Table of Contents

Foreword – Libby Purves 7

I The Crew and the Ship 11

II Choosing an Objective 22

III Early Days 33

IV Las Palmas and Southwards 41

V Cape Town 56

VI In the Southern Ocean 70

VII Possession Island 86

VIII Possession Island: An Earlier Visitor 98

IX The Mountains of Possession Island 109

X Kerguelen 121

XI To the Ice-Cap 130

XII Port aux Fran.ais 145

XIII To Cape Town 157

XIV A False Start 166

XV Homeward Bound 176

Afterword: The Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter — Tom Cunliffe 189

About the Author

Harold William ‘Bill’ Tilman (1898–1977) was among the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering mountaineer and sailor who held exploration above all else. Tilman joined the army at seventeen and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery during WWI.

After the war Tilman left for Africa, establishing himself as a coffee grower. He met Eric Shipton and began their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro. Turning to the Himalaya, Tilman went on two Mount Everest expeditions, reaching 27,000 feet without oxygen in 1938. In 1936 he made the first ascent of Nanda Devi – the highest mountain climbed until 1950.

He was the first European to climb in the remote Assam Himalaya, he delved into Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and he explored extensively in Nepal, all the while developing a mountaineering style characterised by its simplicity and emphasis on exploration.

It was perhaps logical then that Tilman would eventually buy the pilot cutter Mischief – not with the intention of retiring from travelling, but to access remote mountains. For twenty-two years Tilman sailed Mischief and her successors to Patagonia, where he crossed the vast ice cap, and to Baffin Island to make the first ascent of Mount Raleigh. He made trips to Greenland, Spitsbergen and the South Shetlands, before disappearing in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1977.