The three-ship expedition under the command of…

The three-ship expedition under the command of English navigator Sir Hugh Willoughby had sailed north from England in June, 1553, in search of a Northeast Passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along the northern shores of Eurasia.

The ships, funded by London merchants, had made their way north to the Lofoten Islands off the coast of northern Norway the following month, but there a violent storm had separated them.