Cape Evans proved too much, and on the night of 6 May she was wrenched from her moorings and taken out to sea with the ice. Aboard were 18 men, and most of the shore party's clothing, equipment and food. Ashore, stranded, were ten men, including Mackintosh. Adrift The situation which immediately confronted the inexperienced temporary commander was particularly daunting. The ship, attached to a large ice-floe, was blown out of the Sound and into the Ross Sea with no means of control, unable to raise steam, and with weather conditions likely to worsen. They were wholly isolated, despite the repeated efforts of wireless operator Lionel Hooke to make radio contact with Cape Evans and other, more distant stations. During the succeeding perilous weeks, as the ice-bound Aurora drifted northwards, roughly parallel to the coast in the direction of Cape Adare, Stenhouse twice came close towards ordering abandonment of the ship and risking a dangerous sledging journey on the ice. The ship survived, however, and continued its drift into the Southern Ocean. Throughout the drift, Stenhouse endeavoured to keep up his crew's morale, and for scientific purposes maintained regular observations of the behaviour of the ice and direction of drift. By February 1916, without sign of release, Stenhouse contemplated the possibility of another year in the ice, but on 12th of that month the ice around her suddenly broke away and she was free. Stenhouse ordered the engines started, and cautiously worked the ship out of the loose pack into the open sea. After a 1000-mile voyage through rough seas to New Zealand, and with assistance in the final stages from a tug, he brought Aurora into Port Chalmers on 3 April 1916. In New Zealand His urgent priority after arrival was to get Aurora repaired and to take her back to McMurdo Sound to rescue the stranded men who had by then been marooned for almost a year. He did not find his concerns recognised by immediate action on the part of the authorities. There were questions of cash - Shackleton's expedition funds were exhausted, and the costs of refitting and provisioning a relief expedition were estimated at around £20,000. Now Shackleton's apparently cavalier approach to the original organisation of the Ross Sea Party stood against him. Eventually, the combined governments of New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain agreed jointly to meet the costs of the rescue provided that