A South African polar expedition team on Wednesday reached the wreckage of Anglo-Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, which sank off the coast of Antarctica in 1915.

Mensun Bound, director of the expedition team on the South African polar research vessel SA Agulhas II, said in a statement that they had reached the Endurance, which 107 years ago encountered densely packed ice and became trapped, forcing all 28 men on board to abandon ship.

The ship sank in the Weddell Sea after being crushed by the ice.

Shackleton and his crew managed to survive the harsh polar conditions and return to their country.

Bound noted that the ship, which was reached at a depth of about 3,000 meters (over 9,842 feet), had been perfectly preserved.

“This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen,” he said. “It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation.”

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