The True Color of the Endurance

On July 16, Kathy A. Smith released her latest Fascinated by Shipwrecks Podcast where she speaks to Brenden St John, Head of Ocean Science at Voyis Imaging Inc, about the wreck of the Endurance.

Endurance was the three-masted barquentine that Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed to the Antarctic in 1914. The ship became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on November 21, 1915.

The wreck was discovered on March 5, 2022, nearly 107 later, lying in waters 3,008 meters (9,869ft) deep.

Earlier this year, Voyis and the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust revealed unprecedented details of the legendary vessel captured using the Voyis Observer Imaging System and True Colour technology.

As red wavelengths are absorbed more rapidly by water than air, the perceived color of underwater objects is significantly altered. Standard cameras do not compensate for this underwater color shift, leaving wreck images often appearing unnaturally blue or green.

Voyis’ True Colour technology leverages machine learning to efficiently train a Colour Correction Model that can correct the distortions, producing images that represent colors as they would be perceived in air.

In the podcast, St John provides insights into the Endurance project and the future of underwater imaging technology.