Endurance will ‘sail again’ after Shackleton’s descendants rename houseboat

Sir Ernest Shackleton probably could have done with a coffee and a nice slice of cake when he got trapped in the Antarctic aboard Endurance.

Sadly there were no such comforts as his crew escaped the ship’s sinking by camping on the ice – but 107 years later his great-great niece is serving up snacks on an Endurance of her own.

Anna Shackleton is the first person to win permission to give the name to a vessel since her ancestor’s polar expedition in 1915.

The 33-year-old, of Oxfordshire, wanted to name her narrowboat Endurance II in a nod to her heritage, but was told by the registration office that was being used by a police vehicle.

‘They offered me Endurance 14 but that wasn’t as funny. I said I was a Shackleton and the phone line went silent,’ she said. ‘After an age, they said I could have Endurance without any numbers – so it was meant to be.’

She refurbished the houseboat with a new engine, bathroom and bedroom, after buying it six years ago, and runs a small cafe from it called the Endurance Boat Cafe. ‘Our family motto is,“by endurance we conquer”. So I thought if Sir Ernest can take his crews on expeditions I can do up this boat,’ she said.

Sir Ernest, who led three Antarctic expeditions, travelled the unexplored world aboard Endurance before it got stuck in the ice and crushed. Its wreck was discovered in the Weddell Sea last March.

‘I think it’s amazing the boat has been found,’ Anna said.

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