U.S. Ice-Breaker May Aid Ship Trapped In Antarctic

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 17

U.S. Ice-Breaker May Aid Ship Trapped In Antarctic

The American ice-breaker, Glacier, now at Lyttelton, may leave port next week to go to the aid of a 1200-ton South African ship beset in ice with rudder trouble off the Princess Martha coast of the Antarctic continent.

The trapped ship, the Republic of South Africa, is employed in re-supplying Sanae base, the South African scientific station in Antarctica. She has been held fast for the last 24 hours, but no formal request for assistance has been made to the United States Antarctic task force commander (Rear-Admiral D. M. Tyree).

News of the South African ship's difficulty was received at Harewood early yesterday morning in a message from Navy headquarters, Washington, requesting an analysis of the situation in case assistance should be needed. The Washington office had been informed by the South African Embassy in Washington. After discussion at the morning staff conference. Admiral Tyree sent a message to say that the situation could become serious.

In the meantime, and until a reply from Washington is received, the Glacier is being prepared in case she is called on to sail south.

Preparations will involve a few immediate minor repairs, refuelling, and a year’s provisions—just in case the ice-breaker Should become fast in the pack-ice. Captain E. A. McDonald, deputy commander of the American Antarctic task force, is ready to leave aboard his flagship. The Navy's most experienced officer in ice navigation, he has, in the last few years, successfully freed several ships locked in thick Antarctic ice.

Admiral Tyree said Captain McDonald alone had the

experience to give any reasonable chance of success. The Republic of South Africa is in an area near where Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance, was crushed in the ice in 1915.

If Washington authorises the journey Captain McDonald will probably sail next Wednesday or Thursday. It will take nearly a day to load the Glacier with a year’s provisions. They will not be put aboard until the last possible minute. It is estimated to be a 15-day journey to the South African vessel. Captain McDonald said yesterday the ice-belt where the Republic of Smith Africa was stuck was not very wide but it was thick. As it was improbable the ship would free herself without assistance he considered the situation could become serious. If the South Africans had to spend the winter locked in the ice the ship could be destroyed. The captain of the Republic of Smith Africa is Commander J. Nettleburgh, who last season was an observer aboard the Glacier with Captain McDonald. A spokesman at Harewood said it was nearly always about this time of the year

that supply ships got caught in the ice. Most countries with bases in the Antarctic resupplied them by ships. Because no ice-breakers were used, the ships had to wait for the ice to break up before they could unload.

It sometimes happened that conditions changed before they could get out, and sc they became fast in the reformed ice. It was then that the Americans, who’ operate with ice-breakers, were sometimes called in to their aid.

On Tuesday the Glacier returned to Lyttelton after having completed her final mission in the Antarctic for the 1961-62 season.