Side-scan sonar aids discovery of Shackleton’s final ship

Led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS), the Shackleton Quest Expedition assembled an international team of oceanographers, historians and divers from Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway and the United States. Before taking to the seas, the team researched historic logs and maps, cross referencing historical data with modern technology to determine where the ship may have been located based on currents, weather conditions and other factors.

Five days into the mission proper, the expedition located the remains of Quest using side-scan sonar equipment operated by experts from Memorial University’s Marine Institute, a leader in ocean research. Side-scan uses a sonar device that emits conical or fan-shaped pulses toward the seafloor across a wide angle perpendicular to the path of the sensor through the water. Quest was found 390m beneath the surface, in good condition.

“I can definitively confirm that we have found the wreck of the Quest,” said search director David Mearns.

“She is intact. Data from high resolution side scan sonar imagery corresponds exactly with the known dimensions and structural features of this special ship. It is also consistent with events at the time of the sinking.”

Quest sank off the Canadian coast in May 1962 after striking ice, with all its Norwegian crew surviving. However, the ship is best remembered as Shackleton’s final expedition vessel. The Anglo-Irish explorer died of a heart attack aboard the ship on January 5, 1922, while anchored off Grytviken, South Georgia, the remote South Atlantic island where Shackleton is buried.

South Georgia also features prominently in Shackleton’s most famous chapter, during the failed Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. After his boat Endurance was trapped by Antarctic pack ice, Shackleton and five others made a daring 800-mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia to trigger the rescue of the remaining members of his crew. The voyage of the James Caird, the 6.9m open boat that made the treacherous ocean crossing, is held up as a great triumph against the odds, emblematic of the heroic age of polar exploration. Ultimately, all 27 members of the Endurance crew returned home.

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“Finding Quest is one of the final chapters in the extraordinary story of Sir Ernest Shackleton,” said Shackleton Quest Expedition leader John Geiger, CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

“Shackleton was known for his courage and brilliance as a leader in crisis. The tragic irony is that his was the only death to take place on any of the ships under his direct command.”