More than 107 years after Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, sunk under the Weddell Sea in Antarctica, a crew of 100-plus people is now on a mission to search for the wreck.
To complete the task, the crew and expedition members of the South African icebreaker, the Agulhas II, are using the logbook of an original crew member, Frank Worsley, and modern technology, including two drones.
“It’s the most unreachable wreck ever,” Mensun Bound, a marine archaeologist and director of exploration of the search, told the New York Times. “Which makes this the greatest wreck hunt of all time.”
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A trio of modern researchers have studied and calculated Worsley’s ship coordinates and applied them to modern star maps. In a paper they submitted to the Journal of Navigation, they concluded the ship is likely several kilometers to the east of Worsley’s report.
“There’s a lot of things to consider; you cannot just take Worsley’s position for granted and go right to that location. You’ve got to use your judgment,” David Mearns, who has found other historic wrecks in the past, told the BBC.
Mearns said the trio shared their research with the current crew of the Agulhas II searching for the ship. The paper’s main concern was the maritime chronometer clock used for navigation, which Worsley used to get the longitude. The error originally led them to believe the ship was to the west of Worsley’s report. However, a different error brought it to the east. Bound said his crew had seen the research but did not indicate whether it would be used to find the ship.
The Agulhas crew has narrowed the search to a 7-mile by 14-mile zone, according to the New York Times. The crew will have roughly two weeks to find the wreckage once they reach the Weddell Sea before the weather changes enough to make extreme conditions difficult to navigate. It is currently the summer in Antarctica.
If the ship is found, the drones will take pictures and make laser scans of the wreckage but will not disturb the ship, which is expected to be in good shape amid the icy waters. The ship is protected under the Antarctic Treaty and was declared a historical monument, meaning it will remain in the ocean. The expedition was financed by an anonymous donor and cost more than $10 million.
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The original voyage took place in 1914 when a crew of 28 members, including Shackleton, began a journey to Antarctica in the Endurance. The voyage to Antarctica is dangerous due to extreme weather and sheets of ice in the water. The Endurance was created to withstand the ice, but the ship got stuck in a patch of ice in 1915. By November, the ship had sunk, but the crew survived on three lifeboats. They were also able to empty the ship of all food and stores ahead of the sinking.
The United States and Russia created a joint ice camp in 1992, close to where the ship was believed to have sunk. To this day, not many people outside of the Endurance and the modern ice station have traveled to the western Weddell Sea, one of the most extreme environments surrounding Antarctica.
