BACK FROM ANTARCTIC

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 9

BACK FROM ANTARCTIC

ELEANOR BOLLING RETURNS STORY OF THE LONG TOW SOUTH ICE PACK UNUSUALLY THICK Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, December 20. Having completed the farthest south tow ever made, the Byrd Antarctic expedition steamer Eleanor Bolling, under the command of Captain Gustave Brown, arrived back in Otago Harbour this morning after a trip of 3000 miles to 68 deg. south, close into the pack-ice, towing the base ship the City of New York. The Eleanor Bolling encountered heavy seas and squalls on her trip south, yet she averaged seven knots an hour. The strain was severe on the towing ship, and twice the line broke, considerable difficulty being experienced in securing it again. Seven days’ steam south of Otago Harbour the first iceberg was met, it being of tremendous size, and from then onwards the ships passed hundreds of bergs before entering the ice-pack.

Thickest Ice-Pack for 13 Summers.

By the Eleanor Bolling come reports that the ice-pack is the thickest this year for thirteen summers, and the value of meeting the whaler C. A. Larsen and following her through the pack will by this time have been more deeply appreciated by the expedition. Good health is reported on both ships. Story of the Tow. With the City of New York in tow the Eleanor Bolling passed out of Taiaroa Head on the morning of December 2 headed for the Antarctic to meet the whaling mother ship C. A. Larsen, which was to open up leads for the barque through the ice to the open waters of Boss Sea, through which the sailing vessel will proceed to the base at the Bay of Whales. When the ships were one day from Otago Harbour they met the full fury of the gale of December 3. A strong wind set in from the north-west, bringing with it heavy seas. The weather kept clear, however, and an average '.of seven knots was maintained. The speed was well up to expectations, and by December 7 1000 miles had been left behind. The City of New York was also taking seas aboard, and on December 7 the wire bridle on the tow rope over the stern of the Eleanor Bolling broke owing to the strain. The ships parted company, and the steamer could not take the barque in tow till the following day. The linking up of the ships again was a hazardous task in heavy seas and thick weather. It was smartly accomplished, and a speedier journey towards the ice pack was made. On the following day the first berg was seen. This solid block of floating ice was 600 to 700 feet long and 50 to 60 feet above the water, and there were great tunnels in it. Later in the day icebergs were floating about in every direction. The visibility was poor, and cautious going had to be observed on the ships. Icebergs continued to dominate the view throughout the night, and on December 10 Captain Brown sighted Scott Island, which was discovered by the late Captain Robert Scott. Explorer's who have since visited the Antarctic have reported Scott Island as non-existent, but Captain Brown definitely established the correctness of Scott’s observations by calculations. Captain Brown and Commander Byrd ascertained that Captain Scott was roughly half a fnile out in his position of the island, but for general purposes Captain Brown states the position is correct In the Ice Pack.

On the 10th the' expedition’s ships entered the lee pack, and as soon as the Eleanor Bolling entered the towline parted from the City of New York. The line was again secured, and a little later the C. A. Larsen was sighted. The gigantic whaler was lying in a small bay in the ice pack about twelve miles away. The City of New York was directed to follow the Eleanor Bolling through the ice pack and the ships moved slowly towards the rendezvous. In this big open bay surrounded by ice the transhipment of 100 tons of coal from the Eleanor Bolling to the City of New York was undertaken. The ships lay close alongside the pack, but with every movement of the ice they had, to be moved out into the open water and then back to the pack. AU night long the coal gangs were working, and in the morning the City of New York joined the Larsen. Commander Byrd spent the final night aboard the Eleanor Bolling, and as the steamer turned to make the return - trip to Dunedin cheers were exchanged by the crews. Every man on the City of New York was in capital health, and the C. A. Larsen was enjoying a profitable time, five whales having been brought alongside her by the star chasers while Byrd's ships were in the bay., The Largest Tow South. When the Eleanor Bolling and the City of New York parted company the little steamer had con .ted the longest tow south ever recorded. Tows have been made as far south as 60 degrees,, but to the bay in the Ross Sea, the Eleanor Bolling went to 68 degrees south. At noon op December 11 (New Zealand time), or Deceinl.e: - 12 on the ship's log (as the vessels were then eastward of the 180th meridian), the Eleanor Bolling commenced her journey back to New Zealand. The weather was fine, hut the sea was far from smooth. Westerly winds were experienced with fair seas, and throughout her trip she averaged 'glit knots hourly As she was running light she could not be driven into the seas. Land was sighted last night, and from 11 o'clock the Eleanor Bolling headed towards Otago Harbour at dead low speed. She entered the Heads shortly after 6 o’clock this morning, and was piloted up to an anchorage off the George Street wharf to await the doctor. Shortly before 8 pratique was granted, and the Eleanor Bolling was docked a little later for the fitting of i a propeller brought out from New York. No damage has been done to her old propeller, but a more efficient one was desirable. The vessel suffered no damage during her passage through the ice floes, but several plates aft on the starboard side were dented through the City of New York bumping against the Eleanor Bolling while the coal was being transhipped. New Zealander with Shore Party. “Bright and dandy” was Engineer McPherson's deserintion of the health

