The Endurance has been found! The wooden ship was found about four miles from where Ernest Shackleton recorded that it sank in 1915. It is 10,000 feet below the surface in the Weddell Sea off of Antarctica’s northern coast.
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust had funded the Endurance22 Expedition which started in February 2022. The mission of the crew was to do exactly what they have accomplished—to locate and take footage of The Endurance, which has never been done since the shipwreck.
The team has been working from the South African polar research and logistics vessel, S.A. Agulhas II, owned by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment and under Master, Capt. Knowledge Bengu.
New technology has been used to capture the underwater footage and to find the wreckage. Saab-manufactured Sabertooth hybrid underwater search vehicles spent two weeks scouring the assumed area where the wreckage was calculated to be.
Besides taking amazing videos and pictures of the wreckage, not much more can be done. The wreck is protected as a Historic Site and Monument under the Antarctic Treaty. This means that the wreck cannot be touched or disturbed in anyway. The only way anyone in the world will ever see it, is to view the new footage of the newly discovered wreckage site.
The photos are amazing! They show that the stern still has the name ENDURANCE and the wooden construction of the ship is still very much intact.
Mensun Bound, Director of Exploration on the expedition, said, “This is a milestone in polar history. “
The Endurance Has Been Found and it’s AMAZING!
