Expedition aims to find fabled Shackleton ship, Endurance

A SOUTH African icebreaker departed yesterday in search of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, which sank off the coast of Antarctica in 1915 after being slowly crushed by pack ice.

The expedition’s organisers announced: “The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust is pleased to confirm that the Endurance22 Expedition, which is aiming to locate, survey and film the wreck of Endurance, … has departed on schedule from Cape Town, headed for the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.”

As part of the renowned polar explorer’s Imperial Trans-antarctic expedition between 1914 and 1917, Endurance was meant to be used for staging the first land crossing of Antarctica, but it fell prey to the Weddell Sea.

Just east of the Larsen ice shelves on the Antarctic peninsula, it became ensnared in sea-ice for over 10 months before being crushed and sinking some 3 000 metres below the surface.

The voyage is something of a legend due to the miraculous escape Shackleton and his crew made on foot and in boats.

The crew escaped by camping on the sea ice until it ruptured.

They then launched life boats to Elephant Island and then South Georgia Island.

The South African icebreaker, SA Agulhas II, set off from Cape Town yesterday with a crew of 46 and a 64-member expedition team aboard.

The expedition will last for between 35 days and 45 days, with the vessel navigating its way through heavy ice and harsh temperatures.

It hopes to find the iconic shipwreck using state-of-the-art technology and explore it with two underwater drones.

But the journey will be a difficult one.

The Anglo-irish explorer himself described the site of the wreck as “the worst portion of the worst sea in the world”.

David Mearns, one of the world’s leading shipwreck hunters, told AFP: “In terms of shipwreck challenges, it is the most difficult.”