Terra Nova shipwreck found off Greenland coast

Captain Robert Scott’s famed SS Terra Nova expedition ship has been discovered on the sea floor off the coast of Greenland.

The discovery, made this week by a US-based research firm, marks the first sighting of the immense wooden vessel in decades. Moreover, the news comes a century after Captain Scott departed from Wales for the Antarctic in 1910 in a race to become the first to reach it.

Later, after successfully completing the voyage to the South Pole and despite being beaten there by a Norwegian expedition, Scott’s ship – dubbed the Terra Nova – went down in 1943 amid a run to the Arctic to deliver supplies.

This week, researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute notice something out of place on the sea floor during a sonar testing exercise. Upon inspecting the object via a remote camera vehicle called the Shrimp, the crew was able to retrieve clear pictures of the large wooden ship and compare them with historical photographs of the Terra Nova.

Expert Brian Kelly said on behalf of Dundee’s Discovery Point museum, “The Terra Nova has such a story. She went through a lot in her lengthy history and really was the pinnacle of Scottish wooden shipbuilding. It is incredible that one of the most famous ships in history has been found 100 years after the race for the pole and in the year commemorating the event,” the Daily Record reports.