sunken yacht in antarctica

The Ghostly Remains of the Yacht “Mar Sem Fim”

Mar Sem Fim (“Endless Sea” in English) is a Brazilian yacht that was shipwrecked, sunk and subsequently got frozen in ice in Maxwell Bay of Ardley Cove, Antarctica, about 1,200 kilometers south of tip of South America, in April 7th, 2012. The yacht that belonged to the famed Brazilian journalist and entrepreneur João Lara Mesquita, was manned by four crews who were filming a documentary off the Antarctic coast when the boat capsized. Strong winds in excess of 100-kilometer per hour had  tossed the boat from one side to the other “like a bucking bronco in a rodeo,” according to one crew member.

With their vessel trapped in ice, the crew radioed for help and was received by the Chilean navy in the base in Bahia Fildes, in Antarctica. All four researchers were eventually rescued but bad weather delayed the process by two days.

João Lara Mesquita, who was also in the yacht, wrote in his blog :

“Then, with strong winds and high waves, the boat Frei came to us. Our evacuation was epic. Waves of more than 1.5 meters and winds over 40 knots made the boat jump from one side to another, like a bucking bronco. When it got close, each of us … threw ourselves into the arms of three Chilean crew members. Fortunately all went safely.”

Mar Sem Fim, however, couldn’t be rescued. The near-freezing water that had been tossed over the ship, later froze and then split the hull when it expanded. This phenomena is called compression, and is what was later determined to have been the final blow to the hull of the Mar Sem Fim, sending her to the bottom of the shallow bay.

The boat lay in about 30 feet of water, preserved and visible from above, for almost a year, until her recent rescue in early 2013. 

Owner João Lara Mesquita managed to return to the site and when the weather cooperated, sent divers who wrapped strong lines under the hull and attached them to inflated buoys on either side. The buoys were continuously inflated, slowly raising the vessel that had been underwater for almost a year. Once the vessel was surfaced, it was towed back to the shore where the researchers recovered their equipment and the Mar Sem Fim will most likely head for salvage.

The ship was reportedly insured for $700,000, however, the breached hull and damage from being submerged for 10 months would seem to indicate the vessel is beyond repair.

Mar Sem Fim in her better days.

The Sinking

via Sometimes Interesting

So what eventually happened? I hope she is now sailing. Shes beautiful.

The answer is in the article. "...the Mar Sem Fim will most likely head for salvage."

Interior is ruined, but hull looks undamaged. It may be the case that total cost of towing to shipyard and renovation would be greater than price of such vessel... That's a pitty...

The hull was ruined, due to water coming over the side, and then freezing, splitting the hull. It's noted in the article..

That's right Anonymous. Wish people will read before commenting.

I guess they won't their deposit back :/

Thanks, Obama.

Is the boat OK now?

Yes, it's totally fine and is running even better than ever with new technology to prevent it from sinking again.

It looked cooler underwater than above.

yeah thot only i saw that

The Mar Sem Fim remained one year underwater? Ok. Now the Mar Sem Fim is salvaged and remained abandoned and beached.

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The story of the ghost yacht that sank in the ice and then resurfaced

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“Mar Sem Fim,” also called “Endless Sea,” was a Brazilian yacht that sank in Maxwell Bay of Ardley Cove, Antarctica, about 850 kilometers south of Cape Horn in April 7 years ago. Since then it has remained a ghost boat for over a year, half sunk.

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Ghost yacht, was engaged in a documentary

Owned by a well-known Brazilian journalist and businessman, João Lara Mesquita, the yacht had four people on board when it sank. The crew was busy filming a documentary off the Antarctic coast when a strong wind of more than 100 kilometers per hour caught the boat pushing it against the ice. Trapped in freezing weather, the crewmen radioed a mayday that was received by the Chilean navy at Bahia Fildes base in Antarctica.

All four researchers were rescued, but bad weather delayed the process by a couple of days. The waves were very high and the wind kept blowing relentlessly. “Our evacuation was extremely risky. Waves of nearly two meters and 40-knot winds made operations really arduous.” A member of the Endless Sea crew tells. When the Chilean navy boat was finally able to approach, the documentary filmmakers immediately jumped aboard, finally to safety. Everything went well for the people, but not for Mar Sem Fim who, at the time, could not be recovered in any way.

Ghost yacht sunk and trapped in ice

The icy water that entered the hull then froze, expanding and causing the Mar Sem Fim yacht to sink to the bottom of the shallow bay, just 10 meters. For one year it was possible to observe the boat from above in early 2013. Owner João Lara Mesquita was then able to return to that position, and when weather conditions allowed, he sent down divers who wrapped the hull with suspenders attached to some inflated buoys on either side.

The buoys were inflated by gradually raising the yacht that had been underwater for nearly a year. Once the boat resurfaced, towing operations began to the shore where researchers retrieved their equipment. The maximum insurance coverage, however, was “only” $700,000. Too few to repair all the damage the ship sustained in the year underwater.

Image source: charismaticplanet.com

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• HISTORY & CULTURE

Shackleton’s legendary ship is finally found off the Antarctic Coast, a century later

"Endurance" is discovered beneath sea ice, nearly two miles beneath the ocean.

