MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Antartic search for Shackleton's ship
Two rival expeditions are planning to launch a search for the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, which was trapped by the ice and sank somewhere in the Weddell Sea during the explorer's abortive 1914 attempt to be the first to cross Antarctica.
It is a formidable challenge to detect one of the world's most famous shipwrecks 3,000 metres deep below pack-ice several metres thick even in the Antarctic summer.
Both expeditions, which plan to be active early in 2005, are led by veterans of earlier projects to detect famous wrecks. One of them is led by David L. Mearns, a commercial explorer who in 2001 found and filmed the wrecks of two World War Two warships, HMS Hood and the German battleship Bismark.
The other expedition is led by an adventurer, Jock Wishart, and a scientist, Doctor Jonathan Adams, who helped to raise the Mary Rose, Henry the Eighth's favourite ship, which had lain on the ocean floor for centuries.
Ernest Shackleton's granddaughter, the Honourable Alexandra Shackleton, is excited by the prospect of finding the wreck. She recalled how upset her grandfather was to watch Endurance make her final descent into the depths. He remarked: "What the ice gets, the ice keeps".
Recovering equipment and scientific instruments David Mearns plans to conduct his deep-sea search in January, 2005. He says he has made favourable progress on his planning and his research to locate the Endurance. He hopes to recover as much of the ship's equipment and abandoned scientific instruments as possible and bring them back to the United Kingdom for exhibition in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
His expedition will be filmed for a series of television documentaries and live webcasts with three core themes: National Heritage, Science and Environment.
One aim is to enhance the historical significance of Shackleton's 1914/1917 expedition and his leadership skills in bringing home, with the help of a Chilean rescue ship, all his men alive after they had been trapped in the frozen wilderness for eighteen months.
With the participation of the British Antarctic Survey, the expedition aims to collect the first scientific data from this unique deep-sea environment to increase knowledge and understanding.
The intend to use the setting of the Weddell Sea to educate viewers about the unique environment of Antarctica and the hugely important role it plays in the environmental balance of the planet. He has won enthusiastic support from many British organisations including the British Antarctic Survey, the National Maritime Museum, Southampton Oceanography Centre, Southampton University, and the Ministry of Defence.
Wreck may be well-preserved The scientific leader of the rival expedition, Doctor Adams, believes the wreckage is likely to be well preserved in the still, cold water, which does not support wood-eating organisms. The BBC and the National Geographic Channel based in the United States are in negotiations to film underwater. They will be deploying state-of- the- art underwater equipment that can now reach much of the world's ocean floor, such as high-frequency sonar which bounces sounds off the ocean bottom to detect wrecks, and robot remote-controlled submarines with powerful spotlights which can transmit live pictures.
They may even be able to recover more of the famous negatives abandoned by the expedition's photographer, Frank Hurley, who brought back only a fraction of the photographs he took, which have been acclaimed and brought together in illustrated books.
Harold Briley, (MP) -London
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