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Rescued Cruise Ship Passengers Saved By Passing Boat

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By FEDERICO QUILODRAN, The Associated Press

Published: November 25, 2007

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile - A rare calm in Antarctic seas and the swift response by a passing ship helped save all aboard a Canadian cruise liner that struck an iceberg in the night and sank off Antarctica, rescued passengers and experienced sailors said Saturday.

The MS Explorer, a Canadian-operated cruiser, struck ice Friday. It took on water and dipped beneath the waves more than 15 hours later.

All 154 passengers and crew spent hours bobbing in life rafts on chilly seas before a Norwegian cruise ship plucked them up, shivering but safe, and took them to two military bases on King George Island for flights out. A Chilean air force Hercules transport left Saturday for the island 660 miles south of Chile's southern tip to ferry the survivors back.

"They were fortunate, because other ships just happened to be in the area and came to their aid rapidly," said Lt. Col. Waldemar Fontes, chief of the small Uruguayan base where the rescued tourists and crew took shelter overnight. "The seas were calm and there weren't any storms. That doesn't happen often in Antarctica."

Capt. Arnvid Hansen, whose cruise ship Nordnorge rescued the castaways, said Explorer's distress call came hours before dawn and he steamed 4 1/2 hours "full ahead" to the rescue before weather could close in.

"We have to work together with the forces of nature, not against them," Hansen said.

He said blinding sleet, fog, high winds and treacherous seas are common in Antarctica, Earth's windiest continent, even in the October-to-April "summer" when cruise ships flock to the area by the dozens.

"I've been a captain for four seasons in Antarctica," Hansen said. "It's not dangerous, but sometimes it's tricky and it's a challenge."

Hansen said calm seas and benevolently light winds prevailed as his crew took just an hour to collect the 154 passengers and crew, rounding up their lifeboats and rubber rafts as the crippled Explorer listed ever more steeply to starboard, its hull gashed.

High seas would have made picking up the lifeboats much trickier and would have exposed the castaways to brutally cold weather and the chance of hypothermia.

Instead, it was over barely before passengers aboard the Norwegian rescue vessel could finish breakfast, with many watching the orderly rescue through portal windows.

"Most were in the dining room having breakfast. The operation took more or less about an hour," Hansen said. "They were very close together in boats and there was no problem whatsoever."

Shortly after the rescue though, winds began picking up considerably. After midday, when he reached a Chilean base at King George Island nearby, the winds and waters were so rough the captain had to wait hours to unload the passengers.

"The weather can change in a half hour in Antarctica and you never know if we are going to have it very good one moment or very bad," Hansen said.

First reports suggested only a small hole was punched into the Explorer's hull, but the Argentine navy later said it received reports of greater damage as the ship slowly turned on its side and sank Friday evening.

Jerry DeCosta, vacationing on the Explorer, said from the bigger Chilean base nearby that passengers were grateful the rescue went so smoothly.

"Everything was done right: The captain got everybody off and the weather was ideal. It was a fluke of nature and luckily we got out," he said, marveling at Nordnorge's swift response. "We sent out a distress call and people came to help."

The stricken MS Explorer's 91 passengers included 14 Americans.

The Explorer was on a 19-day circuit of Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, letting passengers observe penguins, whales and other wildlife.

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