The Capstan Rocks () are a small group of rocks, sometimes awash at high water and in strong winds, lying south of

Bob Island Bob Island is a rocky island long and high, lying southeast of Cape Errera, on Wiencke Island in the Palmer Archipelago. An island in this vicinity was surveyed and photographed by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (BelgAE) under Gerlache in t ...

in the south entrance to

Gerlache Strait Gerlache Strait or de Gerlache Strait or Détroit de la Belgica is a Channel (geography), channel/strait separating the Palmer Archipelago from the Antarctic Peninsula. The Belgian Antarctic Expedition, under Lt. Adrien de Gerlache, explored the ...

, off the west coast of

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and ...

. They were shown on an Argentine government chart of 1950, but not named. They were surveyed by the

British Naval Hydrographic Survey Unit British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

, 1956–57, and given this descriptive name by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

, because of a supposed resemblance to a capstan.

References

Rock formations of Graham Land Danco Coast {{DancoCoast-geo-stub