Australian Don McIntyre, who completed an epic voyage last year retracing the steps of Captain Bligh across the Pacific, is to undertake his next challenge. Once again Don and his crew will be carrying a McMurdo Smartfind EPIRB and Fast Find PLBs. This time instead of the tropics, he will be heading to cold Antarctic.

Don and his project partner Tim Jarvis will lead the attempt to recreate the incredible journey undertaken in 1916 by legendary polar explorer Ernest Shackleton and five companions when they set off to seek help by sailing a small rowing boat, the ‘James Caird’, across 800 miles of the roughest ocean in the world from Elephant island, Antarctica to mountainous South Georgia Island.

With the sinking of his ship, the ‘Endurance’, in the pack ice, the success of the voyage, both for the six men in the James Caird and the 22 men left behind on Elephant Island, was vital to bringing about their rescue. On reaching South Georgia, Shackleton and two men then scaled the island's precipitous peaks with virtually no equipment to reach a remote whaling station. Shackleton's original goal had been to be the first to cross Antarctica.

To this day, no-one has successfully completed Shackleton's 'double'. Dubbed "The Shackleton Epic", the expedition will set sail from Elephant Island in a replica of the James Caird and will use only 1916 technology, food and equipment. One exception, as with the Bounty, will be to carry the EPIRB, so as to avoid unnecessary risk. The Smartfind works in the very remotest parts of the world and it doesn’t come much more remote than this.

We will bring you more information on this voyage and website details when they become available. The expedition is due to start in February 2011.

Don is pictured here with his sextant and Fast Find 211 PLBs.