Yesterday, we touched briefly upon on the Argentine passenger vessel, Ushuaia, that ran aground Thursday on Antartica’s western peninsula. We are now seeing reports that all 89 passengers and 33 crew members have been safely removed from the ship. AFP writes:

They were taken off the cruise liner Ciudad de Ushuaia, which became stuck Thursday in Wilhelmina Bay, part of the Antarctic peninsula that reaches towards the southern tip of South America, Commander Alan Nettle said.

Argentine authorities on Thursday said the passengers and 33 crew members were all unhurt and the vessel was in no danger of sinking.

Citizens from Australia, Belgium, Britain, China, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the United States were among the passengers on the ship.

It is still unclear as to how much fuel was leaked into the water but reports are saying that the tank has been sealed.  We will be sure to update if we hear any more news on this incident.

Listen to our podcast on the M/V Explorer sinking HERE then read our previous posts HERE and HERE.

Also be sure to take a look at these excellent BitterEnd posts:

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• Japanese CG pursues Sea Shepard Vessel

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• Riverdance Flounders After Rogue Wave

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.

(Note: We made an error, the above photo is of the EXPLORER II)

In breaking news the BBC tells us;

More than 150 tourists and crew have been rescued off Argentina from an expedition ship, after it hit ice.

The M/S Explorer began listing close to King George Island in the Antarctic Ocean, near the South Shetland Islands.

Susan Hayes, of Gap Adventures, which owns the ship, said some 100 passengers and 54 crew members were evacuated to lifeboats and then to another ship.

She said the vessel left Ushuaia on Argentina’s southern tip on 11 November on a 19-day trip to the Drake Passage.

The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said it was informed at 0524 GMT on Friday of the incident involving the 2,400-tonne vessel. read more…