The Wreck of the SS Terra Nova Discovered - An Appreciation of a Remarkable Ship

Last week it was announced that the wreck of SS Terra Nova, the ship that had carried Robert Scott on his ill-fated quest to be the first to reach the South Pole, had been located off Greenland. In July, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s flagship, the R/V Falkor, discovered the ship while testing testing its mutibeam mapping echosounders. The identify of the ship was confirmed by towed high definition video cameras. (See video at the end of the post.)

The media reports of the finding have focused on Robert Scott, which is not surprising as this year is the centenary of the death of Scott and the others on his expedition. Nevertheless, carrying Scott and his expedition to Antarctica was a very small part of the nearly 60 year career of the SS Terra Nova.

The SS Terra Nova was built in Dundee, Scotland in 1884 and worked for 10 years in the seal fishery in the Labrador Sea. In 1903 the Terra Nova sailed with the whaler Morning in the second rescue mission to assist in freeing the National Antarctic Expedition‘s Discovery, under Commander Robert Scott, from McMurdo Sound. The Terra Nova also sailed to the Arctic to return members of the US Fiala/Ziegler expedition from Franz Joseph Land to Norway, before returning to sealing.

In 1909 SS Terra Nova was purchased by bought by Captain Scott as expedition ship for the British Antarctic Expedition. The bow and the stern were reinforced with seven feet of oak to protect against Antarctic ice. The expedition set sail from Cardiff on June 15, 1910. After the failure of the expedition, the Terra Nova returned to the sealing trade in 1913. She was also chartered to carry coal in 1918 from the coal mines at North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Bell Island.

The ship’s long career ended in 1943. She had been chartered by Newfoundland Base Contractors to carry supplies to base stations in Greenland. In September of 1943, the old ship was damaged by ice and sank off the southwestern tip of Greenland. Her crew was rescued by the United States Coast Guard cutter Southwind. The Terra Nova’s figurehead was removed in 1913 and sent to the National Museum of Wales. Her bell is kept at the Scott Polar Research Institute, part of the University of Cambridge.

Brian Kelly, an education officer from the Discovery Point museum in Dundee, where the ship was built, told the Daily Record newspaper, “[The Terra Nova] went through a lot in her lengthy history and really was the pinnacle of Scottish wooden shipbuilding.”

The Ship “Terra Nova” Leaving Harbour Towards the South Pole (1910)