Wreck of Shackleton's 'Endurance' discovered in Antarctic depths (2022) | Hacker News Reader

Wreck of Shackleton's 'Endurance' discovered in Antarctic depths (2022)

smithsonianmag.com

187 pointsthrowoutway58 comments

My partner’s great uncle Perce (Blackborow) was one of the crew. He was the one you see in the pictures with Mrs Chippy the ship’s cat sat on his shoulder. Originally a stowaway he became steward. Lost quite a few toes to frostbite. When he returned to Newport he declared that he would never leave it again and as far as I know never did.

Wow the stowaway! That’s pretty amazing and a very unique part of the story. Perhaps more common in those times? Read the book years ago and it’s still the most jaw dropping story.

Mrs Chippy has a pretty interesting Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Chippy

It even has a picture of the great uncle from the parent comment! :-)

Loved that, thanks. I had a cat that I was told it was a male when given to me only to find out it was a female when the 1st heat came :) I also kept its male name.

I first read this as the cat becoming a steward and losing toes to frostbite...

Every time I read about the tale of Shackleton all I think about is how he risked it he lives and limbs of his crew for personal vanity. I'm sure he was charismatic but I can't help but think he was an complete asshole in absolute terms.

Really? This is the same guy that came back and rescued everyone from the Endurance.

This stuff was dangerous, I think everyone going in knew it, as no one else had done this stuff before.

From the Wikipedia entry:

> Shackleton's concern for his men was such that he gave his mittens to photographer Frank Hurley, who had lost his own mittens during the boat journey. Shackleton suffered frostbitten fingers as a result.

He was also the guy that dared to turn around and say "we'll come back another day" 180km from the south pole, a few years ahead of Amundsen and Scott.

No, you must have mistaken him for Scott. Apart from the fatal final journey, he also sent his men on a pointless trip to collect pengiun embryos during antartic night. Documented in "The worst journey in the world" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_Wor...

My point is that the quest was pure vanity. They didn't need to be there at all.

Sure. Like so many major (often crazy) milestones the human race has done.

* Climbed Everest * Flew a plane * Make a trip to the Titanic * Freediving * Swam the English Channel * Floated across the Atlantic with no idea where we were headed * Jumped from space without a parachute

People do crazy stuff all the time. It's sort of part of our DNA. Being the first to do something will cause people to go to great lengths and take great risks.

Has anyone else noticed that this story is like catnip for clueless tech executives? Several companies now, I've had to endure lectures from management analogizing our $pedestrian_it_project as being so like the Endurance expedition that we simply MUST read the book. Many managers agree that burning down JIRA tickets is exactly like having to boil and eat your own boots in order to survive.

Ahahaha what?!? That can't be real. The only time I have ever had it brought up in a context of leadership was in the boy scouts - and the lesson was about determination, support, etc. in survival situations... Not shipping product lmao

If managers peddle such a book in IT, just run (unless you can earn FU money in very short time, then yes suck it up and take inspiration from that book).

What they are actually saying - please do suffer for us, whether it be crazy overtimes or other abuse. This is not what you, nor anybody else should be doing for any IT job (or any job for that matter). Vote with your feet.

Sometimes you just have to grin and bare it, particularly something as harmless as overweight VPs imagining they are hypermasculine arctic explorers. All jobs are mostly cosplay, management doubly so.

"All jobs are mostly cosplay, management doubly so." - What an excellent way of describing it.

The Shackleton story is one of the greatest tales of survival and rescue of the 20th century, if not for all time. This discovery is as amazing and significant as the locating of the Titanic or the K-129 submarine. In those waters, the Endurance should remain intact for centuries.

I always recommend Shackleton's book "South". It is a riveting account of his failed expedition to the South pole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_(book)

While they never achieved their primary goal I find it difficult to describe the 'expedition' as a failure. That story of three men getting in a row boat and trying to sail to South Africa from Elephant Island leaving the others behind with only THREE sightings for navigation absolutely incredible. That's 000s of miles of open ocean water in a row boat being steered really with just intuition. I can't even begin to fathom the knowledge and experience required for such a journey.

They sailed to South Georgia.

This is correct, I don't know why I said South Africa.

Agreed, this was the most stunning part (and they climbed an icy mountain right after).

It reminds me of the beautiful story of the last (traditional) master navigator in the Pacific ocean, Mau Piailug:

https://www.economist.com/obituary/2010/07/22/mau-piailug

Are there more photos of the Endurance shipwreck online somewhere?

Holy cow my body is in chills seeing the picture of the stern.

Could be worse, the Terror and Erebus are also out there. At least Endurance doesn't have a terrifying name.

https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/nu/epaveswrecks/culture/arch...

If you ever get a chance to see the one man stage show based on the life of Tom Crean(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean_(explorer)) do it. Its an amazing and entertaining insight into the journeys and especially the 800 mile rescue journey in a small lifeboat in the southern ocean and the climb over the mountains of South Georgia.

