From James Stobart
Spalding, Lincolnshire
The missing mouse balls might have been discovered (Feedback, 4 January,
Letters, 18 January, p 48, and 8 February, p 51). According to the February
issue of Classic Boat, a team of Irish boat enthusiasts is partially
recreating Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition of 1914 to 1917. To this end
they have built the Tom Crean, a replica of the James Caird, Shackleton’s ship’s
lifeboat, in which he sailed 800 miles to South Georgia.
The new boat is of cold-moulded timber construction and includes seven
watertight compartments which were fitted with a ton of computer mouse balls and
gravel for ballast.
