TERRA NOVA Found - The wreck of the Expedition Ship TERRA NOVA, that carried Captain Robert Scott, RN on his expedition to the Antarctic has been recently been discovered off the Greenland coast by the Research Ship FALKOR of the Schmidt Ocean Institute’.   The FALKOR was testing the echo-sounding equipment aboard, and one of the scientists noticed an unidentified feature during sonar mapping of the sea bed.    Team members then noted that the length of the feature matched the reported length of the TERRA NOVA.    A camera package called SHRIMP was sent down to film the wreck and camera tows across the top of the target showed the remains of a wooden wreck lying on the seabed.      Footage from the Shrimp also identified a funnel lying next to the ship.

The TERRA NOVA, the name is Latin for Newfoundland, was built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet was a “sealer” proving her worth in this hazardous activity before being called upon for expedition work, being was ideally suited to the polar regions.       In 1903 the TERRA NOVA sailed in company with fellow ex-whaler MORNING to assist in freeing from McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) the DISCOVERY of the National Antarctic Expedition, lead by Robert Falcon Scott.    After returning to Newfoundland in 1906, the TERRA NOVA resumed sealing duties with her owners, C.T. Bowring & Co. of St. John's and Liverpool.       In 1909 the TERRA NOVA was bought for the sum of £12,500 from her owners by Captain R.F. Scott RN, as expedition ship for the British Antarctic Expedition 1910.  Work was put in hand to reinforce the ship from bow to stern with seven feet of oak, to protect against the Antarctic ice pack, the TERRA NOVA she sailed from Cardiff in June 1910 under the overall command of Captain R.F. Scott who described her as "a wonderfully fine ice ship.... As she bumped the floes with mighty shocks, crushing and grinding a way through some, twisting and turning to avoid others, she seemed like a living thing fighting a great fight".

After wintering at Cape Evans on Ross Island, a party lead by Scott set out on a race to be the first men at the South Pole using tractors and Mongolian ponies, but the final 800 miles was to be on foot.    Reaching the South Pole in January 1912, they found that the Norwegian expedition had beaten them by thirty four days.        Worse was to come, as all five men died on the return journey. Tent, bodies, and journals were found the following summer.     After returning from the Antarctic in 1913, the TERRA NOVA was purchased by her former owners and resumed work in the Newfoundland seal fishery.      In  1942 (when 58 years old) the TERRA NOVA was chartered by Newfoundland Base Contractors to carry supplies to base stations in Greenland in September 1943 the ship was damaged by ice and sank off the southwestern tip of Greenland; the crew were saved by a United States Coastguard Cutter (SOUTHWIND).   Letter the figurehead was removed in 1913 and sent to the back to the UK (Now in the National al Museum of Wales).   The ship’s bell is kept at the Scott Polar Research Institute, part of the University of Cambridge being gifted to them in October 1952.    The bell is rung every weekday, at 10.30 and 16.00, when everyone within the Institute is invited to gather for coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon.    It is rung in the manner of a ship's watch, five bells in the morning and eight bells in the afternoon.   The Binnacle of the TERRA NOVA is currently on display in the Pierhead Building at Cardiff Bay.