As I understand it, it’s not the cold water directly but that woodworm doesn’t thrive in very cold water.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a big one I would think. ‘Big’ partly because of recency bias, but also because it disappeared at a time when–due to technology–things no longer ‘just disappear’ so it’s more mysterious than a shipwreck from 200 years ago.
Damn. They just weren’t having a very good day, were they?
Shackleton - and so many other polar explorers - were truly superheroes!
I there any endeavor today that involves quite the stones of these guys who intentionally got their ships frozen into the ice for years on end? 
Supposedly he had heart problems (which ultimately killed him at age 47), but did not let the doctors stop him from, e.g., smoking, or leading dangerous Antarctic expeditions.
And if a bolt, screw or nail stands ‘proud of the surface’ then it is slightly protruding above that surface. This situation can be rectified if necessary by making a shallow recess to bed the nail into.
Wow. I also read the book Endurance. It was aptly named.
Space - the final frontier. Especially if we put together a manned mission to Mars.
Yay for SA AgulhasII! Been on that ship.
I re-watched the George Butler documentary today. Twice. Very emotional in light of this news.
An archaeologist was asked which yet-to-be-discovered shipwrecks are of the most historical interest. He cited a couple of Columbus’s ships that sank near Jamaica, plus the US Navy ship Wasp from the War of 1812.
Yeah - I thought about that. And I thought about comparing space vehicles/technology with period ships and such. But my conclusion is that today FAR MORE attention is paid to the health/safety/comfort of astronauts, than polar explores of the past. (At least until we see what a Mars mission might entail.).
And I acknowledge that modern astronauts are brave and tremendously talented - but my impression is that they are more - um - superfluous to the technology. To some extent, modern rockets can “fly themselves” more than a 19th-early 20th century ship could sail itself. And sitting in a self-contained capsule impresses me as requiring different - and lesser - demands than trudging across miles of ice… Even considering the isolation in space - folk on the ISS have regular contact w/ earth, and they now that other people know where they are.
Finally, you don’t have the modern equivalent of uneducated seaman - someone who just needs to know the right rope to pull when told, and survive for months on a restricted diet. How much “endurance” is required of modern astronauts?
It’s unfair to compare modern astronauts to early polar explorers. Yes, being an astronaut in 2022 is relatively safe, but so is being an Antarctic scientist in 2022.
Sailors in general a hundred years ago were just more accustomed to that kind of hardship than any profession today. I was just reading about Teddy Roosevelt’s Geat White Fleet (1907-1909). Nearly 15,000 sailors were away from their homes and loved ones for 14 months. In peacetime!
I thought the Geat White Fleet was from long before T.R. was in the White House.
Nope. Their voyage was made 1907-1909
The United Fruit Company’s freighters were also nicknamed “the Great White Fleet”
A hundred years ago, science was still trying to convince sailors that citrus and fresh vegetables were essential to their good health when at sea. While the benefit was well-known by then, some still refused to believe it. There are other means of fighting scurvy, but none as effective. So some of the hardship was self-inflicted.
The best and the brightest weren’t exactly the first to sign up for a job at sea. Some literally had to be abducted. Typical sailors of the time wouldn’t have been accepted for Shackleton’s crew. Almost any other ship’s crew of the time would have met a nastier fate than that of Endurance.
Agreed, especially if it had been a crew with a weaker captain than Shackleton.
Dunno if it’s true but allegedly Congress was balking at appropriating enough money to fuel the fleet. TR said, “Fine. I have enough to get them halfway around. It’s up to you to get them back.”
As far as famous sunken vessels not found yet, the Hiryu and Soryu have not been found. The other two Japanese carriers from the Battle of Midway, the Kaga and Akagi, have been found.