In the fall of 1915, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance sank off the coast of Antarctica, stranding its crew on drifting sea ice and setting in motion one of history’s most dramatic tales of overcoming seemingly hopeless odds. While all of the expedition’s 28 crew eventually were rescued, the ship’s final resting place has remained a much-discussed maritime mystery—the unwritten last chapter in a legendary story of survival and triumph. That is, until today. A team of researchers has announced they’ve located the wreck at the bottom of the treacherous Weddell Sea, adjacent to the northernmost part of Antarctica.

The first images of the ship were transmitted via autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) from nearly two miles down on March 5. As the camera glides over the wooden deck of the ship, video captures century-old ropes, tools, portholes, railings—even the masts and helm—all in nearly pristine condition due to cold temperatures, the absence of light, and low oxygen in the watery resting place."

“I’ve been hunting for wrecks since my mid-twenties, and I have never found a wreck so coherent as this one,” marine archaeologist Mensun Bound, 69, said via satellite phone as he and fellow crew members began their long journey back to Cape Town after more than a month of searching for Shackleton’s ship. “You could see the bolt holes, and everything.”

Director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition, Bound says when they saw the first images beamed from the AUV, he and other members of his 65-person team were confident it was Endurance and not another wreck. But unequivocal proof soon came literally into focus: a closeup of the stern revealed shiny brass letters spelling out Endurance above a polar star. “You see that, and your eyes pop out on stalks,” Bound says. It was “one of those wormhole moments when you tumble back in time. I could feel the breath of Shackleton on my neck."  

I have never found a wreck so coherent as this one. Mensun Bound , Marine Archaeologist

What was Shackleton’s goal?

Endurance was part of Shackleton’s grandly named Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition . Backed by the British government and private donors and supported by Winston Churchill, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty, the plan was to deliver a group of explorers to the coast of Antarctica, where they would disembark and then travel overland across the continent via the South Pole.

A 144-foot, three-masted barquentine specially built for polar waters, Endurance had solid oak hulls that were two-and-half feet thick. It set out from South Georgia on December 5, 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Even at the bottom of the planet, war was close by. As Endurance entered the Weddell Sea, British and German fleets squared off north of them in the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

But the enemy that Shackleton and his men faced was of a different sort. The Weddell Sea, covering an area of more than a million square miles, is one of the most remote and unforgiving environments in the world, littered with icebergs and roiled by strong surface winds. Shackleton called it “the worst sea in the world.”

But if anyone was prepared for such an endeavor it was the Anglo-Irish adventurer Ernest Shackleton: A veteran of previous Antarctic explorations, he’d been part of the great race to reach the South Pole before Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen claimed it.  

For this ambitious cross-continent journey, he’d handpicked the crew and endeared himself by dining with the men, telling jokes, leading sing-alongs, and organizing games. They affectionately referred to him as “the Boss."  

The expedition made good progress at first, but as the Antarctic winter of 1915 closed in, the men found themselves trapped in the sea ice. “At 7 p.m. very heavy pressure developed, with twisting strains that racked the ship fore and aft,” Shackleton wrote on Tuesday, October 26. “We could see from the bridge that the ship was bending like a bow under titanic pressure.”

The next day, the men removed tools, instruments, and provisions and set up camp on the ice floe. Shackleton wrote, “But though we have been compelled to abandon the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that lies before us.”

Endurance finally sank on November 27. “This evening, as we were lying in our tents we heard the Boss call out, ‘She’s going, boys!’” one of the crew wrote. “We were out in a second and up on the look-out station and other points of vantage, and, sure enough, there was our poor ship a mile and a half away struggling in her death-agony. She went down bow first, her stern raised in the air. She then gave one quick dive and the ice closed over her forever.”

Why was Endurance so difficult to find?

And that’s where Endurance remained, entombed beneath the polar ice at a depth of 10,000 feet. In 2019, the Falklands Heritage Maritime Trust mounted its first expedition to find the ship but had been unable to locate the wreck. This winter, they tried again, organizing and funding Endurance22.  

One of the knottiest problems was establishing the ship’s location. After Endurance was initially trapped in the ice, it continued to drift as the floes moved with the current. When the vessel was eventually crushed and sank, the captain of Endurance , Frank Worsley, took measurements of the location using a sextant and recorded it in his diary. Due to poor visibility on the day the men abandoned the ship, however, Worsley had been unable to take proper measurements that would help calculate the direction and speed of the floes.

One of the first tasks of Endurance22’s team of scientists and navigational experts was to review Worsley’s records to come up with a more accurate location.  

“Worsley’s last observation was November 18, then he made another on November 20, the day after the ship sank,” Bound says. “He made another on the 22nd, but by then he was some distance away. So, he had to guess at the speed of the ice drift.”

There was also the question of the crew’s chronometers. Using today’s far more accurate sky maps, researchers calculated that Endurance’s clocks were running faster than the crew accounted for, an error that would shift the location of the vessel west of Worsley’s last recorded position. Using these calculations, the expedition narrowed their search but still faced long odds of finding the vessel.  

