Author(s): John Thomson

Biography / Memoir

Frank Worsley shared with Sir Ernest Shackleton one of the greatest adventures of the heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. After their ship Endurance was crushed in the ice in 1915, they made what is perhaps the most famous small-boat journey in history, across 800 miles of the world's roughest seas to get help. That they survived this extraordinary voyage was largely due to Worsley's skill in both navigation and seamanship. Worsley's dairies and notes still provide the main records of that journey, yet the fame of Shackleton rather overshadowed the modest New Zealander. This first-ever biography of Worsley sets out to restore the balance. It tells the full story of his extraordinary life, from childhood as a larrikin in Akaroa, New Zealand, to his apprenticeship at sea, and the development of his remarkable skills as navigator and sailing master. It also backgrounds the bond of friendship between Worsley and Shackleton that flourished when their lives were threatened. In an age of mass communications, Frank Worsley would have been a public figure as famous as Sir Edmund Hillary. This biography gives an unhallowed yet eminent New Zealander his proper place in history.