Hay bales for the Antarctic

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33064, 3 November 1972, Page 1

Hay bales for the Antarctic

Bales of hay and straw will be flown to the Antarctic this week-end for testing as building materials at the American base, McMurdo Station, if the tests prove successful, it is planned to build a wharf at Winter Bay, using water frozen round a wi ll of hay bales, rather like straw in mud bricks.

The test bales, 460 of them, will be stacked into a 45ft square block 15ft thick and pinned together with bamboo stakes. Lengths of chain-mesh fencing will be used to bind the whole together, and the cube will be flooded with water in such a way that layers of ice about 4in thick will be built up through and round the bales.

Shoaling and storm damage last year to the timber and steel wharf at Elliott Quay in Winter Quarters Bay has made necessary an alternative wharf.

The idea for the hay-bale .vharf was prompted by iceound hay bales at Captain Scott’s hut at Cape Evans. The bales had been taken to the Antarctic to feed the ponies Scott took with him.

The bales which will be flown south this week-end have all been tested to check that their contents are non-toxic in order to protect wildlife which might get at them, and to

check that they will not germinate.

For these tests, the assistance of the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was enlisted and a departmental officer, Mr T. Fraser, selected the rye grass and performed the tests.

The bales are at present in a heat-treatment plant at a Christchurch timber firm’s factory’ to ensure that they are germ-free and non-toxic.

It is hoped that the bales will prove simpler and easier to use than conventional building materials. If the test is successful, work will begin on the new wharf. The wharf will be 400 ft long, 80ft wide, and 24ft thick and will need 800 bales of straw and hay. Bales will also be placed along the top of the ice wharf to insulate the ice and stop it from melting in the warmer weather of the Antarctic summer.

The hay will have the additional advantage of helping to clean up any accidental oil spillages in the bay, though these are unlikely because of the stringent pollution regulations laid down in the Antarctic Treaty.