One icebreaker may break free

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33787, 8 March 1975, Page 16

One icebreaker may break free

One of the nvo icebreakers trapped in 25ft ice in the Weddell Sea. near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, may be able to free herself.

The Argentine Navy i ship General San Martin ' has been able to turn . around, and she may be i able to make her way along a lead in the ice, ; heading west, to -the • north side of Seymour 1 Island. i This will bring her nearer j the Argentinian air base ■ Ma ram bio. on the island, and '<

into first-year ice, which is not as thick. From there she could be assisted out by another icebreaker. The trouble started on February 25, when the General San Martin was stuck in the ice after resupplying bases on the peninsula. The United States Coast Guard’s most powerful icebreaker. the Glacier, went to her aid, but became trapped herself, damaging one of her propellers on the ice.

I If the ships are not freed jby the end of March, they [will have to “winter-over” [where they are, and fuel and ' food conservation measures ,are being taken aboard the Glacier in case this happens. Plans to remove 121 people , from the Glacier were put mto action yesterday. ;Seventy-eight people, many of [them civilian scientists, were I expected to be taken off bv helicopters in the first “lift.” The stranded icebreakers ■ are several miles apart, and a third icebreaker, the Coast Guard’s Burton Island, is standing by in the open sea, about 12 miles from the Glacier.