Ernest Shackleton’s Last Ship Found on the Ocean Floor Near Canada’s East Coast

The last ship of Sir Ernest Shackleton was find out at the bottom of the Labrador Sea this week , sitting just and inviolate at a deepness of 1,280 fundament ( 390 meter ) . The ship called Quest fall off in 1962 , 40 years after the celebrated explorer ’s end .

The research team that found the vessel was led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society . The squad spent months reviewing ship log , news show article , and legal text file to make up one’s mind the approximate resting position of the watercraft off the glide of Labrador . A side - scan sonar survey finally detected the ship ; an oblong blob in a sonar image indicate to the team not only the wreck ’s locating , but its relatively pristine experimental condition .

“ I can definitively reassert that we have find the wreck of Quest , ” said David Mearns , a wreck hunter and phallus of the recent hunting team , in aCanadian Geographic articleannouncing the find . “ Data from in high spirits resolution side - scan sonar imagery corresponds exactly with the known dimension and structural features of this special ship , and is also consistent with consequence at the time of the sinking . ”

The ill-fated vessel Quest.

The ill-fated vessel Quest.Photo:Royal Canadian Geographic Society / X

A2022 expeditionto get hold Shackleton ’s ship Endurance , which splendidly sank in 1915 after being bind in frappe , line up the three - masted schoonerat the bottom of Antarctica ’s Weddell Sea , some 9,900 feet deep .

Shackleton bought Quest ( then Foca I ) for £ 11,000 ( $ 639,379 in today ’s currency ) and outfit it as an expedition watercraft . Shackleton sailed Quest to South Georgia Island the following year , but quick suffered a heart attempt and died . allot to Canadian Geographic , Quest recoil around over the 40 old age between Shackleton ’s death and its sinking in 1962 .

That April , Quest was crushed in icing in the Labrador Sea , stimulate piddle to participate the engine room the undermentioned month . The ship finally sank on May 5 at about 5:40 p.m. local time . The ship ’s captain telegrammed its new owners the final position of the vas — a datum full point that proved life-sustaining to the recent squad in incur the shipwreck .

A side-scan sonar image of Quest, upright on the seabed.

A side-scan sonar image of Quest, upright on the seabed.Image:© Canadian Geographic

The shipwreck was discovered earlier this week , on Sunday , June 9 , approximately 18 hour into the team ’s investigation of the search area . Quest was feel about 1.55 miles ( 2.5 klick ) from its last known situation , as telegrammed back in 1962 .

The squad ’s next footstep will be to beam a remotely manoeuvre vehicle ( ROV ) down to the crash , where they may captivate vindicated images of the vessel similar tothose crack of Endurancein 2022 .

The wreck of Endurance was recover over a century after its red ink in 1915 , while Quest only disappeared some 62 eld ago . The vas Discovery , which was used in Shackleton ’s successful charge to the Antarctic , managed to endure the frosty conditions of such polar water , and now sits in a museum in Dundee , where it was build .

The last photo of Quest, taken as the vessel slipped beneath the surface.