[imagesource: Esther Horvath]

It is a very proud moment for the SA Agulhas II icebreaker ship that left Cape Town in early February.

That up top is the Agulhas II standing steady as researcher Stefanie Arndt and sea ice specialist Beat Rinderknecht take measurements on an ice lid above the Weddle Sea in Antarctica.

They, along with an Endurance22 expedition team of 110 researchers and scientists, set out to locate the sunken Endurance 107 years after it was abandoned by explorer Ernest Shackleton and his team in 1915.

Shackleton had to lead his team of 27 away from disaster when they were on their own Antarctica adventure, as sea ice choked them in and threatened to take them all down with the ship.

While a similar thing happened to this latest expedition team, they managed to get out thanks to modernised ships and technology.

The team had been searching for more than two weeks in a 388-square-kilometre area around the spot where the ship sank, all while struggling through sea ice and freezing temperatures.

Then, over the weekend using undersea drones and the works, they managed to find the lost historic vessel at the bottom of the Weddell Sea:

Apparently, the date of the discovery also marks the 100th anniversary of Shackleton’s funeral.

The BBC, calling the discovery the “greatest ever undiscovered shipwrecks”, reported that the ship was found in remarkably pristine condition despite having been 3 000 metres underwater for all those years.

Apparently, it looks just like it did on the November day it went down:

Its timbers, although disrupted, are still very much together, and the name – Endurance – is clearly visible on the stern.

“Without any exaggeration this is the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen – by far,” said marine archaeologist Mensun Bound, who is on the discovery expedition and has now fulfilled a dream ambition in his near 50-year career. “It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation,” he told BBC News.

They don’t make ships like they used to:

Bound, the expedition’s exploration director, has discovered many shipwrecks before, so acknowledging Endurance as the finest is quite something.

Likewise, the expedition’s leader, John Shears, said that they had “made polar history” with the discovery:

“We have successfully completed the world’s most difficult shipwreck search, battling constantly shifting sea-ice, blizzards, and temperatures dropping down to -18C. We have achieved what many people said was impossible.”

Given the icy conditions and the lack of wood-eating marine organisms in the Weddle Sea, per The New York Times, the ship’s condition is not that surprising, and Bound had expected most of the ship to be in one piece.

This is the Endurance in 1915, trapped in Antarctic ice but not yet crushed:

The cost of the expedition to find Endurance ticked over the 10 million mark and was provided by anonymous donors. Aside from the technical glitches and days spent icebound, the operation went pretty smoothly.

Educational materials, museum exhibits, and a documentary will be created from the wreckage, now considered a historical monument, which means that no physical artefacts have been brought to the surface.

Good job, all.

[sources:bbc&nytimes]