Says Palin: “It was a perfect time to explore the world and it was a great time to do our best work.”Īs a repurposed survey ship, Erebus’s first forays of note were into the Antarctic during the highly successful Ross Expedition (led by James Clark Ross) that was to ascertain (if not quite reach) the location of the South Magnetic Pole, while making geological recordings (including the active volcano Erebus, named in honour of the ship), botanical discoveries and coordinated magnetic observations.

Victorian Britain celebrated scientific discovery proudly, so while Erebus may have been designed and build specifically as a warship, she was refitted following the close of the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century to make her one of the best scientifically equipped ships the Navy had ever built.

This is because ‘Erebus: The Story of a Ship’ is from a credentialed expert, as caringly wrought and expertly made as the ship the author describes. Those thinking that Palin’s contribution to the literature of exploration is something of a retirement project from a former comic actor with time on his hands should think again. But what might not be quite so well known is that he recently served a stint in the prestigious role of President of the Royal Geographical Society. This passion will come as no surprise to fans of Palin’s many television travel and adventure documentaries that have been a fixture for decades. ‘Erebus: The Story of a Ship’ does exactly what it says on the label, and while many of the stories related to what is, after all, something of a celebrity ship in exploration circles, will be familiar to those in the know, Palin’s book is nonetheless a gripping read from a writer with a real passion for geographical discovery. A ship that roamed the most perilous corners of the globe, was lost and then found. Not just of life and death, but life and death and a sort of resurrection.” The result is his ripping yarn of the sea, a biography of a ship that was to play an important, if ultimately tragic, role in the exploration of both the southern and northern Polar Regions in the 19th century. When in 2014 the news broke that HMS Erebus had been found at the bottom of the sea in the Canadian Arctic, Michael Palin’s first thoughts were: “I knew that there was a story to be told.

Erebus the story of a ship