Shipwreck hunters have discovered the Quest, the vessel once captained by Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, almost intact at the bottom of the sea, 28.78 km off the coast of Canada.
The Quest shipwreck lies on the seabed off the coast of Canada. (Photo: Reuters).
Shackleton died of a heart attack aboard the Quest in January 1922. The Quest not only preserves the history of his expeditions but also carried artifacts from voyages that lasted until 1962, when the ship sank. “Finding the Quest is one of the final chapters in the extraordinary story of Ernest Shackleton,” said John Geiger, the expedition leader and CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
An international team of experts located the Quest using sonar equipment on June 9 after 17 hours of searching an area spanning 44.4 km, according to CNN. Before discovering the ship, the team spent months analyzing to pinpoint the best area for locating the wreck, according to oceanographer David Mearns, who directed the search.
Shackleton was conducting his fourth expedition to Antarctica when he died at the age of 47 while docked at South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic. The renowned polar explorer was buried there while the ship and crew continued to complete the expedition named Shackleton – Rowett. However, thick ice made it difficult for them to finish the journey, and the Quest returned to Cape Town, South Africa, according to the Natural History Museum in London.
Originally, Shackleton intended to use the Quest for an Arctic expedition in Canada, but he did not receive approval from the Canadian Prime Minister at the time. His death marked the end of a glorious era of Antarctic exploration. However, the journey of the Quest did not end there. After being sold to a Norwegian company, the ship continued to undertake several other expeditions and eventually became a whaling ship. The Quest sank on May 5, 1962, after colliding with ice in the Labrador Sea off the coast of Canada. The crew evacuated and marked the ship’s last location, which was about 2.5 km from where the research team found it.
The ship sank from the stern first. Due to heavy machinery, it is now upright at a depth of 390 m below sea level, according to Mearns. The Royal Canadian Geographical Society hopes to return to the wreck in the second phase of the expedition with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) later this year.
