- 6/22/2025
Expedition Sub-Sea Manager Nico Vincent and Expedition Leader Dr. John Shears talk to The Inside Reel about approach, context, logistics and technology in regards to their new documentary film: “Endurance” from National Geographic and available on Hulu & Disney+.
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TVTranscript
00:00Why we go, I cannot say.
00:15Today is the day.
00:17What the impelling force is that makes explorers, I cannot describe.
00:21Come on, boys!
00:22And as long as there is any mystery on this globe, it is not only man's right...
00:26Oh, my God.
00:27Look at that.
00:28But it's duty to try to unravel it.
00:36Like, this kind of expedition is no joke, man.
00:39I mean, with doing these kinds of things down in Antarctica, both above the surface and then preparing for below the surface, it's such a dynamic thing.
00:48Dr. Scheer, could you talk first about what it takes to mount this kind of expedition?
00:56Then I'll go to Nico about, like, underneath the water because it's a whole different world.
01:01Yes, that's right.
01:03So, to mount this expedition, Endurance 22, the expedition which found Shackleton's Endurance, was the largest non-governmental expedition to Antarctica ever.
01:13Where we were going into the Western Weddell Sea is so remote, so difficult to access.
01:20Just to sort of give you an idea of how difficult it is to get there.
01:27More people have gone into space than have ever walked on the sea ice where Shackleton's ship Endurance sank.
01:34That's how difficult this place is to get to.
01:38So, you need a very specialised ice-breaking ship.
01:40You need a very specialised team.
01:42Not just the subsea team led by Nico, but we had a team of scientists with us to provide satellite remote sensing imagery of the sea ice.
01:50Meteorologists with us to predict the weather and the wind.
01:54We had a whole range of technical specialists with us to ensure that we could get Nico onto site where the endurance had sank.
02:04And then he could deliver the saber-toothed vehicle down 3,000 metres under the ice.
02:11So, this sort of expedition had never been done before in Antarctica.
02:14It had huge risks and challenges, which you saw very, very well filmed in the documentary.
02:22So, yeah, so that was my challenge.
02:23I was the expedition leader, so I ran all the surface-side operations, looked after the ship, any aircraft operations we were doing.
02:30Get Nico onto site, and then when Nico's on site, then it's all over to him to deliver all the seabed survey and find us the endurance.
02:39We tried once before.
02:41In 2019, the search for the endurance.
02:45It felt like my whole life had been converging upon that moment, and then it all went wrong.
02:50Imagine being here in a little wooden boat.
02:52No GPS, no nothing.
02:55And then the leader says, oh, by the way, boys, we're stuck, and we're going to spend the winter here.
03:00I like to say that it's like landing in the moon.
03:07It's the same level of complexity and the same level of engineering.
03:11John just mentioned there are more people on space than on the Weddell Sea.
03:16So, you imagine that to look at the seabed of the Weddell Sea, 3,000 meters behind the pinnature ice, it's almost never been done before.
03:27And we break record here.
03:29We have been placed in position to invent new procedures, new technology, new way to work.
03:37And so, we covered so large area.
03:41Well, for your information, the surface that we cover is equivalent of Inner London.
03:50Chicago, no?
03:51In the U.S.?
03:52It's half the size of Chicago.
03:54Half the size of Chicago, yeah.
03:56Wow.
03:57It's quite huge.
03:59Yeah, it's about 120 square miles.
04:00Yeah.
04:01And to be successful to that, we worked during three years to make this success.
04:11And I like to say it's really a Shackleton legacy story because all the success of 22 is based on the failure of 2019.
04:21Without the failure of 2019, it was impossible to success in 22.
04:25So, really, like Shackleton, we never give up.
04:28And we use our weak points and we use the listen-learn to going further.
04:37And it is thanks to all this failure that we got in 2019 that we have been able to find a new way to work in 2022 and succeed to locate the endurance.
04:48So, what I always say is that sometimes you have to fail to succeed.
04:52And we failed spectacularly in 2019.
04:55But we learned the lessons from that and came back stronger and better.
05:00And it was those lessons learned that really helped us.
