Expeditions

Sailing SOUTH – Expeditions

It all began a few years ago with the aim of fulfilling a childhood dream: To sail the Southern Oceanin Shackleton’s footsteps, following in his footsteps and those of the “Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition ’ (1914-1917) – also known as the Endurance Expedition. This resulted in the privately organised sailing expedition ‘Sailing SOUTH 2024’.

We were not able to achieve all of our goals – nature threw a spanner in the works.

Shackleton and his men were thwarted by the ice in 1914, we were thwarted 110 years later by bird flu, which made it impossible to land in South Georgia.

Shackleton had set off from Grytviken in 1914, sailing south to cross the Antarctic. After an odyssey of almost two years, he returned in May 1916, albeit by force. After the sinking of the Endurance, months of fighting for survival in a camp on the sea ice, the journey through the icy Weddell Sea to Elephant Island and a daring 800-mile crossing in an open lifeboat through the storm-tossed South Atlantic. South Georgia was ultimately the final scene of one of the most spectacular rescue operations in polar history.

And I haven’t given up the South Georgia chapter either, and in 2026, two years after Sailing SOUTH 2024, another 110 years after Shackleton set foot on this remote island in the Southern Ocean, I want to make another attempt and organise two expeditions to this storm-tossed sub-Antarctic island.