Difficult Job For Icebreakers

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31871, 26 December 1968, Page 10

Difficult Job For Icebreakers

(Bj/ Navy Journalist CRAIG DUNCAN)

McMURDO STATION. Nowhere else on earth do the elements present a greater challenge to man than on this icy, desolate continent. Even to exist here man must fight a continuous battle with those elements—cold, wind, and ice.

On December 5 three Coast Guard icebreakers reached the annual accumulation of solid bay ice 40 miles north-west of the United States McMurdo Station and began cutting their way through. But it had been an exceptionally cold Antarctic winter and the going was difficult. In places they had to cut hard blue ice up to eight feet thick, averaging less than a mile a day through the ice. The job of keeping the 150-yard-wide channnel open behind the ships was almost as difficult as cutting the solid bay ice. Low summer temperatures caused the channel behind the icebreakers to re-, freeze quickly. Northerly winds clogged the southern end of the channel with heavy brash and block ice and blocked the seaward end with pack ice. The icebreakers Southwind and Burton Island worked together cutting ice at the end of the channel closest to McMurdo while the Glacier steamed in the channel behind them to try to keep it open. Sometimes the actual breaking of solid bay ice had to be stopped so all three ships could work to open the refrozen channel astern.

Finally, on December 19, only five miles from McMurdo station, the Southwind broke one blade on her starboard screw, preventing her from continuing her icebreaking duties and causing a temporary suspension of channel cutting. The Southwind is now

steaming north on one screw through open water to go into dry dock in Wellington, for replacement of the broken blade and another previously chipped blade. The Burton Island towed the Southwind out of the channel, with the Glacier leading the way and sometimes having to back and ram the refrozen channel. After receiving some of the Southwind’s fuel at the mouth of the channel, the Burton Island and the Glacier escort-

ed her through the McMurdo Sound pack ice and the Ross Sea outer pack to open water. The temporary loss of the Southwind to the channel cutting operation will delay the Glacier’s scheduled departure for the Weddell Sea Oceano graphic Expedition by at least three weeks. Before the Glacier will be free the channel must be cut into McMurdo, a turning basin and unloading location established and the Glacier must unload

| her cargo. In addition, the Burton Island must be capable of keeping the channel clear by herself. The arrival of the first resupply ship, the tanker Alatna has also been delayed. The Alatna has replaced some of her aviation fuel with fuel for the Glacier and the Burton Island and is southbound from New Zealand to rendezvous with the Glacier at the edge of the ice pack. Antarctica has won the first round in this year’s bout with the icebreakers, but it has not yet won the bout. The Burton Island and the Glacier will be back in a few days as mid-summer temperatures reduce the ice obstacles and weaken this most awesome of continents.