Kategorie: News
Expedition found the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship "Endurance"
More than 100 years after the shipwreck of the British expedition ship "Endurance", researchers have found its wooden wreck in the Antarctic Weddell Sea. Shackleton described in his diaries that the "Endurance" had sunk "in the worst part of the worst sea in the world". To this day, the site remains one of the most difficult sea areas in the world to navigate.
The expedition's research director, Mensun Bound is visibly excited about the historic find, "This is by far the finest shipwreck I have ever seen." Bound continues, "It stands upright, very proud on the seafloor and is intact and in brilliant condition."
Bound and his colleagues used underwater drones to locate and photograph the "Endurance" wreck. "We have made polar history with the discovery of the 'Endurance,'" said the leader of the expedition, led by the British Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, John Shears, in a statement today.
The "Endurance," whose name can even still be read on the wooden wreck, was found at a depth of 3,008 meters in an area that experts had previously narrowed down. The expedition ship of the former British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton had crashed and sunk during the First World War in 1915. The extraordinary images were achieved with the help of a remotely operated diving robot (AUV) called "Sabertooth," manufactured by the Swedish company Saab. "This was the most complex underwater project of all time, and we broke several world records in the process," says Nico Vincent, the project manager for the underwater search.
The current expedition team, which began its search on a South African research vessel from Cape Town, has now found the ship about four miles south of the location last indicated by the captain of the "Endurance," Frank Worsley (see also News regarding Start of Expedition)
The shipwreck is not to be salvaged; it is protected in the Antarctic Treaty as a historic site. The researchers want to document their spectacular find with photographs and video recordings, without damaging the wreck, and tell present and future generations about its history.
The approximately 44-meter-long "Endurance" was involved in Shackleton's Antarctic expedition from 1914 to 1917. She froze in the turbulent Weddell Sea east of the Larsen Ice Shelf and was immobilized for ten months before finally being crushed and sinking in 1915.
The story of Shackleton's Endurance is above all the story of a unique struggle for survival. For months, the men camped on huge ice floes after losing their ship. When the drift ice broke, they rowed their small lifeboats with them to the nearest island, Elephant Island, despite the most extreme hardships. Far away from all shipping routes and uninhabited, it became the starting point for Shackleton and his team for the final rescue maneuver: Together with five men, the explorer attempted the impossible: He wanted to reach the island of South Georgia, 1300 kilometers away, with his small boat and get help - he actually succeeded. Despite great hardship and frozen limbs, none of the members of the 28-man crew lost their lives.
See also: Endurance, the most unreachable wreck in history
More information: endurance22.org/endurance-is-found