Shipwreck of Antarctic explorer found 107 years after it sank

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship was discovered 107 years after sinking in the frigid seas of the Antarctic. The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust reported the ship Endurance was discovered at a depth of 3,008 metres, some four miles south of the site initially documented by the ship’s commander, Frank Worsley.

Dr John Shears, seasoned geographer of the expedition said, ‘We have made polar history with the discovery of Endurance, and successfully completed the world’s most challenging shipwreck search’.

The Endurance was discovered off the coast of Antarctica, some four miles south of where her commander, Frank Worsley, had first documented it. It hasn’t been seen since November 1915, when it was smashed by ice and sunk in the Weddell Sea.

According to Mensun Bound, the expedition director of the exploration, the 144 ft ship appeared to be intact. ‘We are overwhelmed by our good fortune in having located and captured images of Endurance’, he said.

Under the rules of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, the location of Endurance was designated as a historic monument. The expedition ship, the SA Agulhas II, was home to a 64-person expedition team as well as a 46-person crew. An unidentified donor contributed $10 million to the mission. Three years ago, an attempt to locate the Endurance was unsuccessful.

Shackleton lost his ship but saved his crew. In December 1914, he set sail from South Georgia with 27 men for Vahsel Bay on the eastern edge of the Weddell Sea. The objective was to cross the massive Antarctic ice sheet to the south pole, then continue across the continent to the Ross Sea on the opposite side.

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The Endurance, however, slammed into polar pack ice two days after departing South Georgia. The ship became trapped in early January, and the crew finally decamped to the ice, taking the ship’s stocks of food and other necessities, as well as three open lifeboats. The Endurance eventually sunk with Captain Worsley documenting its location.

Shackleton and his crew camped on the ice floes for another five months before sailing to Elephant Island in lifeboats. Shackleton, Worsley, and four others sailed 800 miles to South Georgia in frigid weather and strong seas. They arranged for the remainder of the crew to be rescued, and they were found alive within months.