur adventurers have long gone. Sponsoring firms expect export promotion of their products from the team. Eight trade exhibitions are being held en route, including promotions at Auckland, where the expedition is due in March, 1981, and at Sydney. Experiments are also being undertaken on the ice for the University of Sheffield and Sir Vivian Fuchs, the veteran Antarctic explorer. These involve measuring very low frequency radio waves.