Finding Endurance
THE DIFFICULTIES OF finding a shipwreck in the depths of the ocean are formidable enough. Add constantly shifting pack ice, strong currents and the capricious and brutal weather of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, and any such search would have to be conducted in what explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton described as the “worst sea in the world”.
In early 2019, a British-led expedition rose to the challenge of marine archaeology, Antarctic-style, and set out to scour the Weddell’s depths in the hope of finding Shackleton’s famed ship, Endurance. The wreck was known to lie somewhere off the Larsen C ice shelf on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula, and on this dual-purpose expedition, the ice shelf was also to be the focus of intensive scientific study.
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was deployed from the South African research vessel SA Agulhas II, and valuable climate-change data was gathered. The AUV recorded remarkable images of the sea floor under the ice shelf. But when it was sent on a 30-hour dive to map an extensive grid in the supposed vicinity of Endurance, communication with the surface failed and the vehicle was lost.
Three years passed, and II again headed south on a combined scientific and shipwreck-hunting expedition. The latest search, dubbed Endurance22, was mounted by the Falkland Islands Heritage Trust and backed to the tune of US$10 million from an anonymous donor. It sailed with two Saab Sabertooth hybrid AUV/remote operating vehicles to act as the eyes of the search. This time, the primary submersible would be tethered to the ship by up to 5km of fibre-optic cable, allowing real-time and constant communication with the surface. The second vehicle was to act as a backup in an emergency.
