Endurance, Barquentine

Endurance (1912 Ship), was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men and one cat sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

She was launched in 1912 from Sandefjord in Norway; three years later, she was crushed by pack ice and sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. All of her crew survived.

The ship was 144 feet (44 m) long, with a 25 feet (7.6 m) beam, and measured 348 tons gross.

Her original purpose was to provide luxurious accommodation for small tourist and hunting parties in the Arctic as an ice-capable steam yacht.

As launched she had 10 passenger cabins, a spacious dining saloon and galley (with accommodation for two cooks), a smoking room, a darkroom to allow passengers to develop photographs, electric lighting and even a small bathroom.

Endurance was perhaps the strongest wooden ship ever built. She was designed with great inherent strength in her hull in order to resist collision with ice floes and to break through pack ice by ramming and crushing.

On 9 March 2022, 107 years later, it was announced that the wreck of Endurance – now designated as a protected historic site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty – had been found 3,008 metres (9,869 ft) deep, in “remarkably good condition”.

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.