Shackleton’s ship has endured for 100 years
The well-preserved wreck of Endurance returns to stunning life in pictures taken at 10,000ft depth
‘Without any exaggeration, this is the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen – by far’
SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON’S ship, Endurance, has been found under the Antarctic ice more than 100 years after it sank, and is said to be in remarkably good condition thanks to the unusual properties of the Weddell Sea.
Most wrecks fall prey to wood-eating worms but there have been no trees in Antarctica for at least 30 million years, meaning no damaging xylophagous organisms have evolved in the water.
Shielded from parasites, the ship is frozen in time, with portholes that still look polished, a helm gleaming golden brown, and bright white dinner plates poking through the silt.
“Without any exaggeration, this is the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen – by far,” said Mensun Bound, a marine archaeologist and director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition that made the discovery.
There are no plans to raise Endurance but Mr Bound said it might be possible within the next 50 years. However, experts warn climate change could cause a rise in wood-eating worm numbers which would put the wreck at risk and make salvage a more pressing issue.
The vessel was found by a group of marine archaeologists, scientists and shipwreck experts last Saturday – exactly 100 years since Shackleton’s funeral.
It lay four miles from where Captain Frank Worsley had marked its final position in 1915.
The polar explorer’s expedition left England in August 1914. By the following January, Endurance had become trapped in the ice and, by October, it had been badly damaged by the pressure of surrounding floes, forcing the 27 men on board to abandon her.
The ship sank on Nov 21 1915, leaving the crew stranded, until Shackleton embarked on an extraordinary rescue mission that brought all his crew home.
In 2013, Dr Adrian Glover, a deep-sea biologist at the Natural History Museum in London, had predicted that Endurance would be well preserved if found.
“We had hypothesised that the little worms which normally eat the hulls and timbers of ships wouldn’t be there, as there have been no trees in Antarctica for millions of years,” he said. “I was sceptical that Endurance would ever be found but we were jumping up and down when we saw it because we made this hypothesis that it would be perfectly preserved, and it was.”
He added that Antarctica is “protected by the circumpolar current which isolates it from other oceans, and stops worm larvae from getting in”.
The salt water also allows the temperature to fall below freezing, slowing microbial growth.
The ship was found 10,000 feet down, far below where light penetrates and that also prevents colonisation by damaging photo-synthesising organisms. However, Dr Glover warned that climate change could lead to “increased incursions” of the worm larvae which could then threaten the wreck.
Endurance was built from Scandinavian pine and oak to withstand the crushing ice floes of the Antarctic and that also helped keep her intact on her journey to the bottom of the sea.
Mr Bound said: “I knew this was the first or second most strongly built ice ship ever, and I was just in awe of her construction and I thought that if there was any ice-based ship that could survive the impact with the seabed it would be the Endurance.
“And she did, she held together beautifully, but I’ve never ever seen a wreck anything as beautiful and as inspiring as this one.”
The final moments of Endurance are recorded in Shackleton’s diaries, in which he wrote: “She went today. Saw the funnel dip behind a hummock suddenly. Ran up to the lookout. At 5pm she went down by the head, the stern was the last to go underwater. I cannot write about it.”