User:Maralia/Kainan Maru

Kainan Maru was the ship used by the Japanese Antarctic Expedition of 1910–12.

Planning
Nobu Shirase, a lieutenant in the Japanese Army who had been on an expedition to the Kuril Islands in 1893, proposed a Japanese expedition to Antarctica. Despite garnering support for the expedition from "many prominent figures of the Japanese establishment, and large sections of the popular press", as well as former Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu, Shirase was unable to secure financial backing from the government. His expedition was instead funded by public subscription and private donors.

Ship
Shirase acquired the Hoko Maru, a three-masted wooden schooner of 204 tons. Hoko Maru was 30 m long, with a beam of 7.85 m. The vessel was renamed Kainan Maru, reinforced with iron plating, and rigged with an 18-horsepower steam engine.

Expedition
Kainan Maru set sail from Tokyo on 29 November 1910, calling at Tateyama Bay before leaving Japan on 1 December 1910. The ship, Captain Naokichi Nomura in command, arrived at Wellington, New Zealand on 7 February 1911. After taking on supplies, including 32 tons of coal and 36 tons of drinking water, Kainan Maru departed again four days later for the Ross Sea—"at a date when most other vessels would have been leaving Antarctic waters". The crew first sighted an iceberg on 26 February; navigation became increasingly difficult over the next two weeks due to fog and ice. On March 12 the ship barely avoided heavy pack ice near Coulman Island and, unprepared for wintering over should she become icebound, was turned round. Kainan Maru sailed for Sydney, arriving on 1 May 1911.

Legacy
A Japanese military vessel of World War II was named Kainan Maru.

Some sources list a 'Kainan Maru Seamount' in the Antarctic.

The South Pole Explorers' Memorial at Futo Park in Minato City has play equipment in the shape of a 25-meter replica of the Kainan Maru to commemorate the ship and her voyage.