ANTARCTICA (Washington Insider Magazine) – The lost ship of Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton has been discovered more than a century after it sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica.
The Endurance became stranded in dense pack ice in 1915, prompting Shackleton and his entire crew to execute a daring escape.
The wooden ship has been found 107 years later, and it is nearly undamaged, according to Mensun Bound, director of exploration at the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, which led the search.
The preservation is incredible, Bound told NBC NEWS, who added that the vessel’s name can still be seen imprinted across the stern.
According to Dan Snow, a British researcher whose media platform History Hit teamed with the exploration team to record the discovery, the Weddell Sea’s frigid temperatures might have played a vital part in preserving the vessel.
Shackleton died in 1922, and the ship was discovered 100 years later.
Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition intended to make the 1st land passage of Antarctica, and the explorer set off with his team in late 1914, just after World War I broke out.
He volunteered to abandon the expedition and place his vessel at the service of the British crown, but Winston Churchill, the then leader of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, ordered him to go.
Endurance did not make it to shore and became caught in tight pack ice, where the 28 men aboard were forced to abandon ship after 10 months trapped in the ice. They left on foot and on lifeboats.
The coordinates where it sank were noted by Captain Frank Worsley, according to the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, and they were crucial in the vessel’s discovery.
The ship was discovered in the Weddell Sea at a depth of over 10,000 feet, inside the region that the expedition had set out depending on Worsley’s coordinates.
They discovered it a few weeks after the mission began in early February.
Under the Antarctic Agreement, the shipwreck will be preserved as a Historic Location and Monument, ensuring that it would not be disturbed while being studied and filmed.
A major purpose of the voyage, according to the trust, was to transmit the tale of Shackleton, his ship, and the individuals of his crew to the younger generation.
The ship’s discovery now provides a new chance “for people to re-explore the entire Shackleton saga,” according to Bound.