Sir, – The discovery of the wreck of one of the two ships belonging to the ill-fated Franklin expedition, lost in the Arctic in 1846, is great news ("Canadians find wreckage from 1845 Arctic expedition", September 9th).
It is especially pleasing to John Murray, of Crossing the Line Films, and myself, who were the Irish members of the Irish/Canadian search expedition which spent the summers of 2002 and 2003 in the same area searching for the two lost ships, Terror and Erebus.
Dave Woodman, our expedition leader, had identified the most likely search area. In the early summer, before the ice had melted, we painstakingly criss-crossed the area on a sled with a magnetometer attached. Our search was not successful but it was gratifying to see similar technology was employed by the Canadians on their search and that the ship was found only a short distance west of our search area.
Our expedition was poorly resourced compared to that of the Canadian navy, which mounted six major searches since 2008, leading to the solving of part of one of the great mysteries of exploration. I hope this discovery will help lead to the finding of the sister vessel and shed some further light on the fate of the crew. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN CRONIN
Grange Park,
Foxrock, Dublin 18.