Explorers Mensun Bound and John Geiger hold a statue of Sir Ernest Shackleton at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in Ottawa Nov. 4. The two exchanged tips on shipwreck hunting with Mr. Bound advising Mr. Geiger, who led the Quest expedition, to not give out Quest’s precise location.Blair Gable/The Globe and Mail
Explorers who found the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s last ship off the coast of Labrador are now considering sending a submarine with a shipwreck expert on board to get a close look at Quest and bring back photos.
The Canadian-led team is preparing to create a 3D photographic “twin” of Quest and to survey the shipwreck site – where masts and other debris scattered as it went down – in the second phase of the expedition planned for spring.
This week, shipwreck hunters from around the world gathered in Ottawa to celebrate the discovery of Quest. At the annual dinner at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, commemorative medals were awarded to the team that found the wreck in June.
Among the guests was Mensun Bound, the renowned maritime archeologist who in 2022 discovered the wreck of the Endurance, the ship Shackleton was forced to abandon before it was crushed by ice during a perilous Antarctic voyage in 1915.
Exchanging tips on shipwreck hunting in Ottawa, Mr. Bound advised John Geiger, who led the Quest expedition, not to give out Quest’s precise location.
The expedition to find Quest was beset by technical difficulties, including with the winch on the search vessel that had to be repaired on land. Mr. Bound recommended that Mr. Geiger, on the next expedition, bring spares of equipment in case one breaks down and halts the entire trip.
Mr. Bound’s 2019 expedition to find the Endurance was thwarted by problems with the autonomous underwater vehicle. But he returned and found the ship in 2022, coming back with spectacular 3D images of the wreck that had been trapped in the ice for over a century.
Mr. Geiger, chief executive of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, said he plans to use the same technology, created by a Canadian company, that took the 3D images of the Endurance to film Quest. He said he is looking into sending down either an autonomous underwater vehicle tethered to his search vessel or a submarine to allow a person to look closely at Quest and film it and the wreck site. At a depth of 390 metres, he said it would be unsafe to send divers down.
“The goal is to create a digital twin of Quest, just in the way it was done for Endurance. The pictures literally go right round,” he said. “There’s going to be a spectacular array of imagery that’s collected.”
Quest was discovered intact in June on the seabed by an international search team, including seasoned shipwreck hunter David Mearns, using sonar.
In an interview from England on Friday, Mr. Mearns said if the team decides to send down a human-occupied submersible to go to take a close look at Quest he would operate it himself.
“A submersible gives us a different kind of advantage, because it allows an observer right on the sea bed. When you’re on the site at 390 metres, it gives you a different appreciation. Even the best three-dimensional camera cannot replace the three-dimensional ability of your own eye,” he said.
He said getting a glimpse of Quest’s name plate would be particularly poignant, as Shackleton renamed the ship before it headed out to sea for his final voyage.
“I’ve been very fortunate in my career to have found and discovered and documented many, many shipwrecks. This one is very unique because of its history, because of its importance to Canada, to Canada’s story,” he said.
Shackleton’s last voyage aboard Quest left London in 1921 amid great fanfare and was seen off by King George V with crowds lining the Thames. Shackleton had bought the vessel for a planned voyage to the Canadian Arctic but had to cancel it after the Canadian government at the time pulled its support.
He instead headed south on a mapping voyage to the Antarctic in what became the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition. But during the 1922 voyage, Shackleton died in his cabin of a heart attack at age 47, while Quest was anchored off the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, where his grave still lies.
Quest was stripped after the expedition and reverted to its former role as a Norwegian sealing ship. It sank in the Labrador Sea during a sealing expedition in 1962.
After months of painstaking research to find its likely final location, using historical maps, logs, records and photographs, Mr. Geiger’s team found the vessel after five days at sea using sonar.
Mr. Geiger said there was huge international interest in the Canadian team’s endeavours and this month he gave the keynote speech at the annual Shackleton dinner at Dulwich College in London, where Shackleton went to school.
“Endurance is the story that everyone knows so well, that is so iconic. It’s what built Shackleton’s reputation. Without Endurance we wouldn’t be talking about Shackleton,” he said. “But Quest is just a piece of that puzzle and it’s the end of Shackleton. This is where he died, and it’s also where the Heroic Age died. So it’s very symbolically important.”
Mr. Bound and Mr. Geiger said they are planning to commission models of both of Shackleton’s ships from an expert maritime model maker.