Cruise ship rescued from ice

[Kelvin Davies]

The Royal Navy ice patrol ship, HMS Protector, had to come to the rescue of the cruise ship Fram, IMO 9370018 when it became trapped in 4m thick ice.
Fram is now going on with her cruise and HMS Protector is going about her business patrolling the Antarctic Peninsula;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-21140661

[Tuomas Romu]

Fram can not break 4-metre ice at two knots. Looks more like some ice floes at relatively low concentration. The icebreaker probably just pushed them aside.

[Edvard Aaseboe]

A norwegian ship assist a norwegian ship
HMS Protector is on a three year lease from GC Rieber Shipping.

Edvard

[Kelvin Davies]

Tuomas,
You are right; Fram couldn't break the 4m thick ice.
That was why HMS Protector broke it.

[Tuomas Romu]

Tuomas,
You are right; Fram couldn't break the 4m thick ice.
That was why HMS Protector broke it.

Aaarrgh, I mixed the ships! >_<

What I of course meant was that neither HMS Protector nor Fram is able to break ice that thick at any speed. Also, judging from the photograph, there isn't much ice to be broken.

[Kai R]

and the rescue was no rescue:

http://www.seatrade-insider.com/News/News-Headlines/Reports-of-dramatic-Antarctica-Fram-rescue-are-misleading.html

[Captain Ted]

Seems to me more a "news" sec tried to push to an hour news for the NONE sensation of it

The way it looks it is not compact 4m thick ice but flows, broken-up ice drifting. There was at that location no ice to break as you one can see in the background,,more like pushing it aside.. That the Fram had a problem with that I can see and a ship like that should not make cruises to locations like that.
 

[Kelvin Davies]

It might be best to read the Royal Navy's version of events.
It seems it was quite a job with ice up to 4m thick at times and the clear water being created by HMS Protector rapidly freezing again so they had to keep going back to break it again.
If there was no problem with the ice, Fram would not have needed assistance.
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2013/January/22/130122-Ice-Patrol-Ship-Frees-Trapped-Cruise-Liner

[Captain Ted]

Kelvin
good point,, But you saying that the whole ice in the background for miles was cleared by the Protector ? Just for the FRAM ?
If that is the case,,then the Fram NEVER should have been in that area in the first place,, thats exactly what I said.
I based on what is seen in the picture and I was in ice by myself with ships. Simply said for a icebreaker a rather "easy" task,,but for a passenger vessel impossible. When you say there was a problem with ice,, Yes correct for a unsuitable vessel in such waters !!!!
Under 4 m ice I understand 4 m thick ice overall and with that even icebreakers having problems !!!! All the more a reason, if it would be so,to ask why passenger vessels cruising in such areas . It is clearly evident in the picture that it was not a 4 m thick ice sheet ,but flows of 4 m thickness which freeze up again over a while.

[Tuomas Romu]

Fram is strengthened for navigation in ice. Her Finnish-Swedish ice class, 1B, means that her hull is strengthened to allow safe navigation in the presence of first-year ice with a thickness of 0.6 m. Assuming the speed was kept low enough, I don't think hitting a much thicker multi-year ice floe would've been an issue. Of course too much is always too much - it's not an icebreaker, so it can easily get stuck - and you would never risk damaging the ship or if it's possible to get assistance from an icebreaking ship.

As for HMS Protector, her ice class is, interestingly, only DNV ICE-05. That means that she is structurally designed to break ice up to 0.5 m thick. What was she doing in the middle of much thicker ice?

[Captain Ted]

Tuomas
That confirms what I said,, not 4m thick ice !!! 
Based on that,,both should not be there,,but then,,you see it often on TV advertisement for cruises,,big passenger vessels navigating ice, in my personal opinion highly dangerous and one day we will see that one of them sinking in the acrtic or antarctic and then everybody involved acting surprised again.
That Protector was there,,may be she went in to help the cruiser ?

[Tuomas Romu]

There have been some close calls over the years, including sinking of an expedition cruise ship, but luckily without casualties.

I think the problem is that many ships visiting Arctic regions are not ice-strengthened. It's quite scary to see a traditional Caribbean cruise ship next to an iceberg in the Arctic. Also, even a polar icebreaker can sink if you ram it into a multi-year floe, so it's also a matter of professional skill. Long distances are also an issue in case of an emergency - how to evacuate 2000 passengers when a medium-sized rescue helicopter can carry something like 20 evacuees?

Too bad there isn't that much market for icegoing cruise ships. It's perfectly possible to build one capable of operating independently in Arctic ice conditions, not that the authorities would allow that, though...

[Kai R]

the Fram didn