Some incredible new images being shown from the resting place of the HMS Endurance - October 2024

New images rendered from over 25,000 photographic scans made on the 2022 expedition to rediscover HMS Endurance have been released in celebration of a new documentary from National Geographic and the Falklands Heritage Maritime Trust.

After more than 100 years submerged under the icy waters of Antarctica, a series of new images have revealed Ernest Shackleton’s ship, HMS Endurance, in a ‘remarkable state of preservation’ to a stunning new level of detail down to the very boots worn by crew members.

The famed vessel found its final resting place three kilometres below the surface of the Weddell Sea when it sank in Antarctica in 1915 having become stuck in pack ice. It was an event that  forced its crew to embark upon one of the most celebrated survival quests in history.​

Compiled from around 25,000 high resolution digital scans, stunning new images have been released this week of the Endurance in extraordinary detail, preserved by the icy waters, to show how little it has altered or decayed in the century since its sinking.

Among the details that can be observed are the ship’s rigging, helm, and woodwork – all of which remains in a ‘remarkable state of preservation’ alongside a number of the crew’s dining plates laid resting on the deck and a single knee-length boot which is speculated to have belonged to Frank Wild, Shackleton’s second-in-command.

The digital scans have been created by images captured when the ship was rediscovered on an expedition in 2022 and released in conjunction with a new documentary from National Geographic Documentary Films – titled Endurance – which is set to premiere this Saturday, October 12 as part of the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival.

Funded by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, the expedition deployed newly developed technology from Deep Ocean Search and Voyis Imaging to capture the 3D scans, produced using underwater robots which had mapped the wreck from every possible angle. These photographs (around 25,000 of them in total) were later ‘stitched’ together to form the digital replica released now worldwide.

The scan presents a full view of the 44-metre wooden wreck from bow to stern, even detailing the grooves left in the sediment as the ship came to rest on the seafloor. It also reveals – to much astonishment – that much of the structure remains largely intact. 

“It’s absolutely fabulous. The wreck is almost intact like she sank yesterday,” said Nico Vincent, subsea project manager on Endurance22 – the 2022 expedition to rediscover the ship.

Directed by Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, and Natalie Hewit, National Geographic Documentary Films’ Endurance will tell the stories of two landmark expeditions. The first was Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition on which his ship HMS Endurance became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea and sank on November 21, 1915.

The second was the expedition Endurance22, organised and funded by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT) that discovered the wreck of Endurance on March 5, 2022 at a depth of 3,008 metres under the ice.

The expedition was led by Dr John Shears with Nico Vincent as subsea manager. The expedition was joined by the historian and broadcaster Dan Snow who brought the story to a global audience through his podcasts and social media.

In anticipation of the release of the documentary, FMHT chairman, Donald Lamont, said: “The release of the National Geographic documentary is a milestone for the Trust. As well as locating, surveying, and filming the wreck, our aim was to bring the stories of Shackleton and of his ship to new generations.

“They are stories of grit and determination that we hope will inspire people across the globe with the qualities of leadership and perseverance in the face of adversity. The stories of both expeditions are set in the hostile environment of the Antarctica, a continent whose changing features affect us all.”

Most remarkable about the Endurance perhaps is its place in history as a story of survival in which all crew members returned. Shackleton himself went on to captain another expedition aboard HMS Quest upon which he died. In a case of tragic irony, his was the only death to take place aboard any of the ships under his direct command.

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