05:03The other thing, following on from what Nico has said, is about teams and teamwork.
05:10Shackleton would never have survived on the ice and particularly in that open boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia if he hadn't worked with his men as a team.
05:21And that was very important to me as an expedition leader, that we had to work as a team.
05:26We were working right at the edge with brand new technology, getting into a very, very remote location.
05:33It was going into the unknown, literally, where the endurance...
05:37Landing on the moon.
05:39Landing on the moon.
05:40But it was also going into that part of the world.
05:43It's not mapped at all.
05:45The seabed, the survey that Nico did, that's the first time the seabed in that part of the Bidel Sea has ever been mapped in any detail at all.
05:52It's just a blank space on the chart, the Amaranse chart for the Bidel Sea.
05:56So having that team with us, all the way through from the ship's crew to the subsea team to the film team that we had, to the scientists, to our marine archaeologist, Munson Bound and his expertise.
06:13Everyone played a part in all of this.
06:15And it was that team effort which really brought us through and ensured that we found, in the end, the endurance.
06:24We're ready.
06:25Yes.
06:26Okay, let's find the endurance.
06:29We're still talking about Shackleton because this is the greatest tale of survival in history.
06:34And it's a story about failure.
06:36Success awaits.
06:37Dive ones, let's go.
06:39In 1914, Shackleton was convinced the greatest Antarctic journey was yet to be done, crossing the Antarctic continent from one side to the other.
06:47So he dragged his men on a doomed quest.
06:51But that's why I like the aspect of the problem solving.
06:54There's one scene where you're all you're talking about because the way the ice flows, you know, you would have, you know, that's sort of really interesting.
07:02But then having to indicate where it would have moved.
07:06There was one point where, you know, you guys are doing on the screen.
07:09And I think, Nico, you said, I'm just processing because I'm more of an analog computer.
07:15I thought that was beautiful.
07:16But it showed everybody working together because the ship is not necessarily where you would think, but it was.
07:23Can you talk about using logistics and simple problem solving in addition to this technology to be able to do something that's never been done before?
07:31Yes. So the big issue in the Wettel Sea is the ice.
07:37Shackleton called it the evil ice.
07:41When we're there, even with a modern ice breaking ship, you're still at the mercy of the sea ice.
07:48There's millions of tons of ice all around you.
07:50So even a heavyweight ice breaker ship cannot break through all these ice flows.
07:55So we had to work with the ice rather than against it.
07:58So that's why having the sea ice predictions from the scientists, having the satellite remote sensing,
08:04so we knew really nearly every six hours or so exactly what the ice was doing.
08:08So nearly six hours.
08:09We knew every six hours where the ice was going to go.
08:12We've got computer model predictions as to where the ice could go because we can't put the ship into big ice flows.
08:19Now, some of these ice flows would cover the whole search box.
08:22So the whole search box for the wreck was about 15 nautical miles by seven nautical miles.
08:26Eight.
08:27Eight nautical miles by eight nautical miles.
08:29So you can quite easily get an ice flow that size, which covers the whole box.
08:34So it was a bit like a jigsaw.
08:36So you saw that very well in the documentary.
08:38So we're surveying sub boxes within the search box, and it's like a jigsaw.
08:43One piece is surveyed.
08:45We slot that in.
08:46And we go to that particular location because that's the – it's either open water or some leads.
08:51It's easier for the ship to access.
08:53Then we look at the imagery, look at the computer predictions, and then we go to the next spot.
08:58And you're on a time crunch too.
09:00And then we're on a time, yes.
09:01So you see in the documentary that we've gone way past the standard charter time.
09:06I go in to ask for another 10 days, not knowing whether the South African operators of the vessel would allow it, and they did.
09:14And then when we find endurance, we're right at the end, right at the end.
09:19I think most of us on board thought we weren't going to find it.
09:23And I'd actually gone off the ship on the day that we find it to talk to marine archaeologists and our director of exploration, Minson Bound, about how we end the search.
09:32Because we're not finding anything.
09:34We'd had the false find with a little bit of wood and some coal, but nothing else.
09:40And time was rapidly running out.
