David Hindin, a gCaptain reader from the San Francisco Bay Area pointed us to this image and audio file from the New York Times. They tell us;
A small, historic cruise ship with an imperfect security record was listing dangerously after it struck ice in Antarctic waters today, with 154 passengers and crew members evacuated in a flotilla of lifeboats and inflatable boats, the cruise operator and coast guards said.
Late into the day, the small red and white ship — named the Explorer but known affectionately as “the little red ship” — was listing steeply to starboard, nearly on its side, awash in ice floes and steely gray water. The vessel — on an expedition to trace the doomed route of the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton — sent out a distress signal in the middle of the night (5:24 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time) after it began to take in water through “a fist-sized hole,” said Dan Brown, a spokesman for G.A.P. Adventures, the Toronto-based tour operator that owns and operates the ship. He said the “running assumption” is that it hit an iceberg. Water began to trickle into a cabin and eventually flooded the engine room, causing the ship to lose power.
The accident occurred well north of the Antarctic Circle in an island chain that is part of the Antarctic peninsula, which juts close to South America and has seen sharp warming of temperatures in recent years.As the satellite distress signal was being picked up by coast guard stations in Britain; Norfolk, Va.; and Ushuaia, Argentina, the ship’s 100 passengers — 14 of them American, 24 British, 17 Dutch, 12 Canadian and a smattering of other nationalities— were awakened and told to don warm clothes and life preservers, said Mark Clark, a spokesman for Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which was one of the first authorities to receive the distress signal. They clambered down ladders on the ship’s side to board lifeboats.
Mr. Clark said they were taken aboard a small research vessel, the National Geographic Endeavour, that was nearby, before they were transferred to a Norwegian cruise line.
You can continue reading this NYTimes story by clicking HERE.
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16 responses so far ↓
1 “…if Nature has anything to teach us at all, her first lesson is in humility” « Sea-Fever blog // Nov 23, 2007 at 8:28 pm
[…] friend John over at gCaptain.com has several great entries (here and here) including an audio report from Jon Bowmaster, a travel writer and lecturer aboard the National […]
2 Anonymous // Nov 23, 2007 at 9:22 pm
The ship is not the Explorer II, she’s the “Explorer” IMO 6924959
3 Fred Fry // Nov 24, 2007 at 6:15 am
I think it would be fair to call the National Geographic Endeavour a cruiseship doing the same thing as the EXPLORER. Seems that some of the news reports are questioning the age of the EXPLORER as well as commenting on some deficiencies in a past Port State Control inspection. Oddly enough the NG ENDEVOUR is older than the EXPLORER and also has a PS inpsection from earlier this year list 8 deficiencies.
A newer ship is going to be bigger and present much more surface area to being holed by ice, leaving that many more passengers adrift at sea, with only smaller ships to come to their aid.
At any rate, seems that the ship’s crew successfully evacuated the passengers.
4 Environmental cruise ships maybe wrecking the very places they visit « Capdiamont’s Weblog // Nov 24, 2007 at 1:31 pm
[…] was another ship that ran aground off the coast of one of Antarctica’s islands last Feb 1st. gCaptain’s latest update here. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI […]
5 CheckSix // Nov 24, 2007 at 4:42 pm
One news source reported that the MS Explorer had a double “bottom”, while the G.A.P. Adventure website listed the Explorer as 1) shallow draft, ice strengthened double hull; and 2) double, ice hardened hull ice rating of “1A1 Ice A”. Is there a difference between ice strengthened and ice hardened?
Does double hull mean a structural feature up to the waterline and a strengthened bow?
6 John // Nov 24, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I’d have to ask a Naval Architect to answer your first question but a double hull is simple 2 hulls with an air gap between them. This means that if one hull is penetrated the second can maintain the watertight integrity of the vessel. These are primarily found on oil tankers and were mandated after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Here’s a photo to illustrate a double hull:
http://www.diamondvessels.com/publish_files/d34_3.jpg
Having a double hull doesn’t mean automatically mean the bow was strengthened.
7 Laura Thieme // Nov 27, 2007 at 10:57 pm
I’m going to Antarctica next week on the Abercrombie & Kent Explorer II (now called the Minerva). It is a double hulled ice class vessel with an Italian RINA Class 1-D rating. What’s the difference between the two (Explorer rating versus Explorer II rating)?
Do either really matter if you hit an iceberg?
8 John // Nov 28, 2007 at 3:41 am
Good question!
“Do either really matter if you hit an iceberg?” yes, depending on how you hit the iceburg. If you scrape down the side at low speed the double hull will help but I don’t know enough about the Class rating to give you a better answer.
Any one else know?
9 Global Warming, Environmental Awareness, Effects of Global Warming: LauraThieme.com — Anything that is rarely search marketing related - awareness about global warming, climate change and related topics. // Nov 28, 2007 at 5:37 am
Does an ice-breaker or double-hulled ice strengthened boat have a chance up against an iceberg? I just found a great website that references some of the questions I have about the differences betweendouble hull, ice-strengthened
10 JSM // Nov 28, 2007 at 5:54 am
Laura, I retired in 2002 but RINA had a bad reputation most of my career. They got a portion of blame for the ERIKA tragedy in 2000 and made promises to improve but were only moderately successful by the time I left. The CG publishes statistics:
http://homeport.uscg.mil/mycg/portal/ep/contentView.do?contentTypeId=2&channelId=-18371&contentId=21920&programId=21428&programPage=%2Fep%2Fprogram%2Feditorial.jsp&pageTypeId=13489&BV_SessionID=@@@@0776069698.1196254198@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccfaddmhfjfeefcfjgcfgfdffhdghl.0
11 Capt. Mike // Nov 28, 2007 at 5:57 am
Those are only US stats and we all know the worst ships avoid the US. Try parismou.org
12 Alex // Nov 28, 2007 at 6:12 am
I believe that ship was originally designed as a russian research vsl.
13 JSM // Nov 28, 2007 at 6:26 am
Swedish Finnish Ice Class rating of 1D: “for ships intended to navigate in light first-year ice conditions”
Ice Classes:
http://www.sjofartsverket.se/templates/SFVXPage____5548.aspx
14 Episode #1 (December 7, 2007) « Messing About In Ships // Dec 7, 2007 at 1:27 pm
[…] Explorer sinking in Antarctica (gCaptain and […]
15 Episode #1 (December 7, 2007) « Messing About In Ships // Dec 8, 2007 at 5:58 pm
[…] Explorer sinking in Antarctica (gCaptain and […]
16 Cruise Ship Iceburg - Dogpile web Search // Dec 30, 2007 at 6:07 pm
[…] Fashion Designers. Sponsored by: Style.com/fashionshows/ [Found on Ads by Google] 2. Cruise Ship Explorer Antarctic Abandonment - Update | gCaptain.com A small, historic cruise ship with an imperfect security record was listing …. yes, depending […]
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