Chinese Icebreaker Turns Back – Ice Too Thick

By Paul Homewood

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/antarctic-mission-icebreaker-delay-rescue

 

As CNN suggested yesterday, the Chinese icebreaker, sent to rescue the stranded research vessel, the Akademic Shokalskiy, has been forced to turn back to open water. The Guardian report from the stranded vessel:

 

But we woke after a brief sleep to the sound of disappointment. An announcement on the ship’s noticeboard broke the bad news: after spending about 12 hours cutting through seven nautical miles of ice, the Xue Long had turned around and headed back towards open water.

"The ice was just too thick, and the Xue Long was making very heavy going. The captain decided the best course of action was to wait for a second icebreaker or a change in weather," said Chris Fogwill, a glaciologist at the University of New South Wales and a co-leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE). "We need a westerly wind to release the pressure on the pack ice in the area, or we need two icebreakers."

Fogwill said the Shokalskiy would definitely get out of the ice, but it would now be a waiting game to decide the best strategy.

This 166-metre Chinese ship, whose name means Snow Dragon, will now regroup with the smaller L’Astrolabe, the French vessel sent from the nearby Antarctic base, Dumont D’Urville, which is 18.5 nautical miles from the Shokalskiy. There it will wait for the Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis, due to arrive in the area on Saturday.

The Russian-controlled Shokalskiy became trapped in heavy ice on Tuesday, when it was travelling east around Commonwealth Bay to the Mertz glacier. Strong south-easterly winds pushed the ice floes in the area towards the Antarctic coastline, forming a dense mass around the Shokalskiy. At the time, the ship was only two miles from the open water. Since then, two days of blizzards have built the ice pack around the ship further – and the edge of the ice sheet, and the open water beyond, is now between 13 and 18 nautical miles from the ship.

"It’s a bulbous shape and we’re right in the middle of it," said Fogwill. "The nature of Antarctica is very different to the rest of the world – everything is at a bigger scale. Storms are ever present, the rate at which they shift is very unpredictable because there is so much ocean around. At the edge of the continent you have strong weather systems and the speed at which things can happen is astronomical. It’s so far outside our normal frame of reference."

 The Xue Long discovered that the ice at the edge of the pack was much thicker than it expected – around three to four metres thick in places – and the going was slow. It reported travelling at just between 0.1 to 3 knots due to the density of the ice it encountered. Technical issues with its engines meant L’Astrolabe did not enter the ice field at all. "We know the ice conditions around us are extremely difficult and the ice is under a lot of pressure," said Greg Mortimer, a co-leader of the AAE, aboard the Shokalskiy.

Speaking before the Xue Long had turned around, Janet Rice, the Green party senator-elect for Victoria, Australia, who has been on board the ship since it left New Zealand, said: "I understand why people might be concerned, but the feeling today on board the ship is like a summer holiday when the weather is bad, when you’re stuck inside reading books and playing Scrabble. We’ve been assured that we’re in no danger and it’s just a matter of waiting."