Antarctic ship trapped in sea ice should be rescued by Friday
updated 8:57 PM EST, Thu December 26, 2013
Morale high on ship stuck off Antarctica
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The first of three ice-breaking rescue ships should reach trapped vessel by Friday
- "Between the three of them, we're hoping to get out relatively quickly," leader says
- "Everyone is fine, the vessel is safe," expedition leader tells CNN via Skype
- The 74 people aboard had a "great Christmas" while at a frozen standstill
"We just want to assure
family and friends, everyone is fine, the vessel is safe, and we're
looking forward to getting home and having a decent cup of coffee soon,"
said Chris Turney, expedition leader and professor of climate change at
University of New South Wales in Australia.
He said crew members, researchers and tourists aboard were doing "amazingly well."
"Morale is remarkably high," he added Thursday in the Skype interview, whose video displayed a whited-out scenery.
Dozens trapped on ship near Antarctica
The MV Akademik
Shokalskiy, with 74 people aboard, became locked in sea ice Monday night
and spent the next 12 hours with all aboard hoping that high winds
would subside.
They didn't.
So, the ship spent
Christmas at a frozen standstill 100 nautical miles east of the French
base Dumont D'Urville, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart,
Tasmania.
"We had a great Christmas," Turney said, though everyone was frustrated about not being able to venture out into the open ocean.
"This is an area of
enormous change. We're in an area of a big driver of global climate,"
Turney said. "We wanted to come here to see how much change has taken
place.
"Ironically, this is actually giving us extra time to do research," he said about being stuck in the frozen waters.
He joked that he gave researchers the day off on Christmas, though.
"We're looking at life under the sea ice," he added.
A Chinese ice breaker
called the Snow Dragon, or Xue Long, was en route from Freemantle,
Australia, to the Ross Sea at Antarctica and could reach the stuck
vessel by Friday.
Meanwhile, the French
vessel Astrolabe is just 17 nautical miles away and is also expected to
reach the trapped researchers and tourists by Friday.
An Australian ship, the Aurora Australis, is expected to arrive later, the expedition's website said Thursday.
"Between the three of them, we're hoping to get out relatively quickly," Turney said.
A British rescue
coordination center received a satellite distress signal on Christmas
morning from the Russian-flagged ship and contacted the Australian
Maritime Safety Authority, which handles the Southern Ocean region where
the vessel was stuck, a safety authority statement said.
Turney said everyone aboard the expedition vessel is scheduled to return to southern New Zealand by January 4.
Expeditions Online, a
polar booking agent for the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, said on its website
that the ship got stuck "partway through her Australasian Antarctic
Expedition towards Mawson's Hut at Cape Denison."
The Expeditions Online
website described the ship as "a fully ice-strengthened expedition
vessel" for working in polar regions. "This class of vessel is
world-renowned for polar exploration, because of its strength,
maneuverability and small passenger numbers," the company's website
said.
CNN's Brianna Keilar, Tom Cohen and Kevin Wang contributed to this report.
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