Wreck of ship from famed expedition found

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NUUK, Greenland, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- The ship that transported Capt. Robert Scott to the Antarctic for his doomed expedition a century ago has been discovered off Greenland, U.S. researchers say.

The S.S. Terra Nova was found by a team from the Schmidt Ocean Institute while testing echo-sounding equipment aboard its research ship, the BBC reported Thursday.

Scott's expedition had hoped to be the first to reach the South Pole, but when Scott and his party reached the pole in January 1912 they found they had been beaten to it by a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen.

Scott and his companions died on their return journey from the pole, and a search party found their bodies eight months later.

The Terra Nova, which took Scott and his party from Cardiff in 1910, remained in service until 1943 when it sank off the south coast of Greenland in 1943 after being damaged by ice.

Schmidt Ocean Institute researches noticed an unidentified feature during sonar mapping of the sea bed that measured 187 feet in length, matching the reported length of the Terra Nova.

A camera package lowered to just above the presumed wreck to film it recorded features that closely matched historical photos of the Terra Nova, leading to the identification.

Brian Kelly, of the Discovery Point museum in Dundee,where the ship was built, told the Daily Record newspaper: "The Terra Nova has such a story.

"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."