Overcoming challenges in freezing temperatures, explorers have located the wreck of the Endurance, the ship carrying explorer Ernest Shackleton that sank in Antarctica in 1915.
After 106 years, the wreck of the Endurance has been found in Antarctica. The ship was trapped in ice and sank during Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.
The inscription ‘ENDURANCE’ remains very sharp at the bow of the ship. (Photo: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust)
The Legendary Expedition of Captain Ernest Shackleton
The Endurance occupies a prominent place in the history of polar exploration. It contains the most magnificent story related to overcoming adversity to survive during an expedition, the tale of survival of Shackleton and his crew.
As a wooden ship measuring 43.9 meters long with a three-mast design, the Endurance was robustly built, suitable for operating in icy seas. Its hull was made entirely of oak, with a thickness of over 75 cm (2.5 feet).
A photo of explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1914. (Photo: Alamy)
The Endurance set sail from Plymouth (England) in August 1914, just as Europe was plunging into World War I. The expedition, named “The Imperial Trans-Antarctic”, led by Shackleton, was the first global effort to traverse the Antarctic continent overland. The expedition was sponsored by the British government and private patrons, receiving direct support from the then British Minister of the Navy, Winston Churchill. The main goal of this endeavor was to send a group of explorers to the Antarctic coastline. From there, the explorers would disembark and trek across the Antarctic continent.
As the Endurance entered the Weddell Sea, the German and British navies were engaged in fierce battles near the Falkland Islands, also in the South Atlantic. However, the enemy Shackleton and the crew faced was not warfare. The Weddell Sea, covering nearly 2.6 million square kilometers, is the most remote ocean in the world, characterized by harsh natural conditions, thick ice, and strong winds. Shackleton referred to it as the “worst sea in the world.”
The crew departed from South Georgia, an island in the South Atlantic, in August 1914. But before the Endurance could reach the Antarctic coast, the ship became trapped in ice, leaving Shackleton and 27 others stranded.
After 10 months of enduring the weight of drifting ice, the ship broke apart and sank before the crew’s eyes, leaving them with only a small supply of provisions and a few lifeboats.
Gathering their meager supplies on the lifeboats, the crew managed to reach Elephant Island, an uninhabited island about 241 km from the Antarctic Peninsula, by April 1916.
In this critical situation, Shackleton and five other crew members set out in search of help. They rowed over 1,200 km in a 6.9-meter-long lifeboat to reach a whaling station on South Georgia.
A photo of the Endurance trapped in Arctic ice but not yet sunk. (Photo: Getty Images)
From there, Shackleton’s team sent a ship to rescue the remaining members of the expedition. All crew members of the Endurance were successfully rescued by August 1916. This thrilling survival journey established explorer Shackleton as a hero in Britain.
The Search Operation for the Endurance
Using an unmanned submersible, a team of explorers, marine geologists, and technical experts identified the wreck of the Endurance in the Weddell Sea, located east of the Antarctic Peninsula. Overcoming challenges posed by the frozen sea and frigid temperatures, the team spent two weeks surveying and searching a vast area of over 388 square kilometers, believed to be the site where the Endurance sank in 1915.
The area where the Endurance sank is strictly protected and considered a historical site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. The search for the wreck of the Endurance was sponsored by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, with the expedition conducted by the Endurance22 team. The team traveled on the S.A. Agulhas II, departing from Cape Town earlier this year, using underwater drones to locate the Endurance wreck.
Specialized equipment mobilized for the Endurance wreck search operation by the Endurance22 team. (Photo: Getty Images)
“This is the best-preserved wooden shipwreck I have ever encountered. The ship is upright, proudly standing on the ocean floor, intact and in excellent condition,” expressed Mensun Bound, exploration director of the Endurance22 team, when announcing the findings on March 9. He also hopes the Endurance remains whole and unbroken.
After the ship sank, Shackleton and Endurance’s captain Frank Worsley recorded the ship’s location. The Endurance22 team expanded the search area beyond this data to account for discrepancies in the positioning equipment used by Worsley. The waters here are crystal clear, with visibility of at least 30 meters. The wreck is located about 6 km south of the position noted by Captain Worsley.
The expedition team reported that the wreck lies at a depth of over 3,000 meters in the coldest waters in the world. The fact that the wreck is well-preserved is not surprising. The Weddell Sea is frigid and devoid of wood-eating marine organisms that typically damage shipwrecks in other maritime areas.
Antarctica lacks natural wood, so no wood-eating organisms exist here. Scientists have previously left wood and whale bones on the seabed in experiments. The results show the wood appears intact while most whale bones have disintegrated.
The first images of the wreck of the Endurance were transmitted via unmanned submersible equipment from a depth of nearly 3,000 meters on March 5. The camera glided over the wooden deck of the ship, capturing ropes, tools, railings, masts, and the rudder—all in an almost pristine condition.
Ernest Shackleton died of a heart attack in South Georgia in March 1922 at the age of 47. Exactly 100 years later, the Endurance22 team captured the first authentic images of the legendary ship Endurance, unraveling what is considered one of the greatest mysteries in maritime exploration history.