The book 'Endurance', written from interviews with the survivors, is absolutely gripping. My partner and I read the whole thing out loud over the course of about a week - like binge watching a series.

And, it's a great picture book as well.

https://www.davidspilmanfinebooks.com/pages/books/13948/caro...

As a sailor, I find the Shackleton story to be amazing!

But I always wonder, was it worth $10M to find a sunken shipwreck?

It's nice that an "anonymous private individual" has $10M to throw around, but I still can't help but feel there are ore productive ways to spend that money.

Of course, space ships and arctic exploration are high on the "gee wiz" and "nifty" childlike arm chair explorers wish lists, but what a waste of resoureces...

This is a huge discovery. I can't wait for the day when someone finds the MH370 wreck as well

Just think of the other things they'll find before finding MH370!

> Thanks to Shackleton’s efforts and those of his crew, all 28 men survived and were rescued in 1917.

The men survived in the antarctic for 2 years until rescue? (ship sank 1915, rescued in 1917) That's insane, what did they eat? How did they stay warm?

Read (or listen to) Endurance by Alfred Lansing.

It's truly a great story.

They made a shelter out of their rowboats and survived by eating seal and penguin meat. They didn't stay very warm at all. I imagine their heat sources were body heat and fires fueled by seal blubber. Source: I read Alfred Lansing's book Endurance about 25 years ago, and skimmed the Wikipedia page just now, so as you can tell I'm something of an expert.

Read endurance. This is the most impressive survival feat and example of true leadership, every - single - one of his crew survived... The dude converted a large row boat into a sea going vessel and crossed the worst seas in the world just to get to elephant island (100+ miles? Away) - only to have to mountaineer without gear over a mountain to get to a whaling station. But not just mountaineering, they got up into the mountains only for a terrible snow storm start to stir up... They then used frozen rope as a sled.... Man read the book, it's like jaw dropping... Not based on a true story - shit is a true story

You should also read up on Nansen wintering in the Arctic.

Shackleton is a story about leadership. Nansen about pure survival (and some mind boggling bravery bordering stupidity)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nansen%27s_Fram_expedition

This is such a phenomenal book.

Not to take away from any of the insane adventure, but Elephant Island is fairly mild as far as Antarctica goes.

book by the same name is just amazing, highly recommended.

Agreed. The audiobook version read by Simon Prebble is also excellent.

Seconded.

Also the series The North Water (2021‑2021) is thematically related and quite good, better than 2018s The Terror.

I liked the books and television shows of both but I personally thought The Terror was in another league entirely.

Which is to say people should still watch/read them both.

Although I could've done without the gratuitous and seemingly unnessecary sex in The Terror (novel), but that seems typical of Dan Simmons.

It could have also done without the gratuitous and seemingly unnecessary X-Files tier ghost story, at which point there is nothing left of it.

One of the best audio books I've listened to.

Thanks for the recommendation. On a related note, I have enjoyed The Terror, inspired by the account of Sir Franklin’s lost expedition. Also the audiobook rendition is amazing.

Did they ever finish the AMC series? I read The Terror when it came out, years ago, and always thought it would be an amazing miniseries / TV show, but nobody I knew had read it. Then I heard rumblings that a show was in the works and I couldn't believe it! But it took years to get to release, and then I never followed up on whether it was successful or not. Great book, though.

I really liked the book and then watched the show years later. The first season of the show covers the book. Overall I liked the show, though not as much as the book. It followed my memory of the book fairly well aside from a few significant changes.

There's a second season of the show about a totally different story that I didn't really care for.

Shackelton’s book ‘South’ is great too. A Best bought in the Penguin Orange, to match their other classics.

Also digitally available for free, for example on Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5199) and https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ernest-shackleton/south

I loved that one. For some reason the bit that stuck with me the most was the inside joke they had about all penguins knowing Robert Clark, because they seemed to be calling his surname all the time.

The Channel 4 drama, Shackleton, was also very good.

The Explorers Podcast did an excelent series on his adventure.

https://explorerspodcast.com/ernest-shackleton/

I read Endurance many times when I was younger. Had lunch with someone who turned out to be the son of the architects who designed Alfred Lansing's house! I know, obscure...

THE best adventure tale ever written!

The biography by Ranulph Fiennes is really good.

It really is a high quality piece of writing. Lansing was a skilled journalist, and the way he tells the story hooks you--seriously--from the first page.

After reading it you walk away utterly astonished that all of that actually happened.

Another book by the same name by Caroline Alexander is also quite good. The reprints of the photos by Frank Hurley are excellent.

It is an epic tale and a great lesson on leadership.

I really enjoyed her book:

https://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antar...

Her book of The Bounty is excellent too:

https://www.amazon.com/Bounty-True-Story-Mutiny/dp/014200469...

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