#Erebus ship free#
The ships crashed violently together and their rigging became entangled. Terror couldn't clear both Erebus and the iceberg, so a collision was inevitable. The ice smashed against them so violently that their masts shook in a beating that would have destroyed any ordinary vessel.Įven more dangerously, in March 1842 the Erebus and Terror came close to destroying each other.Įrebus was suddenly forced to turn across Terror's pass in order to avoid crashing headlong into an iceberg which had just become visible through the snow.
#Erebus ship full#
In one incident, they were caught in a stormy sea full of fragments of rock-hard ice. The ships sailed into the Antarctic – which was just as perilous as the north – for three successive years in 1841, 18. Together, they circumnavigated the continent and the expedition did much to map areas of Antarctica, the Ross Ice Shelf and set the scene for future polar exploration in that area. The ships were completely refitted with additional strengthening and an internal heating system.
The Erebus joined the Terror for the next expedition – to the opposite end of the Earth, the Antarctic – under the command of James Clark Ross (1839–43). 'HMS Erebus in the Ice, 1846' by François Etienne Musin ( BHC3325, © National Maritime Museum)