Businessman and sailor Enda O’Coineen is spearheading a 14 million euro project to build a replica of adventurer Ernest Shackleton’s most famous ship, Endurance.
As The Sunday Independent reports, details of an “Endurance II” construction will be outlined at events planned in London and Dublin this week to mark the 150th anniversary of the Kildare man’s birth.
The newspaper says that one of the early backers had been British tycoon and adventurer Hamish Harding, who died last June in the Titan submersible implosion off the Newfoundland coast.
Endurance crushed by the ice pack in 1915
Mensun Bound, the British marine archaeologist who was director of exploration on the Discovery team that located the wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance off Antarctica in March 2022, is supporting O’Coineen’s plan.
Patrons of the Endurance II project include the Prince of Monaco, Albert II, Alexandra Shackleton, and Richard Garriott, president of the Explorer’s Club.
The newspaper says that an initial 600,000 US dollars, representing five per cent of the capital cost, is currently being sought from 12 “founders”.
It is estimated that construction would require 14 million euros, with a 1.5 million euro annual operational budget.
The original Endurance sank after being crushed in pack ice in 1915 in what Shackleton had described as "the worst portion of the worst sea in the world".
However, images taken by the Discovery expedition show it to be upright and in remarkably good condition in over 3,000 metres of water.
The stern of Endurance in an image taken by the Discovery expedition in 2022 show it to be upright and in remarkably good condition in over 3,000 metres of water
An assessment published last year by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust recommended it be left where it is, and said the risk of people travelling to the site to steal from it is “relatively minor”.
Read The Sunday Independent here
