In September, we posted about the discovery of one of two missing ships from the Franklin Expedition of 1845. The two missing ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were both originally built as bomb ships. As bomb ships they were built to be extremely strong and as such were especially suitable to be refit as expedition ships for Arctic expeditions. Because the two ships were of roughly the same size and similar in other respects, the archaeologists from Parks Canada were not initially able to identify which of the two ships had been found. They now confirm that the ship wreck located is the HMS Erebus. Sir John Franklin, captain HMS Erebus and in overall command of the expedition, had been searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. HMS Terror has still not been discovered. Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing on the news.
Old Salt Blog
a virtual port of call for all those who love the sea , hosted by nautical novelist Rick Spilman
Erebus was found right where the Inuit said it was — i.e.: the LAST place the white folks looked.
A lot of people are asking for real proof of which ship it actually is?
Per BBC: “Alongside Sir John were 128 officers, all of them aiming to find the elusive sea route linking the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Arctic seas off northern Canada.”
128 officers? I’m guessing that was supposed to be “128 officers, crew and supernumeraries.”
Otherwise, perhaps the vessels foundered under the sheer weight of all those cocked hats, epaulets, deluxe wardroom provisions etc. How many bottles of wine could 128 RN officers consume in two years? 🙂