09:42Temperatures were dropping.
09:43The sea was literally freezing around the ship.
09:47I knew we could only stay on site maximum of another three days.
09:51So it was right down to the wire.
09:57We lived long, dark days in the South.
10:01We lived through slow, dead days of toil, of struggle, sharp striving and anxiety.
10:13And as long as we can come out of this predicament with our lives, we shall not crumble.
10:21And please, God, we will succeed.
10:24Well, Nico, just to add to that, yeah, if you could continue with what you were thinking, but also, you know, what you did, like the technology.
10:31I had no idea it was that deep there.
10:35You know, I had no idea.
10:36I mean, most people, you just see the ice.
10:39Can you talk about that?
10:40The technology was near.
10:41But then once you got down there, like it's preserved.
10:44It's beautiful in that way.
10:46Can you talk about all those things, please?
10:48As you just mentioned before yourself, there is quite unusual that people dive in this area, for all reasons that John mentioned as well.
11:00And for us, it was a gift as well to have a colon of water, which is crystal clear and without current and without anything which was possibly an additional issue.
11:14Because already fighting with the drift ice, and it's something which is important to mention, because usually when you are in the open water, usual operation for subsidiary activities is just to launch a vehicle and the vessel stay on top.
11:30And the subsidiary vehicle master any operation.
11:32And if you move, or everybody moves together.
11:35And when you are stuck in ice, the ice is mastering all operations.
11:40So if you want to go here, the ice may drift you there.
11:44So all the technology which has been obliged to be deployed for that is a real start of the art.
11:50And it's quite extremely complicated doing this bit.
11:54And it's very hard to explain it in three minutes, all the solutions that have been obliged to put in place for that.
12:00But John really explained that properly just before.
12:05And it was really important to have this department from the CS prediction and to have this forecast.
12:12So the scientists played a very important role in the ice prediction with the satellite remote sensing.
12:20But you also asked about the preservation of the ship on the bed.
12:25All right.
12:26Go ahead.
12:28So I'll let you talk more about the processing.
12:31But, you know, it is very deep.
12:33So we're talking 10,000 feet.
12:35So she's a little bit shallower than Titanic.
12:39But she is in this beautiful state of preservation.
12:42One, that's because Endurance was probably, at the time she was built, the strongest wooden ship ever built in the world.
12:49Back in 1912, 1913, before Shackleton bought her.
12:55Because I thought it would be more collapsed.
12:57And it wasn't.
12:57Yeah, yeah.
12:58And, you know, credit to Mensen-Band, our archaeologist.
13:03You know, he predicted that she would probably be still in one piece and upright on the seabed.
13:08It has been very important information for us to preserve our targets.
13:13And the reason she's, well, so well-preserved is, one, she's so strong.
13:17Two, that it's, of course, that deep, you know, light penetrates.
13:25That, as Nico mentioned, there are very few currents there.
13:28So she's not being damaged by strong currents.
13:31It's also extremely cold.
13:33You get super dense, salty water at that depth.
13:36So it's about minus 1.8 degrees at that depth.
13:39So it's like putting the ship into, you know, your home refrigerator.
13:54All right, nice.
13:55Moving forward.
13:57Forward.
14:01Okay, let's find the Endurance.
14:06And the other big difference is that there are no wood-boring mollusks or wood-degrading bacteria around Antarctica.
14:20You have what's called the circumpolar current, and that stops more temperate organisms going further south into Antarctica.
14:29So a wooden wreck like this, you know, Nico and Mensen were astounded.
14:34I'm not a deep-sea person.
14:36I'm a polar expedition leader, explorer.
14:39So this is a completely new experience to me working with these incredible subsea guys.
14:44And, you know, you said, you know, there's the finest shipwreck.
14:47Mensen said as well.
14:48Finest shipwreck, wooden shipwreck they'd ever seen in their careers.
14:51Yeah.
14:52And she is just so beautifully preserved.
14:54You know, you can, you've seen some of the imagery from the movie and from some of the pictures.
14:58And then you can go up to the stern.
15:01You can still see the black paint on the vessel, the caulking between the planks, you know, on board the vessel.