“We were down to three or four days left and still hadn’t found it,” Bound said. “There were three areas still to look at. But often the ice decides where we look. And it was running west to east, which took us across the southern portion of our search area. And there it was!”

“It was actually only 4.16 nautical miles from Worsley’s position, which shows the incredible accuracy of his calculations,” adds John Shears, the leader of the Endurance22 expedition.

Besides establishing the location, the greatest challenge the expedition faced was the sea ice. “One expert in London said he gave us a 10 percent chance of even getting through the ice,” Shears recalls, chuckling. Luckily, their research vessel, S.A Agulhas II, was capable of smashing through three-feet thick ice at a speed of five knots. But even that did not prevent it from becoming briefly “nipped” by the ice in February, when the temperature dipped to -10 Celsius. “ The press made a big thing of it ,” Shears said. “But we were only stuck for about four hours, on a small ice shelf, until the tide floated us off.”

The research ship eventually reached their designated search area on February 18, and the team began the underwater hunt for Endurance . To search the seabed 10,000 feet down, they used two AUVs fitted with sonar and visual survey technology. Widely used in the offshore oil industry, the expedition’s 12-foot-long gadgets resemble giant computer hard drives. Capable of operating autonomously 100 miles from an operating vessel and able to withstand extreme pressures and temperatures, they were able to retrieve the first-ever images of the Endurance wreck site.  

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Bound and Shears were taking a walk out on the ice when the first images were relayed from the AUVs, Bound recalls. “The moment we got back to the ship, we shot up to the bridge. One of the subsea guys was there, grinning from ear to ear. When he showed me a screengrab, it was like my whole life funneled down into that moment.”

Final chapter revealed in the Shackleton saga

Shackleton famously said, “What the ice gets, the ice keeps.” But Endurance’s story did not end with the ship’s sinking. Shackleton’s journey back across the Weddell Sea to get help for his stranded crew would become one of the most celebrated narratives of exploration and survival.  

On April 4, 1916, Shackleton left his crew on Elephant Island, and he and five others set off in one of Endurance’s modified lifeboats for the island of South Georgia. It was an 800-mile,16-day journey across freezing, rough seas whipped by hurricane-force gales. “The wind simply shrieked as it tore the tops off the waves,” Shackleton wrote. “Down into valleys, up to tossing heights, straining until her seams opened, swung our little boat.”  

Arriving on South Georgia’s south coast, they then faced a 36-hour hike across the rugged, mountainous island to reach a whaling station at Stromness. Shackleton willed himself to make it, even though, as new research suggests, he probably had a hole in his heart.

When the men staggered in, the station manager, Thoralf Sorlle, could hardly believe his eyes. “Our beards were long and our hair was matted,” Shackleton wrote. “We were unwashed and the garments that we had worn for nearly a year without a change were tattered and stained.”

Nearly six years later, as he prepared for another expedition to Antarctica, Shackleton would die of a heart attack on South Georgia. He was buried there on March 5, 1922. Exactly 100 years later the Endurance22 team captured its first images of Endurance .  

Bound says that he and his fellow crew members will stop in South Georgia on their way home to visit Shackleton’s grave. “We are sad to be leaving the site,” he said. “But there is a great sense of pride and achievement. And we’ll stop to pay our respects to the Boss.”

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WATCH: Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s sunken ship found after a century

LONDON (AP) — Scientists say they have found the sunken wreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, more than a century after it was lost to the Antarctic ice.

Watch footage of the shipwreck in the player above.

The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust says the vessel lies 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) below the surface of the Weddell Sea, about 6.4 kilometers (four miles) south of the location recorded in 1915 by its captain, Frank Worsley.

An expedition set off from South Africa last month to search for the ship, which was crushed by ice and sank in November 1915.

Mensun Bound, director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition, said footage revealed the ship to be in remarkably good condition.

“This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen,” he said. “It is upright, well proud (clear) of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation. You can even see ‘Endurance’ arced across the stern, directly below the taffrail.”

In this photo issued by Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, a view of the stern of the wreck of Endurance, polar explorer’s Ernest Shackleton’s ship. Scientists say they have found the sunken wreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, more than a century after it was lost to the Antarctic ice. The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust says the vessel lies 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) below the surface of the Weddell Sea. An expedition set off from South Africa last month to search for the ship, which was crushed by ice and sank in November 1915 during Shackleton’s failed attempt to become the first person to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic via AP

Shackleton’s 1914-16 attempt to become the first person to cross Antarctica via the South Pole failed — he never set foot on the continent. But his successful bid to reach help at a remote South Atlantic whaling station and rescue his men is considered a heroic feat of endurance. All the men survived and were rescued many months later.

The expedition to find the ship comes 100 years after Shackleton’s death in 1922.

WATCH: Mobile’s many shipwrecks help tell the area’s long history

British historian and broadcaster Dan Snow, who accompanied the expedition, tweeted that Endurance was found on Saturday, “100 years to the day since Shackleton was buried.”

