SS Windward—whaler and Arctic exploration ship

Abstract

AbstractWindward, a three-masted barque, was built in Peterhead in 1860 for the whaling trade, and fitted with steam engines in 1866. Almost every year for 33 years she visited the Arctic in pursuit of whales and seals, latterly belonging to the Grays, an outstanding Peterhead whaling family. Sold in 1894 to Captain Joseph Wiggins, she was bought later in the same year by Alfred Harmsworth for the use of Frederick G. Jackson in his exploration of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa (Franz Josef Land). Windward was Jackson's ship for three years, including one winter beset in the ice; journeying from her, Jackson substantially recharted Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, and the ship brought home Fridtjof Nansen after his epic drift with the polar ice. In 1897 Harmsworth offered the vessel to Robert Peary, who was planning an assault on the North Pole from the northern tip of Greenland or from Ellesmere Island. After four years with Peary, including two winters trapped in the ice, Windward returned to her roots in whaling from Scotland. She was lost in Davis Strait in 1907.