shackleton s ship is astonishing. the ship s wheel is almost pristine. bolts gleam in the woodwork. the portholes look polished. and these white circles are dinner plates, abandoned by the crew. this was the polar ice breaker that brought the team to the wreck. the conditions were challenging. the agulhas ii had to carve its way through the thick ice in the weddell sea. until the endurance was at last found. probably the most famous as yet undiscovered shipwreck in the world, and now we know exactly where it is. we know what it looks like, we know what condition it s in and we can broadcast images of that around the world. it matters because people will see those images and will connect to this extraordinary story from our history, the greatest story of antarctic survival of all time.
endurance, perfectly preserved, frozen in time, 3,000 metres beneath the ice. i thought, if there s any wood built ship that could survive the impact of the sea bed, it will be the endurance, and she did, she held together beautifully. but i have never, ever seen a wreck anything like as beautiful and as inspiring as this one. the condition of sir ernest shackleton s ship is astonishing. the ship s wheel is almost pristine. bolts gleam in the woodwork. the portholes look polished. and these white circles are dinner plates, abandoned by the crew. this was the polar ice breaker that brought the team to the wreck. the conditions were challenging. the agulhas ii had to carve its way through the thick ice in the weddell sea. underwater robots were deployed and spent weeks searching
the ship s wheel is almost pristine. bolts gleam in the woodwork. the portholes look polished. and these white circles are dinner plates, abandoned by the crew. this was the polar ice breaker that brought the team to the wreck. the conditions were challenging. the agulhas ii had to carve its way through the thick ice in the weddell sea. underwater robots were deployed and spent weeks searching the deep, until the endurance was at last found. probably the most famous as yet undiscovered shipwreck in the world, and now we know exactly where it is. we know what it looks like, we know what condition it s in and we can broadcast images of that around the world. it matters because people will see those images and will connect to this extraordinary story from our history, the greatest story of antarctic survival of all time. and this was the ship just before it sank,
the condition of sir ernest shackleton s ship is astonishing. the ship s wheel is almost pristine. bolts gleam in the woodwork. the portholes look polished. and these white circles are dinner plates, abandoned by the crew. this was the polar ice breaker that brought the team to the wreck. the conditions were challenging. the agulhas had to carve its way through the thick ice in the weddell sea. underwater robots were deployed and spent weeks searching the deep, until the endurance was at last found. probably the most famous as yet undiscovered shipwreck in the world, and now we know exactly where it is. we know what it looks like, we know what condition it s in and we can broadcast images of that around the world. it matters because people will see those images and will connect to this extraordinary story from our history, the greatest story of antarctic survival of all time.
10,000 feet below the icy surface of antarctica s weddel sea, researchers and deep sea robots have discovered one of the 20th century s most famous ships. people said we d never be able to find this shipwreck. but they did. they persisted. reporter: this is the first image of explorer s ernest shackleton ship endurance since it was crushed by ice and sank 107 years ago. frozen in time, the three-masted wooden ship is largely preserved, its bolts shiny, even dinner plates, these white circles remain. i never dreamed that we d see the gold lettering of endurance with the polar star there on the stern. reporter: historian dan snow has been documenting the expedition that found it. why was this discovery so significant? it s the best-preserved shipwreck of the era of wooden sailing vessels that we have anywhere in the world. i takes us back to one of the greatest stories in history. reporter: in 1914, shackleton set sail for antarctica, attempting to be the