THE ICEBERG PERIL

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21198, 23 June 1934, Page 6

THE ICEBERG PERIL

WORK OF INTERNATIONAL PATROL CONSTANT WATCHFULNESS LONDON, May 15. The springtime menace from ice that endangers all shipping using the Atlantic sea lanes is, according to reports from Halifax, Nova Scotia, greater this year than it has been since the inauguration of the International Ice Patrol 19 years ago, writes a correspondent in the "Observer." Enormous quantities of icebergs and floes are reported off the bleak coast of Labrador, while dense fogs on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland add to the difficulties that face the small, stout cutters of this service. The Ice Patrol came into being as the result of the International Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea, held some months after the loss of the Titanic. For years the United States Navy Department had been striving to chart the course of the icebergs that, breaking away from the ice cap, drifted southwards athwart the ocean paths, following no known currents. When the Ice Patrol was formed an attempt was made to cope with the peril by means of high explosives. The cutters of the patrol steamed up to meet the procession of the icebergs armed with T.N.T. for their demolition. The first attempt was made on an iceberg that revealed only 50ft of ice above the waterline. In its side the little Tampa planted 2101b of T.N.T. When the smoke cleared off it was seen that the vast mass was completely undamaged. Attempts to Remove Bergs Another attempt was made on a berg standing 150 feet above the water-line, presenting a solid wall of ice 300 feet in length to the little cutter, and estimated as weighing 1,500,000 tons. • Yet, although this great berg was honey-combed with charges, the resultant explosion did no more than blacken its white flanks. These unsuccessful experiments were abandoned for the method in use to-day. No iceberg constitutes a .danger to navigators when its presence is either seen or accurately charted, and thus the Ice Patrol protects the shipping of the Atlantic to-day by means of an intelligence service. Steaming up to the north, the Mendota, Tampa, and Seneca come alongside the drifting ice mass and with it drift south, wirelessing the position of the ice at short intervals. And ships, fogbound or subjected to sudden falls of temperature, wireless the patrol for information. Thus the patrol may receive from a ship the wireless enquiry: "I am latitude 47 degrees 1,0 minutes. Am I 0.K.?" And to this she may answer with a reassurance or the message: "No, steer south of the track." While there is communication between the ships of the patrol and the shipping of the Atlantic lanes, all reports are transmitted also to the great station at Cape, Race, and by it broadcast throughout the Northern Atlantic. This method of short-interval wireless reporting

and inter-communication, has proved, so far, the only practical method of countering the iceberg peril, and it is interesting to note that since the patrol began operations not a single ship has foundered after collision with ice. International Approval Under international convention, the International Patrol has wide powers. Its officers have authority to order a change in a ship's course when she is steering into the ice danger zone, and disobedience of such wireless instructions may involve the master concerned in disciplinary action when he reaches port. In a sense, then, this service acts as the police force of the Northern Atlantic, since it has full powers as the controller of all traffic using those waters. Much of the success of the Ice Patrol is due to work done some years ago by a Norwegian engineer, Hagbard Ekerold. Ek~rold set out for Jan Mayen, where Nansen had already planted the Norwegian flag, and on that icy Arctic island set up a primitive scientific laboratory. Throughout the whole winter Ekerold lived alone, making hydrographical surveys, maps, and accurate weather observations. He realised that if his reports could 'be wirelessed to the United States naval station it would be possible fairly accurately to forecast weather conditions in the Atlantic. Ekerold's Success He then saw that if he extended his work and reported ice conditions to the two small ships then patrolling those northern waters, the polar front and Isfugen, the first steps' towards the solution of the problem of the icebergs would have been taken. After many discouraging setbacks, Ekerold got the wireless plant for which he had pressed the United States Government, and returned to the north once more. And he began sending in regular reports to the Cape Race naval station. It may therefore be said that the Ice Patrol is the result of one man's pioneer work under conditions both of official discouragement and intense physical hardship. Ekerold, more than any other single man, did more to make disaster at sea from the cause which sent the Titanic down, if not impossible, highly improbable. The immense importance of the work of the Ice Patrol cannot be over-estimated. ' It will in time result in the complete and accurate charting of the northern waters ana the courses of the floes, peculiarities in which still present a riddle to science. It is now only a matter of time before masters will know the position of the floes as now they know the position of charted rocks and shallow waters. Then science will have mastered the ice, and one more terror will have gone for those whose business is upon the seas.