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As at the date of my expedition, 850 explorers had carried the flag on 1,450 expeditions. A select few of the 222 flags have been retired and framed for display at the Club House in New York. These include the flags carried by Thor Heyerdahl on his raft Kontiki as he sailed across the Pacific, and the miniature flags carried aboard Apollo 8 and 15. Some special flags are of particular historic importance, such as the flag carried aboard Apollo 11 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the moon.

The Explorers Club declared our Hampshire expedition to be a Flagged Expedition due to the historic importance of the shipwreck – and two weeks before the expedition was due to begin, an airmail package arrived with Flag #192 and the paperwork to go along with it, which included a list of the previous expeditions this very flag had been carried on.

Amos Burg1968 Alaska Rivers ExpeditionDr. George V.B. Cochran1974 North Baffin-Bylot ExpeditionDr. George V.B. Cochran1972 Baffinland Arctic-Alpine ExpeditionDr. George V.B. Cochran1973 Baffin-Kingnait ExpeditionPeter Byrne1975 Nepal Himalayan – Terai MammalsRalph Lenton1970 Mt Ararat ExpeditionDr. I. Drummond Rennie1973 American Dhaulagiri ExpeditionWilliam Isherwood1971 Glaciological SurveyBob Sparks1975 Trans-Atlantic Solo Balloon CrossingBob Sparks1976 Trans-Atlantic Balloon Flight.

The flag had been lost on expedition in the late 1970s – but had recently been found and returned to the Explorers Club shortly before my expedition. After a break of some 40 years, it was going on expedition again.