Watch the wreckage of Ernest Shackleton's Endurance in the Weddell Sea

Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust announced on Thursday that the Endurance22 Expedition uncovered the wreckage 3,008 metres deep in the Weddell Sea near Cape Town.

It was found nearly six kilometres south of the position originally recorded by Captain Worsley when previous attempts to locate the ship failed due to unforgiving conditions.

The three-masted sailing ship had been crushed by Antarctic ice in November 1915, sinking to its final resting place three kilometres below the surface, following Shackleton's failed attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.

Organised by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, the Endurance22 Expedition used undertwater Sabertooth vehicles fitted with HD cameras and ocean scanners, to track and map the vessel's remains.

Images released by the Trust reveal a very well preserved Endurance, with the vessel's name still clearly visible.

"We are overwhelmed by our good fortune," said Mensun Bound, the expedition's director of exploration.

"This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation."

The expedition team worked from the South African polar research and logistics vessel, S.A. Agulhas II.

Led by British polar explorer John Shears, the team is also working to understand and record the effects of climate change in Antarctica.

The discovery follows the controversial report in February this year that the famed Endeavour of Captain James Cook had also been found in the South Pacific.