From The Daily Telegraph.10th November 2025
Lieutenant-Commander Clive Waghorn, who has died aged 77, was a submarine weapons engineer officer in the Cold War and one of the line of notable Royal Navy Antarctic explorers and expedition leaders in the tradition of Scott and Shackleton.
Clive Howard Waghorn was born on November 14, 1947, in London, where his father was a quantity surveyor. Educated at St George's School, Harpenden, he showed considerable prowess on the sports field and a modest interest in science. In 1965 he won a place at Dartmouth and in 1967 he began to study at the Royal Naval Engineering College, Manadon, graduating as a weapons engineer in 1970, when he volunteered for the Trade.
His first appointment was to the diesel submarine Opossum, where he earned his "Dolphins" before taking the nuclear engineering course. He was appointed to HMS Superb as weapons engineer under two of the most inspirational commanders of the age, Geoff Biggs and then Mike Boyce, while Superb was involved in some of the most challenging clandestine Cold War submarine operations.
After a spell at the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment at Portland in 1982, he joined the staff at BRNC Dartmouth. There he proved to be an inspiring if unconventional instructor and he found a ready exit by joining the Brabant Island Expedition. In 1984-85, Waghorn was part of the joint services expedition under the leadership of Commander Chris Furse to Brabant Island, one of the most inhospitable places on earth. There, in March 1985, he fell into a crevasse, suffering a compound fracture of his upper right leg. With great skill, in very challenging conditions his teammates rescued him, got him into a tent and jury-rigged a splint.
While a companion, Terry Gill, stayed with him for four days, two others set off in a blizzard to summon help. RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) Olna was hastily scrambled from the Falkland Islands together with the survey ship Edurance. Mercifully the weather cleared for an hour, allowing him to be rescued by helicopter. Despite the drama of the accident and rescue, the expedition achieved a number of scientific and exploration firsts, including a circumnavigation of the island by sea-canoe.
Back home in the UK, Waghorn found brief fame on the Terry Wogan chat show. His host was seeking a dramatic story, but Waghorn, to whom melodrama was foreign, related the whole incident as if it was just another day at work.
On returning from Brabant Island, he was appointed to the Submarine Tactics and Weapons Group under the Flag Officer Submarines 1986 to 1988 and was closely involved in the trials of a new homing torpedo, Tigerfish, including live firings on a range off Bermuda with the submarines Turbulent and Conqueror. In these years he also joined a Royal Navy and Royal Marines Expedition to tackle the famous haute route from Chamonix to Saas-Fee in the Alps, where his unique style of off-piste skiing and pithy naval observations when things did not go to plan brought much merriment to his teammates.
His final appointment in the Navy was to the Ministry of Defence in Portland in 1989. He continued to ski in the Alps and Norway and became a welcome, steady hand sailing with friends. He also took up industrial archaeology, and, fascinated by the history and development of Edinburgh's water supply, mapped the city's pipelines, springs and reservoirs and presented his scholarly work to the Museum of Scotland.
Waghorn had joined the Babcock defence company in Rosyth, but on being invited in 1991 to join an Army expedition to South Georgia to explore the southern coast of the island by ski and kayak, he obtained long leave. As one of a four-man team, he canoed about a third of the coastline from King Edward Point to the most south westerly headland, where foul weather beset the party at Cape Disappointment (named in 1775 by Captain James Cook, who, on rounding the same headland, realised that he had not found the great white continent). Waghorn's party found themselves marooned. A parachute drop was prevented by severe weather, a sledging party eventually delivered some food to them, but for three weeks, until extracted by ship, they continued to make scientific and meteorological observations. All the while they survived on quarter-rations supplemented by Waghorn's recipes for penguin.
In mid-December 2004, when a sudden vacancy arose in another expedition, Waghorn resigned from Babcock at less than three weeks' notice to sail to the Antarctic in a 50ft yacht in an attempt to make the first crossing of the Forbidden Plateau. The five-week crossing involved climbing 7,500 feet from sea level to the plateau and then man-hauling sledges across unmapped territory. En route the team summited Mount Walker, the highest unclimbed point in British Antarctic Territory. Next, he crewed in the yacht Northanger for three weeks around the waters and islands that he had come to know so well. Later, he returned in comfort as a guest lecturer onboard cruise ships
Waghorn could be irascible and was possessed of a nautical turn of phrase. He also had strong views and was not averse to making them known, but he had a natural authority with a collaborative style that drew out the best in people. Underneath his slightly craggy exterior he was a delightful warm-hearted, kind, modest man who had many loyal friends.
He played a pivotal role in the armed services' contribution to the exploration of Antarctica, gaining a reputation as an exceptional expedition leader whose knowledge and expertise, combined with his willingness to endure the harshest of weather and the toughest of deprivations, maintained and enhanced the highest traditions of the Royal Navy, and of polar exploration.
In 2012, he achieved his ambition of scaling all of the Scottish Munros.
Towards the end of his life, he battled an aggressive and debilitating cancer with remarkable stoicism, courage and his characteristic good humour.
Lieutenant-Commander Clive Waghorn, born November 14 1947, died October 7 2025
| Class: | 1936 - 1958: U Class |
| Built By: | Vickers (Barrow) |
| Build Group: | U2 |
| Fate: | |
| Scrapped in March 1946 at Troon. | |
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| Class: | 1936 - 1958: U Class |
| Built By: | Vickers (Barrow) |
| Build Group: | U2 |
| Fate: | |
| Scrapped in March 1946 at Troon. | |
11 pages added or updated in the last 1 month
Please help to maintain this site by reporting any Errors, Broken Links, Information or Site Issues on this page using this button
If you find this site useful, please consider supporting my work with a small Donation. Or you can make a big one if you like :)
Please Note: Donations made using this option go directly to the site owner and not to the Submariners Association.
Thankyou for your support.
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