Would Castors Have Helped Scott Get To The South Pole ?

By Author: Mike Gerrish
Total Articles: 56
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As far as famous explorers go, Robert Falcon Scott has to be one of the most unfortunate ever to have lived. Determined to get to the South Pole, he led two separate expeditions in the Antarctic during the early years of the 20th Century in an attempt to make history. Not only did he fail miserably but he died on the return from his second expedition. The first, the Discovery Expedition, took place between 1901 and 1904 and had a scientific purpose. Scott and his comrades wanted to effectively find out more about the land and the organisms that lived there. The second expedition, the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910 to 1913, was different in that the sole aim was to reach the South Pole and stamp British authority on it, so to speak. Not only did Roald Amundsen beat them there but they also missed a real opportunity to make history because they chose to use skis rather than castors!

Now skis would, of course, be the logical choice but not in the case of Scott's expeditions. It is a well known fact that few of the party of fifty that set out on the Discovery Expedition knew how to use skis and so the vast majority of them ...
... had problems. This significantly slowed the party down and hampered them in their quest to reach the South Pole. Very few actively had any training on the skis and so overly relied on the dog they took to drag equipment on their journey. Castors would have negated this problem.

In fact, castors would have removed many of the obstacles of the first expedition because they would have made it much easier for the dogs to pull carts with the equipment on them as well as making it easier for the men to move. A few attached to the skis (before the advent of shoes similar to roller skates) would have made it much easier for them to conserve energy and yet move at the same time. Had the party reached the South Pole during the first expedition, they would have undoubtedly been the first party to do so and made history rather than being the second placed team in 1912.

High temperature castors would have been ideal for Scott's purpose because they are designed to withstand extreme temperatures and conditions that other castors may well fail to work in. Made of either stainless steel or zinc plated pressed steel, the solid wheels are specifically designed for use in the types of conditions that Scott would have faced every single day of his expeditions. Options like the BZXM/MH and SSMH/XM series (both 80mm to 125mm and supporting 110kg to 200kg loads) would have cut through the snow and glided on the ice, making sure that the time wasted on travelling was kept to a minimum and speeding up the expedition exponentially.

So there you have it - how castors could have revolutionised exploration of the poles and helped Scott to create a niche for himself in history that has absolutely nothing to do with his death but rather his achievements in life.