Shackleton’s missing ship is like never before seen

After more than 100 years hidden in the icy waters of Antarctica, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance has been revealed in incredible 3D detail.

For the first time we can see the ship, which sank in 1915 and lies 3,000m down at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, as if the murky water has drained.

The digital scan, made up of 25,000 high-resolution images, was taken when the ship was discovered in 2022.

It has been released as part of a new documentary called Endurance, which will be shown in cinemas.

The team has scrutinized the scans for small details, each of which tells a story that connects the past to the present.

In the picture below you can see the plates used by the crew for their daily meals, left on deck.

In the next picture there is one boot that may belong to Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second-in-command.

Perhaps most remarkable is the flare gun referenced in the journal the crew kept.

A flare gun was fired by Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer, as the ship that housed the crew was lost in the ice.

“Hurley found this flare gun, and fired the flare gun into the air with a massive detonator as a tribute to the ship,” explained Dr. John Shears who led the expedition that found the Endurance.

“And in the diary, he talks about putting it on the deck. And there it is. We go back over 100 years later, and there’s a flare gun, which is incredible.”

Sir Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish explorer who led the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.

But the mission was questionable from the start.

The Endurance became stuck in an ice pack in a few weeks off South Georgia.

The ship, with its crew on board, drifted for months before orders were finally given to abandon ship. The Endurance finally sank on November 21, 1915.

Shackleton and his men were forced to travel hundreds of miles over ice, land and sea to reach safety – miraculously all 27 crew members survived.

The extraordinary story is recorded in the diary, as well as in Frank Hurley’s photographs, which were added in color for the Endurance documentary.

The ship remains missing until 2022.

The discovery made headlines around the world — and footage from Endurance revealed that it is well preserved by ice water.

A new 3D scan was created using an underwater robot that mapped the wreck from every angle, taking thousands of photos. These are then “stitched” together to create a digital twin.

While the length filmed at this depth can only show the part of the Endurance in the dark, the scan shows a complete 44m landslide of wooden wreckage from the bow to the stern – even recording the grooves carved into the sediment as the ship skidded to a stop on the seafloor.

The model reveals how the ship was crushed by the ice – the masts collapsed and parts of the deck were torn – but the structure was largely intact.

Shackleton’s descendants say the Endurance will never be raised – and its location in one of the world’s most remote areas means revisiting the wreck will be extremely difficult.

But Nico Vincent of Deep Ocean Search, which developed the technology for the scans, along with Voyis Imaging and McGill University, said the digital replicas offer a new way to study ships.

“It’s really good. The wreck is almost as intact as it was yesterday,” said Mr. Vincent, who is also the leader of the expedition.

He said the scans could be used by scientists to study the marine life that has colonized the wreck, to analyze the geology of the sea floor, and to discover new artifacts.

“So this is a great opportunity that we can offer for the future.”

The scan involves the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust which also funded and organized the expedition to find Shackleton’s ship.

The documentary Endurance premiered at the London Film Festival on October 12th and will be released in UK cinemas on October 14th.

Additional reporting by Kevin Church