The curse of Shackleton: the ice beats the expedition that was looking for the sunken ship of the explorer – 14/02/2019

The history of the world is a story of adventure. Men lost in the middle of nowhere, beings struggling against unfathomable immensities. In November 1915, the British ship Endurance, an epic three-masted schooner, ran aground when it entered the Antarctic ice. At the head of the expedition was the famous British traveler Ernest Shackleton, who had managed to survive with several of his men after two years spent on the white continent. The ship eventually sank at a depth of 3,000 meters in the waters of the Weddell Sea. The photographic record of this distant adventure is fabulous.

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In early February 2019, an international expedition left for Antarctica in search of the sunken ship, which was never found. For this, aboard the sophisticated South African science ship Agulhas II, they mounted part of the submarine ROV team that discovered the ARA San Juan submarine. The mission was not only looking for Shackleton's ship; It also aimed to study the severe effects of climate change on the icy surface and the reasons why giant blocks of ice are increasingly liberated from the south of the planet.

After two weeks, after badyzing the impact of warming on one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica, the scientific expedition the place where they expected to find the stamina.

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Arrived at the exact point, they submerged a robot that had to draw a grid of the bottom of the ocean and which would mark the course as a progress of a second submersible autonomous vehicle with which they thought to photograph the remains of the ship . Similarly, in late November 2018, these same machines found the submerged silver submarine.

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But then, when everything went well, the damn thing happened. The hope of the investigators has faded with the worsening weather conditions: as for the Endurance, this wild sea, this sea of ​​ice, began to stop the advance of the Agulhas. After thirty hours of monitoring the descent of the robot in the depths, the scientists lost their track. Shortly after, S.A. Agulhas II was caught. The leaders of the expedition abandoned their objective and decided to return to the port of Cape Town, where this same ship was photographed by Clarin.

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"We are deeply disappointed that after so many efforts and overcome several setbacks, we could not find the stamina," said John Shears, polar ice geographer and l & # 39; a responsible for the expedition.

"The AUV7 has achieved what is considered to be the longest and most profound study under the ice ever, lasting more than 30 hours." It's unclear whether she captured images of endurance on the bottom of the sea before the disappearance of contact "said Mensun Bound, the general manager of exploration. "As a team, we are disappointed to have failed to pursue Stamina," said Shackleton before describing the Endurance Cemetery as "the worst part of the worst" sea ​​of ​​the world ". Our plans were overtaken by this same ice, which is moving quickly and for what Shackleton called "the bad conditions of the Weddell Sea." "Bound concluded," We paid tribute to the navigation knowledge of Frank Worsley, the captain of the Endurance, whose detailed recordings were invaluable in our search for the region where he was lost. "