15:06You can still see leather boots, like they were left just yesterday, plates.
15:10There's rope rigging across the deck.
15:14And if you compare what we see on the seabed with the last photographs taken of the ship by Frank Hurley, his last photograph is on the 8th of November, 1915.
15:24If you were to strip away that ice, that is how that ship looks on the seabed.
15:30So over 100 years later, she is not degraded at all.
15:36It is quite simply incredible, isn't it?
15:38I found hundreds of wood shipwrecks all around the world.
15:42And usually I say to people, what you saw on Tintin Comics, the unicorn, does not exist at all.
15:50And here it's better than the unicorn.
15:52It's absolutely marvelous.
15:55Like if she sunk yesterday.
15:57Yeah.
15:57And then because of the super clear, crystal clear water that enabled Nico, you know, using this pioneering 4K camera system that they had to get the...
16:07And the sabbatus.
16:08Don't forget the stab sabbatus.
16:09And the sub-secure of this vehicle.
16:11The stab sabbatus is a vehicle which has 6 degree freedom.
16:16That means it may fly flat, but it may not fly like this.
16:19It may fly vertical.
16:20It may fly on any axis.
16:21So that means we have been able to shot the ambulance on the side.
16:26And when we were making the 3D laser scanning, the Eruvi was flying with 60 degrees of roll to shot all the hull sides.
16:38That's the reason why the 3D model is so exciting to show to the audience.
16:41And finally, we are able to show it because we keep it in our back pocket since 2 years.
16:47So having now released for everybody, it's a gift for us because we can share all the knowledge we got thanks to this marvelous shipwreck.
16:56And we found so much artifacts everywhere on the vessel.
17:02We watched the death of the shipwreck.
17:04Shackleton's six of the men.
17:07She's gone, boys.
17:09From that moment on, he's laser focused on getting those men home.
17:12Now we're stuck on ice and losing time.
17:15Patience.
17:16Comment est-ce qu'on peut être quelque chose qui s'inscrit dans l'histoire de Shackleton et prononcé?
17:20And we expect that nationally, we hope that today it might become an exhibition, I don't know, or a VR application.
17:31But for the moment, look at the film because it's so exciting.
17:36It's so exciting to see the last minute of the film and you can look at the original pictures.
17:42And when they compare with the 3D model, it's a great moment, great moment.
17:47So with the 3D imaging system, this is a laser scan system, it had never been operated at that depth.
17:53We made it!
17:54I know, I know.
17:55But it was the first time it had ever been used at that depth before.
17:59And we're doing it in Antarctica under ice.
18:02And this device has been deployed six months later under Titanic.
18:07But the guys only had one dive through the laser scanning and one dive to do all the video.
18:15But in that one dive, they took 25,000 digital pictures.
18:21Each time the laser's firing, it's taking a photograph.
18:24And then afterwards, Nico and his team were able to stitch all those photographs together.
18:28So you now have this incredibly detailed 3D digital model of the rack down to one millimeter resolution.
18:35So that's where you can see all these small artifacts, particularly on the deck, like, you know, the flare gun.
18:43Just a couple of weeks ago, the guys found a Singer sewing machine on the deck.
18:48It's just incredible what's still there.
18:52And you see things like the ship's wheel, beautifully preserved, along with the binnacle.
18:58The ship's anchors and chains are still in place.
19:00It really is incredible, incredible preservation.
19:06Wow.
19:06Boy, I have to let you guys go, but I could listen to you talk for hours.
19:10But it's beautiful.
19:11What you guys did, unbelievable.
19:13But, yeah, that 3D model, I had never seen anything quite like that.
19:17That's unreal.
19:19So thank you so much for all your work.
19:20Thank you for the team, because it's a real team effort to make this real.
19:24And five years of my life.
19:28So I'm very, very appreciative of coming there.
19:31An incredible team.
19:32It's an incredible film.
19:34We're so proud to be part of all of it with National Geographic.
19:39We're not finding anything at all.
19:41And temperatures are going to go off a cliff, and we'll have to call the search off.
19:44As long as we can come out of this predicament with our lives, we shall not crumble.
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