A century after Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance sank in the waters of Antarctica, leading to one of the greatest survival stories in the history of exploration, a team of modern adventurers, technicians and scientists is setting sail in search of the vessel.
A South African icebreaker carrying 46 crew and a 64-member expedition team was scheduled to depart Cape Town on Saturday (5th), heading for the Weddell Sea. Once there, the team hopes to locate the wreckage and explore it with two underwater drones.
It won’t be easy to get there. Crushed by blocks of ice in 1915, the 44-meter-long Endurance lies in waters 3,000 meters deep. And it’s not just any water: in the Weddell Sea, a swirling current sustains a thick, dangerous mass of sea ice that might be impassable even for modern icebreakers.
Shackleton himself, whose plan to be the first to cross Antarctica was thwarted by the loss of his ship, described the spot where the ship sank as “the worst part of the worst sea in the world”. “It’s the most unreachable wreck there is,” said marine archaeologist Mensun Bound, director of exploration for the expedition, Endurance22. “So this is the biggest shipwreck hunt ever.”
The Endurance sinking was also one of the most famous in history, possibly comparable to that of the Titanic. It is a relic of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, when adventurers undertook complex and high-risk expeditions to the continent and the South Pole, attracting enormous popular interest.
Some of them, like Roald Amundsen, achieved their goals. Others, like Robert Falcon Scott, died trying. Shackleton didn’t reach his goal, but when he returned to the UK having saved his entire crew after an epic open boat voyage across treacherous seas, he was greeted as a hero. He is admired and idolized to this day in books, films, and even business school courses, where his expedition is seen as a case study of effective leadership.
Funded at a cost of more than $10 million from an anonymous donor, the expedition will have less than two weeks to locate the wreck once the icebreaker reaches the Weddell Sea. If Endurance is found, the drones will take photos and videos, as well as precise laser scans of the wreckage. But the site will not be touched, as it has been declared a historic monument under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, an international agreement signed in 1959 to preserve the continent for peaceful purposes.
The shipwreck is expected to be in relatively good condition, due to the freezing water and because the Antarctic seas do not contain wood-eating organisms.
Thanks to the work of Endurance captain and navigator Frank Worsley, who with basic navigation tools was able to determine the vessel’s location when it sank, the expedition says it believes the wreckage lies in an area of ​​11 km by 22 km in the west. of the Weddell Sea.
“We know more or less well where we have to go,” said Endurance22 leader John Shears, for whom this will be his 25th expedition to Antarctica. And so far this season (it’s the Antarctic summer), satellite images show that drifting ice floes haven’t been too bad. “We’re very optimistic about the chances of getting to the wreck site with the ship,” said Shears.
But a change in winds or a sudden drop in temperature can change conditions overnight, as Shackleton found out the hard way. If the ice prevents the icebreaker from reaching the wreck site, the expedition has a bold plan B.
Two helicopters will be used to dispatch equipment and technicians to a floating ice floe, where they will drill a meter-wide hole through which to launch the submersibles.
Lasse Rabenstein, the expedition’s chief scientist, and other sea ice experts on board will have to choose an ice floe that is capable of supporting the crew and equipment. But there’s another problem, Rabenstein said. As it will take a few days to set up camp over the ice field, he and the others will have to choose a floating block “that two days later will take us above the wreck site,” he explained. “And this is a highly sensitive issue.”
An earlier expedition launched three years ago failed when a submersible using older technology was lost before technicians could determine if it had located the wreck.
The new submersibles will be connected to the surface by a fiber optic cable that can transmit images and data in real time. Built in Norway with solid planks, powered by steam and sail, the Endurance is designed to withstand the extreme pressures of maneuvering in the midst of floating ice.
Shackleton left in late 1914 with a 27-man crew, bound for Vahsel Bay on the eastern side of the Weddell Sea. The plan called for him and a small group to cross the vast Antarctic ice sheet to the South Pole, as Amundsen had been the first to do in 1911, but continue on to the Ross Sea on the other side of the continent.
They never got to the starting point. In early 1915, when they were 100 miles out of the bay, the Endurance became trapped between Weddell’s floating ice floes. Shackleton and his men spent months watching the ship be crushed by the ice that had built up around it.
They ended up leaving the ship and setting up camp on a block of ice. They stripped the Endurance of all food, other provisions, and almost everything else, including three open lifeboats, before the ship sank in November. The rest of the story was epic. In April of the following year, as the ice floes began to break up, the 28 men set out in the lifeboats and arrived at Elephant Island, little more than a rocky outcrop north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
From there, Shackleton, Worsley and four others braved freezing weather and rough seas, sailing in one of the seven-meter boats to the nearest inhabited island, South Georgia, 800 miles away. It was an extraordinary sailing feat and was immediately followed by an extraordinary mountaineering feat: Shackleton and two others made the first crossing of the island’s peaks and glaciers to reach a whaling station on the opposite side. From there he organized expeditions that rescued the other men alive in a matter of months.
“A lot of people already know the story,” said Donald Lamont, president of the Falkland Islands Maritime Cultural Heritage Foundation, which organized the expedition. “But there are also a lot of people globally who are completely unaware of it.” That’s why the Endurance22 team includes digital media experts who will record the search for online streaming. And if Endurance’s wreckage is found, the images and data collected at the site could become the basis of museum exhibits.
“It will be the starting point for the human stories of the people who went there,” Lamont said. Former governor of the Falklands, he won’t be on the ship. “I’m delighted to be sitting in the comfort and warmth of the UK and saying ‘goodbye and good luck’.” Even if the wreckage is not found, the expedition should help scientists get a better look at the Weddell Sea ice and how it is changing as the planet warms from greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: Folha