He said the wreck had been filmed, but wouldn’t be touched.

“Nothing was touched on the wreck,” he said. “Nothing retrieved. It was surveyed using the latest tools and its position confirmed. It is protected by the Antarctic Treaty. Nor did we wish to tamper with it.”

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Picture of the Day: A Sunken Boat in the Antarctic

by twistedsifter

A SUNKEN BOAT IN THE ANTARCTIC

  In this haunting image by Ruslan Eliseev , we see the sunken remains of the 76-ft Mar Sem Fin , a Brazillian boat that was used for scientific and educational expeditions. The boat, which sunk on April 7, 2012, lies at a depth of about 9 meters (30 ft) in Ardley Bay, Antarctica. Thankfully the crew was completely evacuated and nobody was hurt. For a blog post that documents the actual sinking of the ship, check out this blog (in Russian) .

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Sunken Yacht

This sunken yacht is Mar Sem Fim, a Brazilian yacht that was shipwrecked, sunk and frozen in ice in Maxwell Bay, Antarctica, about 1,200 kilometers south of tip of South America, in April 2012. Luckily, all the crew members were saved by Chilean Navy that had a base nearby.

The translucent waters of the Antarctica are the reason why the Sunken Yacht became known over the globe. The ship looks really amazing looking at it from the surface through the clear water of the Ardley Bay.

The ship was one of the most famous wrecks in the world for about a year, but owner João Lara Mesquita managed to return to the site in 2013 and with help of divers and inflatable buoys the vessel was rescued and towed back to the shore.

The Yacht is now lifted up but in the dangerous waters of Antarctica, the next one may already be on its way to the bottom.

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Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance, lost since 1915, is found off Antarctica

Laurel Wamsley

In 1915, the ship Endurance became trapped in ice during Ernest Shackleton's failed expedition to cross Antarctica. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

An expedition that set out in search of the lost ship of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton has found it — 106 years after the vessel sank off Antarctica.

The wooden ship Endurance has been located remarkably intact about 10,000 feet underwater in the Weddell Sea.

The find is "a milestone in polar history," said Mensun Bound, a maritime archaeologist and the director of exploration on the expedition, called Endurance22.

"This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact and in a brilliant state of preservation. You can even see 'Endurance' arced across the stern," Bound said.

The Endurance was located by an expedition this week, 106 years after it sank into the Weddell Sea. Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust & National Geographic hide caption

The Endurance was located by an expedition this week, 106 years after it sank into the Weddell Sea.

The name Endurance is still visible on the ship's stern. Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust & National Geographic hide caption

Shackleton's trans-Antarctic expedition went dangerously awry

As World War I was beginning in 1914, the British explorer Shackleton set out to traverse Antarctica. The plan was for Shackleton to take 27 men on two ships, the Endurance and the Aurora, that would arrive at different locations on the continent to explore two routes by which to sledge across the ice. But in January 1915, the Endurance became trapped in ice off the coast of Antarctica.

Strenuous endeavors were made to free the Endurance from the ice on Feb. 14 and 15, 1915, but those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images hide caption

The men lived on the ship for months, but pressure from the ice began to slowly crush it . On Oct. 27, 1915, Shackleton gave the order to abandon the Endurance . The men were told to gather no more than 2 pounds each of personal gear from the ship; much of the ship's supplies had already become inaccessible because of broken timbers in the hull. The Endurance finally broke up and sank into the Weddell Sea on Nov. 21, 1915.

The crew made a new camp on an ice floe, and any ambition to cross Antarctica dissipated. The mission was now one of survival, a saga that would stretch into August 1916 before all the men were rescued.

The Aurora also became trapped in ice. Three men from that voyage died before the final members of the crew were rescued in early 1917.

The crew of the Endurance poses on the ship's deck on Feb. 7, 1915. Frank Hurley/Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge/Getty Images hide caption

The crew of the Endurance poses on the ship's deck on Feb. 7, 1915.

An expedition to find the long-missing ship is successful

This year's expedition to find the Endurance set sail from Cape Town, South Africa, on Feb. 5.

John Shears, the expedition leader, said the hunt for the Endurance was "probably the most challenging shipwreck search ever undertaken."

An expedition called Endurance22 set sail from Cape Town, South Africa, on Feb. 5 to find the lost ship Endurance. Nick Birtwistle/Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust hide caption

An expedition called Endurance22 set sail from Cape Town, South Africa, on Feb. 5 to find the lost ship Endurance.

The expedition used sonar to find the sunken ship. It was located about 4 miles south of where Capt. Frank Worsley had noted the ship's location back in 1915.

Then the team used an autonomous underwater vehicle with a camera on it to swim over the hull and the deck and confirm what the team had found.

The Endurance's starboard (right) bow. Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust & National Geographic hide caption

The Endurance's starboard (right) bow.

"It can only be one ship," Shears said. "In this area, few ships have ever even been here. We're only, I think, the fourth ship to ever get into this place in the Weddell Sea. It's Endurance. It can be nothing else."

Shears says he was stunned by the good condition of the vessel: There's hardly anything living on it, and even some of the original paint is intact.

