Mensun Bound - The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackletons Endurance

Our first search for the Endurance took place in 2019 and was called the Weddell Sea Expedition (hereafter WSE); the second search occurred in 2022 and was called Endurance22. Whilst there were differences between the two seasons in management, team composition, subsea technology and general methodology, there were also many consistencies between them and certainly the success of Endurance22 was built upon hard lessons learned in 2019. In every sense these campaigns were a team effort, and the gratitude that is owing to them all individually, and as an assembly of experts in toto, is beyond words. In what follows I shall record first the names of those on shore whose efforts made the work at sea possible, after which I will focus on the main figures in authority off-shore and within the field teams before turning to the various organizations that gave academic or practical assistance, and then, finally, I will name those individuals who helped in other ways, but who do not necessarily fit within the foregoing groupings.

All of us involved in both WSE and Endurance22 owe a great debt to the private and understated man whose tremendous passion for ocean exploration was the inspiration for the project. We are next most indebted to the team at Ocean Infinity (hereafter OI), the deep-water robotics company that, during both campaigns, provided the submersibles and their technical support teams. Without OI the search would not have happened its as simple as that. The management committee for WSE was made up of Gwilym Ashworth, George Horsington, John Kingsford, Donald Lamont, John Shears and myself. The management of the 2022 campaign was overseen by the trustees of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT), and here special mention must be made of its chairman, Donald Lamont, a distinguished former governor of the Falklands who bestrode every aspect of Endurance22; for three years he worked without respite or reward through a period of exceptional difficulty when, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world was in lockdown. The debt of all on the project to Donald cannot be overstated. The other trustees of the FMHT are Bill Featherstone, Saul Pitaluga and myself. Bill and Saul are deserving of special praise as their dedication and hard work was the bedrock upon which Endurance22 was built. During planning and general organization for 2019 and 2022, two other members of the shore-based staff stood out for the scale and excellence of their contribution: they were George Horsington (ABC Maritime AG) and Sbastien Bougant of Deep Ocean Search (hereafter DOS). Another to whom we owe thanks is Bob Ormerod (DOS) who oversaw mobilization for WSE. In the long run-up to 2019, Prof. Julian Dowdeswell, then director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge, worked hard to assemble an outstanding team of polar scientists; I only wish there had been space in this book to cover their important work in the detail it deserves.

Turning now to the two field seasons and their teams. Here my foremost debt is to John Shears (Shears Polar) who was the expedition leader of both campaigns and was in every way exceptional in his duties as well as in his attention to everyday detail and the care of the team and its safety. Special acknowledgement must also be recorded of the outstanding contributions made in 2019 by Channing Thomas (OI) who was in charge of the AUVs and all subsea activity, Claire Samuel (DOS) who ran the back deck, Holly Ewart who was the OI project manager, and Steve Saint Amour who supervised all ROV operations; to have been able to work alongside such a group of complete professionals was a privilege. In 2022 particular gratitude is owing to JC Caillens (OI/DOS) who oversaw all back-deck activity and Nico Vincent (DOS) who was manager-in-charge of all equipment preparation, testing and training ashore and all subsea operations and related topside activities at sea. On a project like this, it is always delicate to single out one person for special praise, but I do not think that there is anybody on Endurance22 who would not agree that, in achieving our goal, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Nico who, so to speak, designed the rocket ship and then landed it.

Finally, with regard to the field seasons, I must also highlight the important contributions made by the medical officers (Claire Grogan, 2019; and Lucy Coulter, 2022) and the chief scientists (Prof. Julian Dowdeswell, 3 January to 2 February 2019; Prof. Sarah Fawcett, 4 February to 20 February 2019; Dr Lasse Rabenstein, 2022). The photographers whose work graces these pages and our website were Colin de la Harpe, Esther Horvath, Frd Bassemayousse, Pierre Le Gall and Julien Trincali. During both campaigns all public relations matters were overseen by Celicourt Communications. Here our foremost debt of gratitude is to Mark Antelme, ably assisted by his team. In all things Mark worked closely with Alex Wright of AW Design, who with great patience and expertise ran the project website. Our endeavours in the Weddell Sea were conducted under a permit from the Polar Regions Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and here we are grateful for the support of Jane Rumble, George Clarkson, Ariane Watson and Thomas Chance.

Major successes of both 2019 and 2022 were the educational outreach programmes that were conducted through close ties with Reach the World (hereafter RTW), and media partners History Hit, Little Dot Studios and Consequential. Our involvement with RTW, which brought us into direct contact with schoolchildren and their teachers, involved many people, but my leading expression of gratitude must be to Julianne Chase, who was the first to spot the potential benefits of a collaboration between WSE and RTW. She enrolled the support of John Kingsford, who made the necessary representations to the management committee who immediately saw the merits and embraced the partnership. Our association with RTW took us into classrooms around the world and enabled us to talk directly to the young about what we were doing and thus we hope inspire them to pursue an interest in science, the stewardship of the environment and exploration-related careers in general. During 2022, in over 32 livestream events (the majority of which were from the ship in the Weddell Sea), we were joined by more than 33,000 students in 28 countries around the world. The educational programme designed by RTW lasted a year and involved 61 curriculum-related papers to assist educators with classroom learning and special projects. Within RTW it is my pleasure to be able to record our debt to Heather Halstead, Timothy Jacob, Colin Teague, Christopher Ahearn, Ziev Dalsheim-Kahane, Brianna Rowe and Holly Ewart of OI who was the 2019 on-board presenter. Other organizations that supported or collaborated with RTW were Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants (Joe Grabowski), the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society.

In addition to students, FMHT was also keen to reach a wider global public and this was achieved through History Hit, which released regular podcasts and made daily transmissions across a range of media platforms. Within History Hit our foremost thanks goes to its founder, the historian Dan Snow. Whatever the temperature, weather or time of day, Dan was always there reporting to the world on the search and, of course, when it at last came, the moment of discovery. Another important aim of Endurance22 was the filming of a documentary and this was achieved by a team led by Little Dot Studios, History Hit and Consequential with the indefatigable and extremely talented Natalie Hewit at the helm. While on the subject of filming, I would like also to record our gratitude to Anthony Geffen, whose company Atlantic Productions, under Olive King and Oliver Twinch, made an excellent documentary on the 2019 campaign (Endurance: The Hunt for Shackletons Ice Ship