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Well, based on some records from before the expedition, it's likely Shackleton's decision wasn't made in just sheer ignorance. A letter Shackleton sent to his wife in 1914 said that endurance wasn't as strong as other ships he had sailed on for other expeditions. In 2011, he had recommended adding a valuable support to a polar ship called the Deutschland, which was part of the same icing conditions as disabled endurance. It's unclear why those same diagonal beams weren't added to endurance before it hit that sail.