Historian revises iconic shipwreck story after 110 years

The misfortune of the British naval ship HMS Endurance resulted in one of the most famous survival stories of all time. Now, the history of the disaster is being rewritten.

- Julia Musto, The Independent

Irish polar explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton kept a crew of 27 men alive for over a year after the vessel became trapped in ice off the coast of Antarctica, fighting blistering winds and freezing conditions. Despite attempts to free Endurance between January and October of 1915, the ship — which was widely considered the strongest polar ship of its time — eventually broke up in the ice, sinking nearly 10,000 feet into the Weddell Sea. The remains of the ship weren't found until just recently, though.

Now, some 110 years after being stranded, a Finnish researcher says our understanding of Endurance and why it got stuck are changing. “Endurance clearly had several structural deficiencies compared with other early Antarctic ships,” Jukka Tuhkuri, a professor at Aalto University, explained in a statement. Tuhkuri was a part of the mission that found that ship three years ago. “The deck beams and frames were weaker, the machine compartment was longer, leading to serious weakening in a significant part of the hull, plus there were no diagonal beams to strengthen the hull.”