page_title: Jeannette expedition
section_title: Storm and landfall
hierarchical_section_title: Jeannette expedition / Lena Delta / Storm and landfall
caption_attribution_description: English: The loss of the Jeannette Separation of the boats during a gale, seven P.M September 12 1881 Illustration from the Graphic Saturday May 20, 1882 Signed by artist.
context_page_description: The Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, officially called the U.S. Arctic Expedition, was an attempt led by George W. De Long to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. The premise was that a temperate current, the Kuro Siwo, flowed northwards into the strait, providing a gateway to the Open Polar Sea and thus to the pole.
  This theory proved illusory; the expedition's ship, USS Jeannette and its crew of 33, was trapped by ice and drifted for nearly two years before she was crushed and sunk, north of the Siberian coast. De Long then led his 32 men on a perilous journey by sled, dragging the Jeannette's whaleboat and two cutters, eventually switching to these small boats to sail for the Lena Delta in Siberia. During this journey, and in the subsequent weeks of wandering in Siberia before rescue, 20 of the ship's complement died, including De Long.
  The chief exponent of the theory of a warm-water gateway to the North Pole was the German cartographer August Petermann. He encouraged James Gordon Bennett Jr., the proprietor of the New York Herald, to finance a polar expedition based on the untried Pacific route.
context_section_description: The entire crew of 33 were still together on Semenovsky Island. The boats left the island early in the morning of September 12, in fair weather. Thirteen men were with De Long in the large cutter, Chipp with seven others took the smaller cutter, while Melville and ten men sailed in the whaleboat. Danenhower, who outranked Melville, complained bitterly to De Long about being placed under the engineer's command, but De Long replied that Danenhower was unfit for duty, a view confirmed by Ambler. De Long instructed that the boats should each aim for a point indicated as "Cape Barkin" on the Petermann map; if they became separated, and landed in different areas, the parties should rendezvous at Bulun, a sizeable settlement about 100 miles (160 km) from the coast.
  The boats made good progress through the morning, and Melville initially thought they might strike land after a single night at sea. In the afternoon the weather worsened; the boats separated and lost sight of each other. De Long used a sea anchor to stabilize his craft in the ferocious seas and, despite having his sail torn away by the wind, managed to hold a course to the west. The storm had largely subsided by the morning of September 14, but progress was erratic in the absence of the sail, and it was three more days before the cutter ran aground at the most northerly limit of the Lena Delta. De Long and his crew waded ashore, carrying their provisions from the boat, and prepared for a long foot journey. Based on their map, the nearest settlement appeared to lie 95 miles (153 km) away. De Long thought their rations would last for three-and-a-half days.
  In the whaleboat, Melville had, like De Long, ridden out the storm by means of a sea anchor. The boat's course was far to the south of De Long's; they finally reached land at one of the main mouths of the Lena, and were able to navigate upriver. Within a few days they encountered a native fishing camp, and by September 25 had reached the settlement of Arrhu. Chipp's cutter never reached land; overwhelmed by the storm, it presumably foundered, with the loss of all eight on board.
caption: Separation of the boats in a gale
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