MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

HMS Endurance on passage to Lisbon

HMS Endurance is currently on passage to Lisbon having sailed from Puerto Belgrano, the home of the Argentine Navy, where she underwent repair work on a rudder problem, writes Captain Nick Lambert in an update of the Ice Patrol deployment.

An unfortunate rudder defect which emerged towards the end of the Antarctic tour forced the ship's deployment to be curtailed and sail to be dry docked in a suitable location. The defect was a misalignment of the rudder blade by a few degrees from the centre line.

"So that is how we found ourselves in an Argentine dry dock. The Argentine Navy was amazingly supportive, affording us every facility so that we could return to sea and commence our passage home to the UK" underlines Captain Lambert.

Unfortunately the repair work took longer than planned due to an unexpected and unprecedented strike by dockyard workers who had not received a pay rise for many years and had seen the value of their salary diminish due to significant inflation.

The hiatus obliged HMS Endurance to modify her programme, postponing the visits to Tristan da Cunha, South Africa and St Helena until another deployment.

However "that said, the revised plan allows us to return home a little earlier to prepare for what will be an inaugural nine-month deployment during the 06/07 season. The idea of this is to increase our time in Antarctica during the austral summer so that we can better support the FCO, BAS and the UKHO in their important work in the region".

HMS Endurance expects to be back in Portsmouth by early May.

Tour Operators inspect popular Antarctic sites

One of the last duties to be accomplished by HMS Endurance this season before having to sail to dry dock for repairs was hosting an international team which inspected the most visited sites in Antarctica.

The team of inspectors led by the Foreign Office and with officials from UK, Argentina, Norway, Australia, the USA and the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) was tasked with inspecting the most visited tourist sites to ensure that the Antarctic Treaty endorsed tourist guidelines are being observed by IAATO members.

According to Endurance's deployment site, ten inspections were achieved in places such as Penguin Island, Aitcho Island, Yankee Harbour and Neko Harbour. The findings will be submitted in time for approval at the Antarctic Treaty Convention Meeting in Edinburgh in June this year and will hopefully provide a template for future work.