SOUTH 
was not to be shipped until open pack or open water was reached. 
The ship was held up all day on the 15th in lat. 64° 38' S. Heavy 
floes barred progress in every direction. Attempts were made 
to work the ship by trimming sails and warping with ice-anchors, 
but she could not be manoeuvred smartly enough to take advan- 
tage of leads that opened and closed. This state of affairs 
continued throughout the 16th. That night a heavy swell was 
roUing under the ice and the ship had a rough time. One pointed 
floe ten or twelve feet thick was steadily battering, with a three- 
feet send, against the starboard side, and fenders only partially 
deadened the shock. It is no use butting against this pack 
with steam-power,''' wrote Stenhouse. We would use all our 
meagre supply of coal in reaching the limit of the ice in sight, 
and then we would be in a hole, mth neither ballast nor fuel. 
. . . But if this stagnation lasts another week we will have to 
raise steam and consume our coal in an endeavour to get into 
navigable waters. 1 am afraid our chances of getting south 
are very small now." 
The pack remained close, and on the 21st a heavy swell 
made the situation dangerous. The ship bumped heavily that 
night and fenders were of little avail. With each send " of 
the swell the ship would bang her bows on the floe ahead, then 
bounce back and smash into another floe across her stern-post. 
This floe, about six feet thick and 100 ft. across, was eventually 
split and smashed by the impacts. The pack was jammed 
close on the 23rd, when the noon latitude was 64° 36i' S. The 
next change was for the worse. The pack loosened on the night 
of the 25th, and a heavy north-west swell caused the ship to 
bump heavily. This state of affairs recurred at intervals in 
succeeding days. The battering and ramming of the floes 
increased in the early hours [of February 29] until it seemed as 
if some sharp floe or jagged underfoot must go through the 
ship's hull. At 6 a.m. we converted a large coir-spring into a 
fender, and slipped it under the port quarter, where a pressured 
floe with a twenty to thirty feet underfoot was threatening to 
knock the propeller and stern-post ofl altogether. At 9 a.m., 
after pumping ship, the engineer reported a leak in the way of 
the propeller-shaft aft near the stern-post on the port side. The 
330 
