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Endurance Assists Damaged Cruise Ship
Portsmouth-based Royal Navy ice patrol ship HMS Endurance has gone to the assistance of a cruise ship damaged after grounding at remote Deception Island off the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Norwegian cruise ship MS Nordkapp, carrying some 280 passengers and crew, was damaged as she passed through Neptune’s Bellows, the entrance to the almost-landlocked Whalers Bay in the caldera or former volcano that is Deception Island. It is understood that no-one was injured in the incident and the ship is safely at anchor.
HMS Endurance, operating in the Erebus and Terror Gulf some 150 nautical miles away, responded to the Nordkapp’s call for assistance of a dive team to inspect the damage and after an overnight passage reached the ship anchored in Whalers Bay with booms rigged as a precaution against pollution.
One of HMS Endurance’s Lynx helicopters was sent ahead to establish the level of assistance required, and once the British ship arrived her seaboat was sent to rendezvous with the cruise ship.
The Nordkapp’s sister ship MS Nordnorge is also on the scene and is presently transferring the passengers. Some 50 non essential crew are due to be transferred to HMS Endurance in due course.
Once the damage has been assessed, a plan will be developed to resolve the situation taking into account the special environmental circumstances of the area.
During her Antarctic work periods HMS Endurance conducts a number of key roles. She supports four of the eight British Antarctic Survey (BAS) core scientific projects (Global Science in the Antarctic Context) utilising her two Lynx helicopters for load lifting and the deployment of scientists into the field. She also carries out hydrographic surveying using a state-of-the-art Multi Beam Echo Sounder (MBES). Events such as the damage sustained by MS Nordkapp highlight the importance of HMS Endurance’s surveying role within the Antarctic.
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