"You can see inside the hatchways, the stairs. You can see the ropes and the rigging. It's as if it sank only yesterday," he said.

Marc De Vos (from left), senior meteorologist/oceanographer, shows weather data to Jean-Christophe Caillens, off-shore manager; Nico Vincent, expedition subsea manager; and Lasse Rabenstein, chief scientist, on the bridge of the S.A. Agulhas II, seen here last month during the Endurance22 expedition. The expedition team worked from the South African polar research and logistics vessel. Esther Horvath hide caption

Marc De Vos (from left), senior meteorologist/oceanographer, shows weather data to Jean-Christophe Caillens, off-shore manager; Nico Vincent, expedition subsea manager; and Lasse Rabenstein, chief scientist, on the bridge of the S.A. Agulhas II, seen here last month during the Endurance22 expedition. The expedition team worked from the South African polar research and logistics vessel.

The wreck will stay where it was found, protected as a historical site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty. That means that though the Endurance is being filmed and surveyed, it won't be disturbed.

The expedition crew now returns to Cape Town.

Mensun Bound (left), director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition, and John Shears, expedition leader, stand on the ice of the Weddell Sea. Esther Horvath hide caption

Mensun Bound (left), director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition, and John Shears, expedition leader, stand on the ice of the Weddell Sea.

Bound, the expedition's exploration director, said the discovery is not only about the past but also about bringing the story of Shackleton and the Endurance to the next generation.

"We hope our discovery will engage young people and inspire them with the pioneering spirit, courage and fortitude of those who sailed Endurance to Antarctica," Bound said. "We pay tribute to the navigational skills of Capt. Frank Worsley, the captain of the Endurance, whose detailed records were invaluable in our quest to locate the wreck."

The Expedition22 team worked from the South African polar research and logistics vessel S.A. Agulhas II . James Blake/Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust hide caption

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Antarctica pioneer’s lost ship found after 107 years

This Photo Of A Sunken Yacht In Antarctica Is Haunting

In April, a 76-foot Brazilian yacht named Mar Sem Fin (Endless Sea) sank off the coast of Antarctica, likely due to ice compression and strong winds.

Four crew members were rescued from the yacht, which is owned by Brazilian journalist João Lara Mesquita, who was in the region producing a documentary, according to MercoPress .

We just came across this haunting image of the wreck by Ruslan Elisleev (via imgur ). It's positively ghostly.

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107 Years Later, Explorer Ernest Shackleton's Sunken Ship Endurance Is Discovered 'Virtually Intact'

"This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen," said one exploration official

A discovery over a century in the making!

About 107 years after explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship was crushed by ice while traveling to Antarctica in 1915, the vessel has been found — and it's in shockingly good condition.

In order to find the ship, an expedition team made use of the coordinates Captain Frank Worsley wrote down when the vessel sank, according to the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust , which organized the search.

The vessel ended up being located just four miles south of those coordinates at a depth of almost 10,000 feet in the Weddell Sea.

But the most amazing part of the discovery? The shipwreck is so well-preserved that even the name of the ship can still be clearly seen across the stern.

"The preservation is beyond imagination," Mensun Bound, director of exploration at the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, told NBC News on Wednesday. "It is virtually intact."

"We are overwhelmed by our good fortune in having located and captured images of Endurance," he added in a statement included in a press release about the discovery. "This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen."

One factor that likely played a huge role in ship preservation was the "super cold" water temperature of the Weddell Sea, historian Dan Snow told NBC News.

In addition to uncovering a major piece of maritime history, the team behind the discovery hopes to inspire the next generation of explorers.

"We hope our discovery will engage young people and inspire them with the pioneering spirit, courage and fortitude of those who sailed Endurance to Antarctica," Bound said in the press release.

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Expedition Leader Dr. John Shears went on to note that the crew also undertook "important scientific research in a part of the world that directly affects the global climate and environment."

The shipwreck will be protected as a Historic Site and Monument, ensuring that it will not be disturbed.

When Shackleton set out on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914, he hoped to be the first to ever traverse Antarctica by land from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, according to the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust.

Although his previous trips to Antarctica were hailed as successes, with the Anglo-Irish explorer even being knighted in 1909, this voyage did not go the way the explorer had initially hoped.

After his ship became trapped in ice before even reaching land in 1915, all 28 men on board were forced to abandon ship, per the trust.

The men then spent months drifting in makeshift camps on the ice before finally escaping to Elephant Island, which was "inhospitable" and "uninhabited."

Shackleton was then joined by five other members of the crew to sail to South Georgia in order to get help — and eventually, he was able to save his entire crew, without any casualties.

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Nightly news, sunken endurance ship found in antarctica over 100 years later.

The Endurance, which sank in 1915 during an expedition to Antarctica, is a symbol of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary leadership as all 28 men on board survived. The ship was found nearly two miles deep and in remarkably good condition. March 10, 2022

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At the Bottom of an Icy Sea, One of History’s Great Wrecks Is Found

Explorers and researchers, battling freezing temperatures, have located Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s ship that sank in the Antarctic in 1915.

