Spectacular parade celebrates Sir Douglas Mawson’s historic voyage

by Peter Campbell on 2 Dec 2011 The 100th anniversary of the departure of Sir Douglas Mawson’s historic voyage to the Antarctic was commemorated today. More than 200 yachts, motor cruisers, tall ships and commercial vessels joined the Antarctic supply vessel Aurora Australis on Hobart’s River Derwent.

Among the historic craft in the spectacular parade were the gaff-rigged yawl Gypsy and the gaff-rigged cutter Vanity, yachts which had just been launched around the time Mawson, a 29-year-old geologist, set sail in the steam yacht Aurora on this ambitious and dangerous adventure.

Mawson planned to sail Aurora to Macquarie Island where his team would establish a wireless relay station, then continue directly south into the Antarctic pack ice. They would make landfall 3000 kilometres south of Hobart on a patch of bare rock on the Antarctic coast which they later named Cape Denison.

There the first Australian-led expedition to Antarctica would make history and give the young Commonwealth of Australia one of its most enduring tales of heroism and survival.

The re-enactment flotilla today ceremoniously paraded before the Governor of Tasmania, His Excellency, The Honourable Peter Underwood, AC off Hobart’s Regatta Point aboard the historic motor launch Egeria in a re-enactment of the enthusiastic send-off Mawson received from the people of Tasmania at the time.

Hundreds of Hobartians also packed the grandstand and lawns at Regatta Point to watch the parade, which began with a 19 gun salute on shore by the Royal Australian Army.

The Aurora Australis later in the day set sail for the Antarctic, re-tracing the course taken by Mawson and his crew aboard the original Aurora a century ago.

Mawson failed to reach the South Pole, but the scientific work carried out by him and his team made a most significant contribution to Polar exploration, long-range radio communications, Southern Ocean weather predictions and other research.