Maybe It's No Surprise Shackleton's Ship Sank

Most everyone knows the story of Ernest Shackleton and his crew: How their ship the Endurance was crushed by Antarctic ice in October 1915 and Shackleton kept up morale and all souls made it home alive. General sentiment was the sinking was plain bad luck, a product of the keel being torn off, but a study released Monday, October 6, says the Endurance was poorly designed for polar exploration and navigating ice. What’s more, Shackleton knew very well it wasn’t the best ship for the task but sailed south into the cold nevertheless.

Finnish researcher and naval architect Jukka Tuhkuri was part of the team that found the sunken ship in 2022, and he pieced together its back story by studying journals and letters and analyzing its design relative to other ships. Endurance was supposed to be the most ice-worthy vessel of its time, which turns out to be myth, marketing spin, or a lie. “Since its launch, it has been repeated many times that Endurance was maybe the strongest wooden ship of its time, with very few questioning comments,” wrote Tuhkuri. It wasn’t. “Endurance was not designed for compressive conditions in the Antarctic pack ice, but for easier conditions at the ice edge in the Arctic. The weakest part of its hull was the engine room area, which was not only larger than in other early Antarctic ships but also lacked beams to give strength against compression by ice.”

Shackleton knew Endurance didn’t have the supporting structure that would make it ice-worthy. Comparing the ship to his 1908 Antarctic vessel, he wrote to his wife, “…this ship is not as strong as the Nimrod constructionally this I have seen from her way of behaving when in a gale pressing against the dock wall here though there is nothing to be scared of as I think she will go through ice all right only I would exchange her for the old Nimrod any day now except for comfort.”

Indeed, Shackleton assisted a German polar explorer on reinforcing his ship Deutschland with beams, which then survived eight months stuck in polar ice. Deutschland was built by the same shipyard that made Endurance, and Shackleton originally wanted to buy it, but purchased the cheaper Nimrod instead, then, later, Endurance.

Tuhkuri doesn’t draw any conclusions why Shackleton sailed with the inferior Endurance, but the adventurer was under pressure. Polar exploration was a competition, and he was antsy, and his marriage was in trouble. Navigating Antarctic waters is always a gamble. Whether financial considerations or something else, “Shackleton was well aware of the risks related to the strength of Endurance, but chose to use it anyway.”