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Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the leader of the Transglobe Expedition, yesterday listed the expedition’s scientific achievements.
He said after the expedition had arrived at Greenwich that it had collected data in the fields of oceanography, glaciology, meteorology and radio wave propagation.
“For public bodies to have carried out this research work in those remote areas would have cost the taxpayer a prohibitive amount of money.”
After waiting in the Thames Estuary for five days because it arrived too early, the expedition arrived at Greenwich in the way it departed three years ago – aboard the MV Benjamin Bowring, with Prince Charles at the helm. Prince Charles said the expedition had achieved an extraordinary feat.
Sir Ranulph said that equipment had been tested in extreme temperatures and rugged terrain on behalf of 200 companies. Eight trade promotion exhibitions in the “civilised” areas they travelled, including Paris, Abidjan, Cape Town, Sydney, and Vancouver, had gained export orders totalling more than £2 million for British companies.
Members of the team came from 11 different countries and all had different backgrounds, religions and political beliefs “yet have lived together for three long years often in unpleasant conditions”.
“Not by hope of any financial reward. Far from it. In a time of unemployment most gave up their chosen careers to join Transglobe for three years with no salary at all.”
More than 80 per cent of the sponsoring companies were British, private and nationalised. “So I, for one, will find it more difficult to agree with the traditional moans and groans about the non-reliability of British-made goods. Our success indicates this to be a self-perpetuating myth.”
Later, at a press conference, Sir Ranulph said that all the people who had worked without salaries had contributed about £410,000 to the expedition in doing so. He also described some of the more frightening moments of the expedition. At one point one member of the crew had been surrounded by wolves while unarmed. On another a polar bear had had to be shot because it was becoming aggressive.
But the most worry had been caused by a 99-day wait on a drifting ice-floe which at one point seemed to threaten the success of the expedition.
He and Mr Burton were picked up by the MV Benjamin Bowring on August 4, with 2,000 miles to travel back to Greenwich and 35,000 miles’ circumnavigation of the world via the North and South Poles behind them.
If the support ship had not been able to break through the ice floes the only hope of rescue would have been a large, well-equipped helicopter, which would have been a bitter blow, coming so near the end of the expedition.
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