The wreck of the last ship belonging to Sir Ernest Shackleton, a famous Irish-born British explorer of Antarctica, has been found off the coast of Labrador in Canada, 62 years after it went missing. The wreck was found by an international team led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
The Quest was found using sonar scans on Sunday evening, sitting on its keel under 390 meters (1,280 feet) of churning, frigid water, the society said. Its towering mast is lying broken beside it, likely cracked off as the vessel was sucked into the depths after it struck ice on May 5, 1962.
“I heard that some Americans were interested in finding Quest, and I just had this picture in my mind of a few billionaires on yachts, up in the Labrador Sea,” John Geiger, leader of the Shackleton Quest Expedition and the chief executive of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, told an audience at the Memorial University’s Marine Institute in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Wednesday.
“We’ve done it the right way. It’s not about anyone’s ego, it’s about telling great stories and celebrating some of the finest human attributes,” Geiger said.
AP are 40 years out on the date of The Quest being sucked under the water, 1922 not 1962.
AP are 40 years out on the date of The Quest being sucked under the water, 1922 not 1962.
You are mistaken …
Quest was damaged by ice while on a seal hunt off the Labrador coast in the traditional waters of the Mi’kmaq, Innu and Inuit, and sank on May 5, 1962.
After the explorer’s death, the Quest was used for Arctic research and then returned to its original intended use as a sealing vessel. It sank in 1962 after it was damaged by ice in the Labrador Sea while on a whaling trip.
Shackleton suffered a fatal heart attack on board on 5 January 1922 while trying to reach the Antarctic. And although Quest continued in service until it sank in 1962, the earlier link with the explorer gives it great historic significance.
Ah, cool. I thought he’d died on it when it went down. Not that he’s just died on it. Thanks for that. I’ll bin my comment off
This is the best summary I could come up with:
ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland (AP) — The wreck of the last ship belonging to Sir Ernest Shackleton, a famous Irish-born British explorer of Antarctica, has been found off the coast of Labrador in Canada, 62 years after it went missing.
The Quest was found using sonar scans on Sunday evening, sitting on its keel under 390 meters (1,280 feet) of churning, frigid water, the society said.
“I heard that some Americans were interested in finding Quest, and I just had this picture in my mind of a few billionaires on yachts, up in the Labrador Sea,” John Geiger, leader of the Shackleton Quest Expedition and the chief executive of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, told an audience at the Memorial University’s Marine Institute in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Wednesday.
In 2022, researchers discovered another one of Shackleton’s ships, the Endurance in 10,000 feet — about 3,000 meters — of icy water, a century after it was swallowed up by Antarctic ice.
A team of marine archaeologists, engineers and other scientists used an icebreaker ship and underwater drones to locate the wreck at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, near the Antarctica Peninsula.
The team, which included more than 100 researchers and crew members, deployed underwater drones that combed the seafloor for two weeks in the area where the ship was recorded to have sunk in 1915.
The original article contains 583 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
