Overview

• The peer-reviewed paper, published October 6 in Polar Record by Aalto University ice researcher Jukka Tuhkuri, uses data from the 2022 Endurance22 wreck discovery to evaluate the ship’s structure.
• Endurance is found to have been unsuited to compressive pack-ice, with weaker deck beams and frames, an unusually long machine compartment that weakened the hull, and no diagonal bracing.
• The findings challenge the long-held view that a rudder failure doomed the ship and dispute the notion that Endurance was the strongest polar vessel of its era.
• Archival materials show Shackleton lamented the ship’s weaknesses in a letter to his wife and had previously recommended diagonal beams for another polar ship that later endured months in compression ice.
• Tuhkuri notes the research reframes technical causes without assigning blame, stressing that reasons for Shackleton’s choice remain speculative while the crew’s survival achievement stands.