The Explorer Society | Shackleton and Worsley

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Some background on Shackleton and Worsley

The history of the Endurance and Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition is already pretty well known. For those of you who might need a refresher, Sir Ernest Shackleton was an Irish explorer in the early part of the 20th century. Prior to this expedition, he had already made his name in Antarctic exploration. He was part of Captain Robert Scott’s Discovery expedition in 1901 that reached a new southerly record. He was then part of the Nimrod expedition in 1909 which set another record, making it only 97 geographical miles from the South Pole and also climbing the active Mount Erebus volcano whilst there. After explorer Roald Amundsen beat everyone to the South Pole in 1911 and effectively ended that ‘first’, Shackleton set his sights on crossing Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole. This formed the basis for the 1914 expedition.

This expedition is famous for its failure.

Before we go any further, it’s worth at this point also introducing the Endurance’s captain, Frank Worsley. Whilst Shackleton was the expedition commander, Frank Worsley was the captain of the Endurance tasked with taking the explorers there. Another ship, the Aurora, was responsible for setting supply depots on the other side of the continent to assist the team crossing the continent. Worsley, a Kiwi, had a reputation for uncanny navigational abilities and it was these skills that helped the team in 2022.

**Worsley taking measurements: Courtesy Royal Geographic Society/PA Media**

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The Expedition

Heading past South Georgia towards Antarctica, the Endurance was slowed by considerable sea ice. They progressed slowly until eventually, deep in the Weddell Sea, the Endurance found itself frozen into an ice floe. Realising that they were stuck there until the following spring, Shackleton turned the ship into a winter station. They floated northward with the ice for almost 7 months until in October, the worst began to happen. Instead of the ship being freed from the ice as it broke up it instead began to be crushed, taking on water and eventually sinking. One of the last things to happen before it sank below the ice was Worsley, working under extremely challenging conditions and after months of drifting with the ice floe, taking an estimate of the ship’s last position.

**Courtesy Royal Geographic Society/PA**

The rest of the story is legendary, aided by Shackleton’s amazing leadership and his promise to leave no man behind. The expedition party headed towards “nearby” Elephant Island, travelling as far as they could on foot before heading to the lifeboats for five rough days at sea. In freezing overcast conditions, at the mercy of the winds and currents and without clear visibility to navigate by, they were at great risk of blowing off course and ending up lost in the Southern Ocean. It was only due to Worsley’s navigational abilities that they made it. He stayed awake or on alert for almost 90 hours straight, waiting for moments of sunlight to which establish their position by with his instruments.

Landing on Elephant Island, they realised that it wasn’t the most hospitable of islands. In addition, it was also well out of sight to flag down passing rescue ships. And so, they decided to send off one lifeboat to try for South Georgia, a perilous journey of over 1,300km (800 miles). Onboard were both Shackleton and Worsley. Adding to the pressure, to miss the destination would not only mean death for the volunteers but death for those remaining behind on Elephant Island. And so, over 16 days, through storms and freezing conditions, the lifeboat endured. In terrible conditions, Worsley only had a few of glimpses of clear skies over the 16 days to use to estimate their position. Despite all of this hardship, they landed on South Georgia, an epic feat of navigation and survival.

It wasn’t over yet.

All of the whaling stations and rescue options were on the other side of the island. With the lifeboat and crew unable to make the journey around the island, Shackleton, Worsley and another crew member Tom Crean, made a 36-hour journey over and through the crevasse-strewn mountains and towards safety at a whaling station. They made this entire journey, from ice floe to whaling station, without proper equipment and without modern clothing. After returning to pick up the South Georgia crew, it was another three months and four separate attempts before they could finally rescue the remaining crew members stuck on Elephant Island. It is this epic journey and Shackleton’s commitment to the lives of his men turned this failed trip into the stuff of legend.

Cut to 2022.

Finding the wreck of the Endurance has been a prize that has eluded explorers for decades. It’s not just the difficulty of finding the location, it’s the location itself. The same pack ice that crushed the Endurance still prevents researchers from getting close to the estimated position. There have been many tries and many failures. This recent attempt by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust onboard the icebreaker Agulhas II battled environments. There were temperatures below -18 degrees C, blizzards and failures in the remote submarines used to explore the seafloor. In an area of 150 square miles, they kept the submarines running almost continuously, looking for any clue to the location of the wreck.

Eventually, on the 100th anniversary of Shackleton’s funeral, they picked up a sonar ping. On a flat seafloor, almost 3,000m (10,000ft) below sea level, the wreck was found in incredible condition. Due to the freezing waters there is a lack of underwater forest in Antarctic waters. This means the absence of wood loving animal living in them. As a result, this meant that the wreck looked as good as the day it sank. You can see the ship’s nameplate proudly announcing its identity to the world. It is almost a look in on the lives of these brave explorers.

**Courtesy Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and National Geographic**

And the most amazing thing? It was found only 4km from where Worsley estimated it was. Adrift on an ice floe in the Southern Ocean, with overcast and freezing conditions, using mechanical tools, epic tables of reference numbers, and a pen and paper, he was dead on.

This whole expedition was technically a failure. But, by using other forms of reference, it is one of the biggest success stories in history. The discovery, itself an amazing achievement, is just the wonderful conclusion of the epic tale.