N.Z. Scientist Lost His Boat, Sailed Ice Floes

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30007, 17 December 1962, Page 11

N.Z. Scientist Lost His Boat, Sailed Ice Floes

(New Zealand Press Association)

SCCHT BASE, December 16. A New Zealand oceanographer. Mr N. Ridgway, has been sailing on ice floes—sometimes accompanied by penguins while studying ocean currents at Cape Crozier, Ross Island. But he had little choice, being without a boai. Mr Ridgway's boating troubles began when the icebreaker Eastwind was held up in thick Ross Sea ice with the convoy of Deep Freeze ships trying to reach McMurdo Sound. He was flown to Scott Base by helicopter so he could begin his work at Cape Crozier, 50 miles away. But his boat had to stay on the Easr.wind. Its bright red 12ft bulk would not fit in the helicopter, and when slung underneath it swung so wildly in flight that the aircraft was damaged. So Mr Ridgway took a oneman rubber dinghy to Cape Crozier to use in crossing open water to find a site where he could let his pro-peller-driven current meter through a hole chopped in the 4ft thick ice and fulfil his New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Research task.

The rubber dinghy blew away in a blizzard along with the Cape Crozier base hut privy. The dinghy's anchor, em-

bedded in the ice, snapped with the cold. He asked for oil drums of which to build a raft, but they were not available. Undaunted. Mr Ridgway sailed ice floes across the 200 ft channel which separated him from his current meter. Penguins joined him for the ride as he jumped from floe to floe and turned a suitable block into a boat.