of the expedition. No one had found the trip too rigorous, and all are eagerly looking forward to the next journey to the Ross Sea. Only one man transferred from the Eleanor Bolling to the City of New York when they reached the ice pack. An hour before the ships parted company, P. Y. Wallace, the sailmaker from Sawyers Bay, was told that he was to be a member of the ice party, and his kit was transferred. lie will.work with Jacobson and Martin Ronne, the sailmaker’s, and will have the distinction of being the only New Zealander to be a member of Byrd’s ice party. It seems almost certain, according to reliable men on the Eleanor Bolling, that the City of New York will not reach open water on the other side of the pack this month. The C. A. Larsen is not to tow her through the ice: the whaler is to go ahead and open up leads for the barque. Owing to the exceptional thickness of the ice progress will be slow, as the Larsen reported having taken seven days to go 28 miles through the ice. The Eleanor Bolling will take aboard two of the bigger aeroplanes and a large quantity of stores before sailing again for the Antarctic on January 5. On this trip she will go through to the base at the Bay of Whales, as it is expected that the ice pack will be broken up by the time she heads south. She expects to enter the ice on January 12 and to reach the Bay of Whales on January 20. Leaving the bay on the 24th, the Eleanor Bolling should be back in Dunedin on February 6. Further supplies will then be loaded and the steamer will clear Otago again for the Antarctic three days later. She is expected to reach the ice on February 23, and after a stay of two days will set out again on the return passage to Dunedin, arriving here twelve days later. She will then tie up for the winter, leaving fdr the base as soon as word is received that the pack conditions are favourable in the summer. LYING IN WORLD OF DRIFTING WHITE CITY OF NEW YORK SHUT IN BY SOLID ICE EVER-CHANGING SCENES IN THE ANTARCTIC (United Service.) (Copyright—From the Byrd Expedition.) Vancouver, December 19. In a copyright message from the Byrd expedition in the Antarctic on December 18, Mr. Russell Owen says: “We are lying in a world of drifting white. For hours our ship has not moved. We are shut in by solid ice that stretches many miles. It is snowing hard, so that one cannot see more than fifty yards, and in the wind the snow sifts past us in a curtain that opens and closes, giving swift glimpses of a tortured surface which is quickly hidden.

“Overhead is a pale glow where the sun is trying to break through, but it only succeeds in making a diffused light that hurts the eyes as they strain to pierce the obscuring drift. There is the fascination of the mysterious in this eerie concealment. It is not haze or mist, but an enshrouding, impalpable light that closes about us. When it opens for a moment we realise that our microcosm is not -the limit of this frozen sea, but almost instantly that quick stabbing rift is blotted out, and we are alone.

“What is ahead for us in that forbidden land we are approaching? Day and night we have been living in this grey silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind in the rigging and the whine of dogs. Voices are lost in this vast emptiness. Every hour light and colour have changed the painting of scenes which can never be forgotten. Before the snow there was the wind, which lifted clouds of scurrying drift from the surface of the ice and concealed the horizon. It changed its density constantly and lifted up cakes and hummocks which pushed out the gloom. Then they were swiftly hidden as if an opaque, but invisible, hand had swept down over them.” WILKINS’S AEROPLANES VAIN EFFORTS TO RISE FROM WATER (Australian Press Assn.—United Service.! London, December 19. In a copyright message from Deception Island, Sir Hubert Wilkins says: “We made repeated efforts to get off the water with an aeroplane equipped with pontoons, but failed owing to the heavy load. We ran the ’plane four miles out before we abandoned the attempt. Meanwhile, the shovelling away of ice and snow is almost completed on the land flying field, from which the next attempt will be made when the weather permits.”