By Henry Fountain

The wreck of Endurance has been found in the Antarctic, 106 years after the historic ship was crushed in pack ice and sank during an expedition by the explorer Ernest Shackleton.

A team of adventurers, marine archaeologists and technicians located the wreck at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula, using undersea drones. Battling sea ice and freezing temperatures, the team had been searching for more than two weeks in a 150-square-mile area around where the ship went down in 1915.

Endurance, a 144-foot, three-masted wooden ship, holds a revered place in polar history because it spawned one of the greatest survival stories in the annals of exploration. Its location, nearly 10,000 feet down in waters that are among the iciest on Earth, placed it among the most celebrated shipwrecks that had not been found.

The discovery of the wreck was announced Wednesday in a statement by the search expedition, Endurance22 .

“We have made polar history with the discovery of Endurance, and successfully completed the world’s most challenging shipwreck search,” said John Shears, the expedition’s leader.

The first images of the ship since those taken by Shackleton’s photographer, Frank Hurley, revealed parts of the vessel in astonishing detail. An image of the stern showed the name “ENDURANCE” above a five-pointed star, a holdover from before Shackleton bought the ship, when it was named Polaris. Another showed the rear deck and the ship’s wheel.

A video provided by the expedition’s organizer, the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, showed the bow and portions of the deck and hull.

Mensun Bound, the expedition’s exploration director and a marine archaeologist who has discovered many shipwrecks, said Endurance was the finest he had ever seen. It is upright, clear of the seabed and “in a brilliant state of preservation,” he said.

The ship was found about four miles south of the last location recorded by Shackleton’s captain and navigator, Frank Worsley. The search had been conducted over a wide area to account for errors in Worsley’s navigation equipment.

Endurance’s relatively pristine appearance was not unexpected, given the cold water and the lack of wood-eating marine organisms in the Weddell Sea that have ravaged shipwrecks elsewhere.

Mr. Bound also described the wreck as “intact.” Although Hurley’s photographs before the sinking had shown major damage to, and the collapse of, the ship’s mast and rigging, and there had been damage to the hull, Mr. Bound had expected most of the ship to be in one piece.

The expedition video showed what appeared to be broken masts and damage to the decks.

The hunt for the wreck, which cost more than $10 million, provided by a donor who wished to remain anonymous, was conducted from a South African icebreaker that left Cape Town in early February . Aside from a few technical glitches involving the two submersibles, and part of a day spent icebound when operations were suspended, the search proceeded relatively smoothly.

The battery-powered submersibles combed the seafloor twice a day, for about six hours at a time. They used sonar to scan a swath of the smooth seabed, looking for anything that rose above it. Once the wreck was located several days ago, the equipment was swapped for high-resolution cameras and other instruments to make detailed images and scans.

Under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, the six-decade-old pact intended to protect the region, the wreck is considered a historical monument. The submersibles did not touch it; the images and scans will be used as the basis for educational materials and museum exhibits. A documentary is planned, as well.

Endurance left England with a crew of 27 in 1914, bound for a bay on the Weddell Sea that was meant to be the starting point for an attempt by Shackleton and a small party to be the first to cross Antarctica. This was close to the end of what has become known as the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, which included treks by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 was the first to reach the pole, and by Robert Falcon Scott, a Briton who died after reaching it a month later.

Shackleton never made it to the pole or beyond, but his leadership in rescuing all his crew and his exploits, which included an 800-mile open-boat journey across the treacherous Southern Ocean to the island of South Georgia, made him a hero in Britain.

Shackleton was tripped up by the Weddell’s notoriously thick, long-lasting sea ice, which results from a circular current that keeps much ice within it. In early January 1915 Endurance became stuck less than 100 miles from its destination and drifted with the ice for more than 10 months as the ice slowly crushed it.

As the ship became damaged, the crew set up camp on the ice and lived on the ice until it broke up five months after the ship sank.

The Weddell Sea still remains far icier than other Antarctic waters, though in recent years ice conditions have been lighter than usual. That was the situation this year, and it helped the expedition reach the search site more easily and remain there safely. The icebreaker, Agulhas II, left the search area on Tuesday for the 11-day voyage back to Cape Town.

In addition to the expedition team, several ice researchers were on board, including Stefanie Arndt of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany. Dr. Arndt, who studies how Antarctic sea ice may change as the world warms because of human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, and others spent much time out on the ice drilling cores. On Monday she said on Twitter that they had collected 630 samples from 17 locations, which she called “an incredible number.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the point at which Shackleton joined Endurance on what would be the ship’s final voyage.   He came aboard in Argentina; he was not on the ship when it left England.

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Henry Fountain specializes in the science of climate change and its impacts. He has been writing about science for The Times for more than 20 years and has traveled to the Arctic and Antarctica. More about Henry Fountain

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March 9, 2022

Legendary Shipwreck of Shackleton’s Endurance Discovered in Antarctic Waters

The discovery of the wreck is “a milestone in polar history,” says the director of the search for it

By Tom Metcalfe & LiveScience

The ship’s wheel of the Endurance, the vessel that sank after becoming stuck in and crushed by sea ice around Antarctica in 1915 during explorer Ernest Shackleton’s legendary expedition.

Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic

The wreck of the steam-yacht Endurance, which famously sank in 1915 during an Antarctic expedition by the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton , has been rediscovered by searchers using autonomous underwater vehicles.

The shipwreck was found at a depth of 9,869 feet (3,008 meters) beneath West Antarctica‘s Weddell Sea, according to the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT), which sponsored the search.

That‘s only about 4 nautical miles (7 km) south of the location fixed by the ship‘s captain, Frank Worsley, who used a sextant to record the position of its sinking after several months of the ship being surrounded and eventually crushed by ice.

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“This is a milestone in polar history,” the search expedition‘s director Mensun Bound said in a statement . “We are overwhelmed by our good fortune in having located and captured images of Endurance.”

Shackleton recorded that the ship was crushed by masses of surrounding sea ice in its final weeks, which tipped it over, stove in several planks in the stern and caused its timbers to groan, crack, and “scream.”

But the nearly-found wreck of the Endurance seems remarkably well-preserved, in spite of its trials.

“This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen,” Bound said. “It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation. You can even see [the name] ‘Endurance‘ arced across the stern.”

Years of searching

The rediscovery is the culmination of years of searching for the wreck of the Endurance, which became famous partly because of the dramatic photographs of its sinking and the astonishing journey of survival that followed.

But the wreck is located only a few hundred miles from the coast of Antarctica; the region is often completely covered with sea ice, which has forced previous search efforts to turn back .

A team of searchers on board the South African polar research vessel Agulhas II finally located the wreck on Saturday (March 5) — by coincidence, the hundredth anniversary of Ernest Shackleton‘s funeral in 1922.

“We have successfully completed the world‘s most difficult shipwreck search, battling constantly shifting sea-ice, blizzards, and temperatures dropping down to -18 C [minus 0.4 F],” the search expedition‘s leader John Shears told BBC News . “We have achieved what many people said was impossible.”

Antarctic shipwreck

The wreck of the Endurance was found by a Saab Sabertooth hybrid underwater vehicle controlled by operators on the Agulhas II. The robotic vehicles can operate both on a tether or autonomously, as they did on the latest search.

After more than two weeks of searching a predefined search area based on Worsley‘s original sextant fixes, Agulhas II spotted the wreck, according to the FMHT.

The FMHT notes that the wreck is protected as a Historic Site and Monument under the Antarctic Treaty, and said it would not be touched or disturbed in any way while it is being surveyed from the Agulhas II.

The search expedition has been fortunate with conditions in the Weddell Sea, which can be notoriously icebound. Last month saw the lowest extent of Antarctic sea-ice recorded during the satellite era, which stretches back to the 1970s, the BBC reported.

Treacherous voyage

Shackleton used Endurance on his third of four expeditions to Antarctica.

He had visited the frozen southern continent twice before, from 1901 to 1903 as a subordinate of the polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott — during which time he took part in the first hot-air balloon flight from Antarctica — and then from 1907 until 1909, when his team reached the estimated location of the South Magnetic Pole.

A team led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the geographic South Pole on Dec. 14, 1911, a few weeks ahead of a team led by Scott, which ended in tragedy .

Shackleton‘s aim in 1915 was to complete the first complete crossing of the Antarctic continent, by dog-sled from the Weddell Sea via the South Pole to Ross Island in the Ross Sea — a distance of about 1,800 miles (2,900 km).

The Endurance was meant to deliver Shackleton and his team to the southern coast of the Weddell Sea for the overland expedition. But the ship became trapped in heavy sea ice in October 1915, and the crew abandoned it and moved everything they could onto their camp on the ice floes.

After the Endurance sank, Shackleton and the other 27 members of his crew attempted to reach land by dogsled and eventually on lifeboats they had rescued from the ship.

In April 1915, they reached Elephant Island at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula; Shackleton and five members of the crew then set out in one of the lifeboats through the stormy, freezing seas, for a whaling station on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia.

Shackleton returned to Elephant Island on a rescue ship shortly after, and — remarkably — all 28 of his crew survived the treacherous voyage.

Copyright 2022 LiveScience , a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Live updates: Seven dead in 56m superyacht Bayesian sinking tragedy

Seven people have died in the Bayesian sinking disaster. These include the six missing people who were inside the yacht when it sank, as well as a seventh person who was located shortly after the disaster. The seventh person is understood to be the yacht's chef, Recaldo Thomas. The other six are:

• British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, once dubbed 'Britain's Bill Gates'
• Lynch's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah
• Morgan Stanley's chairman, Jonathan Bloomer
• Judy Bloomer, wife of Morgan Stanley chairman
• Chris Morvillo, a lawyer working for London-based law firm Clifford Chance
• Neda Morvillo, an American jewellery designer and Chris' wife

It is understood that the yacht was being used to celebrate Lynch's recent victory in a 13-year £8 billion fraud acquittal.

