Explorer Shackleton's last ship discovered 'intact' on sea floor - as sonar image released

Sky News

Updated 12 June 2024 at 3:23 pm·1-min read

The ship Sir Ernest Shackleton made his final voyage on has been found off the coast of Canada – 62 years after it sank.

Irish explorer Shackleton suffered a heart attack and died aboard Quest while trying to reach the Antarctic in January 1922. He was 47 years old.

After his death, Quest was acquired by a Norwegian company and involved in several expeditions until 5 May 1962, when it sank after being damaged by ice. All of the crew survived.

The shipwreck has now been found "intact" in the Labrador Sea off the coast of Newfoundland, said the Shackleton Quest Expedition, led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

The schooner-rigged steamship is on the sea floor at a depth of 390m and was found by wreck searchers with the help of sonar equipment, it added.

The discovery comes 150 years after Shackleton was born and has been hailed as "one of the final chapters in [his] extraordinary story" by the expedition's leader John Geiger.

"Shackleton was known for his courage and brilliance as a leader in crisis," Mr Geiger said. "The tragic irony is that his was the only death to take place on any of the ships under his direct command."

Search director David Mearns said of the ship: "She is intact.

"Data from high resolution side scan sonar imagery corresponds exactly with the known dimensions and structural features of this special ship. It is also consistent with events at the time of the sinking."

Another of Shackleton's ships, Endurance, was found in 2022.

The vessel sank after becoming stuck in pack ice in Antarctica's Weddell Sea in 1915.

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