EXPERTS have discovered the real reasons Ernest Shackleton’s ship sank on its ill-fated Antarctic expedition in 1915.
And it suggests the famed polar explorer may have known the Endurance ship wasn’t up to the job all along.
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Endurance was sailing for the Antarctic in 1914-15 but became trapped in ice forcing the crew to abandon ship.
It eventually sank and lies 3,000m below the Weddell Sea, located in the Southern Ocean, east of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Miraculously, all 27 men onboard the ship survived after travelling hundreds of miles over ice, land, death-defying mountains and sea.
But a new bombshell study has revealed new details about why the ship was doomed.
Experts have carried out technical analysis and researched some of Shackleton’s diaries to shed new light on the expedition.
It appears Endurance had structural weaknesses that made it a poor choice for such an adventure compared to early polar vessels.
But shockingly, Shackleton was well aware of these before he set sail, they claim.
“Even simple structural analysis shows that the ship was not designed for the compressive pack ice conditions that eventually sank it,” explained Jukka Tuhkuri, a professor of solid mechanics at Aalto University.
“The danger of moving ice and compressive loads — and how to design a ship for such conditions — was well understood before the ship sailed south. So we really have to wonder why Shackleton chose a vessel that was not strengthened for compressive ice.”
Tuhkuri was one of 15 scientists who joined a mission to find the Endurance wreck back in 2022.
A number of lost objects were later identified, including kitchenware, an old boot and a flare gun.
The expert says Endurance clearly had “several structural deficiencies” compared with other early Antarctic ships.
Among them were weaker beams and frames.
The machine compartment was longer too, which leads to serious weakening in a significant part of the hull.
“Not only does this challenge the romantic narrative that it was the strongest polar ship of its time, but it also belies the simplistic idea that the rudder was the ship’s Achilles’ heel,” he said.
“Shackleton knew about this.
“Before he set off he lamented the ship’s weaknesses in a letter to his wife, saying he’d exchange Endurance for his previous ship any day.
“In fact, he had recommended diagonal beams for another polar ship when visiting a Norwegian shipyard.
“That same ship got stuck in compression ice for months and survived it.”
However, Tuhkuri can’t say for certain whether the ship was simply “ill-fated” or doomed by poor decisions.
He also doesn’t want the study to detract from the heroic achievements of Shackleton and the men who travelled with him.
“We can speculate about financial pressures or time constraints, but the truth is we may never know why Shackleton made the choices that he made,” he added.
“At least now we have more concrete findings to flesh out the stories.”
The findings were published in the Polar Record journal.
Ernest Shackleton’s Four Expeditions
The expeditions of Ernest Shackleton pushed the limits of human endurance to their peak.
Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on February 15, 1874, in County Kildare, Ireland, where his father was a doctor.
Instead of following in his father’s footsteps, Shackleton joined the merchant navy at 16-years-old.
1901 – The First Expedition
In 1901, Shackleton was chosen to go on the Antarctic expedition led by British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott – Britain’s other Antarctic hero – on the ship Discovery.
Shackleton and Scott trekked towards the South Pole, which had yet to be reached by humans, in extremely difficult conditions.
They got closer than anyone had come before, but Shackleton fell seriously ill and had to return home.
Although he’d been sent home from the trip due to ill health, Shackleton vowed to return to the Antarctic and prove himself as a polar explorer.
1908 – The Second Expedition
In 1908, Shackleton returned to the Antarctic, leading his own expedition on the ship Nimrod, thanks to the backing of various wealthy sponsors.
The expedition made many important scientific discoveries and set a record by coming even closer to the South Pole than before.
The success of the expedition earned Shackleton a knighthood on his return to Britain.
1914 – The Third Expedition
Shackleton made his third trip to the Antarctic with the Endurance in 1914, an expedition that has acquired epic status.
The plan was to cross Antarctica via the South Pole but in 1915, Endurance became trapped in the ice (and eventually sank in November 1915).
Before it sank, the ship sat atop the ice, while Shackleton and his crew of 27 men camped beside it for months, before escaping to Elephant Island.
In April 1916, smaller reinforced lifeboats called the Stancomb Wills and the Dudley Docker set sail for Elephant Island, an ice-covered mountainous outpost.
From there, six crew members including Shackleton and the captain of the Endurance, Frank Worsley, planned to sail to South Georgia to get help.
They used a lifeboat named the James Caird which they adapted for the 800 mile journey across the treacherous seas of the South Atlantic.
While they managed to reach the island – despite a generous margin for error – they were forced to abandon the boat and trek to the main town to get help.
In August 1916, Sir Ernest rescued the remaining 22 men left on Elephant Island – it had been 24 months and 22 days since leaving England.
1922 – The Fourth Expedition
Once World War I was over, Shackleton organised another expedition, which aimed to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent.
On January 4, 1922, Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Quest, finally reached South Georgia, an ice-capped island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
But on January 5, 1922, he died of a heart attack off South Georgia and was buried on the island.
