THE SEARCH FOR SHACKLETON’S LOST SHIP
One of the great survival epics of all time was Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition of 1914 (the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition). His plan was to cross the Antarctic continent.
The Endurance was a specially built polar ship and considered to be one of the strongest wooden ships ever built. It was named after Shackleton’s family motto
“Fortitudine vincimus” (By endurance we conquer).
Unfortunately, it was designed for breaking through sea ice, not for being trapped in ice. Some of the polar ships were built with a hull shape that allowed them to rise up if being crushed by pack ice. Endurance did not have that hull shape.
Endurance became trapped in the ice and after almost a year in its grip, even her strongly built hull was crushed and she sank. The crew would spend seven more weeks on the ice before it started to break up.
They then used the three lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and set up a camp using two of the upturned boats as shelter.
From there Shackleton and five crew set off in the remaining boat for South Georgia, another epic journey, but arrived on the opposite side of the island from the whaling station. Shackleton and two men headed overland and eventually found the station.
It would take three months and three attempts before Shackleton could rescue the men on Elephant Island but eventually he was successful.
The expedition to cross Antarctica was an epic failure but the survival story was an epic success and has become legendary.
In early 2019 an attempt was made to find the Endurance and you can read their story below. I had a friend on board the ship, Dr Wolfgang Rack, who told me that the AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) that was scanning the sea bed for the Endurance was lost under the ice, after scanning around a quarter of the area that they expected to find the ship in.
I said ‘well at least you’ll have that data and won’t have to start from scratch’. But no, he tole me that to retrieve the data they had to retrieve the submersible and that was no longer possible. So they will have to start again when they try again in the future. Such a pity but good try lads.
https://www.independent.co.uk/…/endurance-ernest-shackleton…