No one remembers the mast snapping before 56m superyacht Bayesian sunk, says crew

No one recalls seeing the mast snap on board the 56-metre Perini Navi sailing yacht Bayesian which sank off the Italian island of Sicily on 19 August. The eyewitness account of a crewmember on board the vessel, which was obtained by BOAT International , said that the boat was struck by a freak weather event which led to the yacht heeling at around 20 degrees to starboard. As crewmembers were securing items, the heeling angle began to increase rapidly until the yacht started taking on water and sank rapidly.

The crewmembers who were up on deck were able to evacuate the yacht with minor injuries. The yacht is understood to have sunk in just twelve minutes, and it is believed that a "major ingress" of water from the top down would have caused the sinking, according to a captain who wishes to remain anonymous. This is based on the fact that no breaches have been reported in the yacht's hull, and the fact that the yacht should have been able to remain afloat with two flooded compartments.

"Very difficult to understand what could have overwhelmed a vessel of that size" says captain of sistership

The captain of the sistership to the sunken 56-metre Perini Navi sailing yacht Bayesian has said it is "very difficult to understand what could have overwhelmed a vessel of that size" and called the 56-metre Perini Navi series "bulletproof".

David Hutchinson, captain of Rosehearty , said he had taken the yacht around the world multiple times and he had "total faith in the boat".  "We've been to Antarctica and Chile, and we've had her in 70 knots of wind," he says, and the vessel had never put them in a situation that felt unmanageable.

However, Hutchinson noted there were differences between Bayesian and Rosehearty ; notably, Bayesian's  74-metre mast, which would have been heavier and added increased windage. The yacht's layout was also different, with guest accommodation on Bayesian located further forward.

Live updates

• Italian Navy divers recovered video surveillance equipment from Bayesian on Thursday 12 September, including parts of the deck, video surveillance systems and hard drives. According to Reuters, the electronic devices will be sent to specialised labs outside of Sicily to check their condition and possibly recover data.
• During a news conference on Saturday morning (24 August), prosecutors confirmed they are in the early stages of investigating a "crime hypothesis" of culpable shipwreck and manslaughter. Authorities also said the yacht likely sunk because of a downburst (powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm), rather than a waterspout.
• A search and rescue for six missing people has concluded. The final missing person is understood to be Hannah Lynch. 
• According to Reuters, six bodies have now been found in the sunken yacht. These include Mike Lynch, a British technology entrepreneur who co-founded Autonomy Corporation and founded Invoke Capital, although Italian authorities have not confirmed this.  
• One person was found immediately after the yacht sunk, and this is understood to be the yacht's chef. 
• Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, and a one-year-old are among the fifteen people rescued along with Bayesian' s captain, James Cutfield.
• Another sailing vessel in the area, the 42-metre Sir Robert Baden Powell ,  stepped in to offer assistance in the initial rescue.
• Divers have been able to reach Bayesian' s sunken hull, which lies at 45 metres of depth about half a mile from the coast. The yacht had the largest aluminium masts of any sailing yacht on the water.
• Eyewitnesses in the area reported "hurricane" conditions off the coast but local weather websites did not indicate any severe squall, which suggests that the weather event was not forecast.
• At around 5am local time on 19 August, Bayesian was hit by bad weather and sunk.  The sailing yacht was anchored or idle at the time of the incident.

Built in Italy by renowned builder Perini Navi and delivered in 2008, the yacht's naval architecture was developed by Ron Holland Design while the interior design is by Rémi Tessier . She was formerly known as Salute and was last refitted in 2016. She was listed for sale earlier this year, according to BOATPro . The yacht had accommodation for nine guests and 12 crew.

BOAT International will update the story as it develops.

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Rescuers Find Remaining Missing Aboard the Sunken ‘Bayesian’ Superyacht 

Six bodies have been recovered, while local authorities push for investigations that could result in manslaughter charges., michael verdon, michael verdon's most recent stories.

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The boat’s rapid sinking happened at about 4 a.m. local time on Monday, after a waterspout, or a small, localized tornado on the water, caused the vessel to heel over and eventually capsize, sending it about 165 feet to the bottom of the Mediterranean. Fifteen people were rescued by a nearby vessel. Authorities identified the body of Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan, who worked as the sailing yacht’s chef.

The celebratory trip aboard Bayesian took place shortly after Lynch was acquitted of fraud charges in the U.S. in a long-running legal battle against accusations that he had defrauded Hewlett-Packard after he sold Hewlett his company, Autonomy, for $11 billion.

Boat International has quoted a crew member as saying that the boat was struck by a freak weather event, which caused it to heel 20 degrees on its right side. It continued to heel until it began to take on water and sank in just 12 minutes. “We just didn’t see it coming,” Capt. James Calfield told Italian media.

A number of experts have speculated that water entering through the top via open hatches could have caused the sinking. Some witnesses have said that the mast snapped before the boat sank, but divers report the vessel is intact on the sea bottom.

Dario Boote, a ship structures and naval architecture professor at the University of Genoa, told paper that he expects a series of lawsuits to determine responsibility. “Clearly, only once the wreck is raised will we know more,” he told the

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