“Well, what about the Endurance,” was the seed of the challenge suggested by a good friend of maritime archeologist Mensun Bound when they met in south Kensington at Caffe Nero, for a coffee in the summer of August 2012.
A 500m perimeter is being implemented to aid the protection of Endurance, the ship famously lost in the Antarctic by explorer Ernest Shackleton. The vessel's position on the Weddell Sea floor was finally identified in March, 107 years after its sinking.
By Sean Kingsley for Wreckwatch magazine* – Mensun Bound is a fifth-generation Falkland Islander, born to the sea and its mysteries. By fusing academia with firing the public imagination, he creates buzz after buzz around underwater archaeology. In the 1980s he set up and directed Oxford University MARE, England’s first academic maritime archaeological unit, and in 1994 was appointed the Triton Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at St Peter’s College, Oxford.
The Endurance22 expedition will receive Reach the World’s 2022 Cronkite Award for Excellence in Storytelling. Reach the World will present the award at its Annual Benefit in New York City on July 20, 2022.
Mensun Bound, who as Director of Exploration of the team that on March 5 discovered Sir Ernest Shackleton’s sunken ship Endurance in the Weddell Sea, will deliver talks onboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 in 2022 and 2023.
Since the expedition was conceived, educational outreach was a key objective. The FMHT partnered with Reach the World, the US-based education organisation, and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) who have successfully connected with tens of thousands of children throughout the expedition via regular live stream interviews and material produced for classroom use.
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust confirmed on Wednesday that the Endurance22 Expedition has located the wreck of Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship which has not been seen since it was crushed by the ice and sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915.