Endurance was going to sink

Frank Wild, who Shackleton regarded as a "second self," said, "'Yes, but we are not going to let the ice get us. The poor little Endurance may have to go, but we won't.'

Wild had said just the right thing. To an old seaman like myself the very idea of giving up a ship is something like having an arm or leg amputated; but Wild's words made me realize that in spite of the importance which the ship might have in my eyes, there were human lives at stake, fine and splendid men, and that our job was to see that the ice didn't get them - even if it got my ship."

Frank Worsley, Endurance (later revised into Shackleton's Boat Journey)