Antarctic sailing ship 'Penola'

For his British Graham Land Expedition, John Rymill purchased an auxilliary-powered Brittany fishing schooner to take his expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship was manned by an amateur crew under the command of Royal Navy Lieutenant R E D Ryder. The Chief Engineer was Lieutenant-Commander H Millett. The vessel was renamed Penola after Rymill's home town in South Australia.

Penola was a heavily built vessel well adapted for sailing in polar seas. It also had a large carrying capacity for its size. Built in 1905, Penola was 103 feet [31.4 metres] at the waterline with a 24 foot [7.3 metres] beam and drew 14 feet [4.3 metres]. Her tonnage was 130 tons. She was rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner and equipped with two 50-horsepower Junker diesel engines.

In 1985 Colin Bertram wrote that the name Penola caused some problems to the expedition members, as the small South Australian town was unheard of, and particularly in an era when exploration ships were usually named for a concept such as Endurance, Endeavour, or Discovery.

The question of the amateur crew also raised some concerns, but all worked well with the best interests of the expedition at heart. (info and lower pic from the State Library of South Australia)