Adventurer Attempts Antarctic Row After Heart Surgery

A man is to attempt one of the world’s most dangerous rows in the Antarctic in honour of the “forgotten hero” of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance voyage – just months after open heart surgery.

Jamie Douglas-Hamilton will row from Elephant Island to South Georgia. The grandson of the 14th Duke of Hamilton will brave the Scotia Sea – the roughest and coldest on Earth.

He is also calling for the Polar Medal to be awarded posthumously to Harry McNish, the carpenter on Endurance.

McNish was on Shackleton’s ill-fated voyage, which ended with the expedition vessel being sunk by pack ice in October 1915.

The group managed to reach Elephant Island and McNish, from Port Glasgow, adapted the James Caird lifeboat to make it seaworthy for the voyage. Some of the crew made it to South Georgia to seek help.

Mr Douglas-Hamilton, 42, from Edinburgh, will be the only Britain in a team of six hoping to row the 950-mile route sailed by the James Caird, which has never been attempted before.

The adventurer, who is a seven times Guinness World record holder, told BBC Scotland he had read the unpublished diaries of Harry McNish after befriending his great nephew, John McNish.