HMS Protector Punches Through Thick Ice

Worsening ice conditions forced survey ship HMS Protector to cut short research by scientists in Antarctic in the middle of March 2012.

The Portsmouth-based survey ship had to punch her way through - and then back out of - the ice pack around an island to first drop off, then pick up some geologists.

HMS Protector had delivered a small team from the British Antarctic Survey to remote James Ross Island, off the eastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
 
THE Navy's Antarctic patrol ship had to punch her way in and out of dangerous pack ice to pick up a research team threatened by bad weather.


Sailors used her small work boat Terra Nova to carefully navigate the ice field and land the scientists with equipment, food and fuel to last 30 days in one of the world's most bleak locations.

While the scientists got to work, the weather and ice forecasts aboard the survey ship began to worsen.

After four days the ship's command decided to pull the scientists out much earlier than planned. A change of wind meant there was a chance ice from the nearby Weddell Sea would be driven towards James Ross Island and potentially block HMS Protector in - like a cork in a bottle.

Protector's Commanding Officer, Captain Peter Sparkes, decided the safest and least risky option would be to sail through the increasing pack ice and send in the Terra Nova, the fast rescue craft Yelcho and the inflatable boat, Whiskey 1.

The scientists were collected with all their kit and were back aboard HMS Protector within 90 minutes of the first boat entering the water.
But now the ship had to fight her way out of the ice at Terror Gulf.


"Then the daunting task of breaking out of James Ross Island and into open water where the ice density was not as thick began in earnest," said Capt Sparkes.

"With very careful navigation and a cool head, our ship's company managed to break through some dense pack ice in the Erebus and Terror Gulf at night and into relatively safer waters."

Professor Mike Hambrey from Aberystwyth University, who's working in Antarctica with the BAS, said he was grateful for help and glad they had been able to do some research.

He said:

"Unusually adverse ice conditions meant it had taken three attempts to get through to James Ross Island.

"We are grateful to the crew of HMS Protector for their persistence in eventually finding a way through the ice and although this left us with only four days on the island we achieved a lot in that time."

Having experienced some extremely-challenging ice-breaking conditions, Protector has resumed her survey work around the frozen continent.

The incident last week came shortly after sailors from HMS Protector fought a major fire at a research station which claimed the lives of two Brazilians.

Twenty-three sailors from Protector went with fire-fighting equipment over four hours to extinguish the blaze at Brazil?s Ferraz research station.

The Brazilian government praised HMS Protector's crew for their assistance in the incident and invited British representatives to the memorial service for the two casualties.