Big Apple Beckons Ice Breaker


From the cold and the snow of the frozen South HMS Endurance, the Royal Navy's icebreaker, is scheduled to wend her way back to British shores along the west coast of South America through Panama to the Caribbean and up the eastern coast of the USA to the excitement of Fleet Week in New York.

HMS Endurance tackles the long journey from the UK down to the South Pole and back again from October to June each year. This schedule ties in with the austral summer when ice conditions are at their optimum.

The ice ship brings together an eclectic mix of specialisations in the 120 men and women who serve on board her. Military teamwork and the ability to adapt, improvise and overcome, as well as balance risk, are all necessary ingredients for successful deployments.

Her work is broadranging but with three main customers, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Antarctic Survey and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office.

Last year a total of nine detailed plans were completed for the Hydrographic Office to the fine-tuned accuracy required for hydrographic charts, including a new ferry route between West and East Falklands, a survey of Port Stanley and surveys of the tourist passages of the Gerlache Straits and around James Ross Island.

At her return to Portsmouth in the summer of 2002 Endurance had spent 226 days deployed with 196 of them at sea. She had clocked up a massive 34,736 miles on the clock - over one and a half times the circumference of the globe.

Originally built by Ulstein in Norway for Reiber shipping to operate under the name mv Polar Circle as a passenger and scientific support vessel, she was just one year old when bought by the Navy in 1992.

Initially commissioned as HMS Polar Circle in November 1991, she was re-commissioned as HMS Endurance in 1992 and lives up to that name. The ship has a range of 24,600 nautical miles at 12 knots on a fuel tank capacity of 1,200 cubic metres. She makes 50 tonnes of fresh water per day and can carry 270 days worth of dry and frozen provisions.

Vital elements of the Endurance package are made up of two Lynx helicopters and seven boats, including two specialist nine-ton survey motorboats that are capable of detached operations.

The mix on board is made up with a few of the rarer specialisations - the diving team is led by a specialist diver, a Royal Marines detachment trained in cold weather survival, Royal Naval Hydrographic Surveyors and a Navy photographer with facilities for still and video work.

The third ship to bear the name, the modern icebreaker continues the tradition begun by the very first, the vessel chartered by Sir Ernest Shackleton on his famous Imperial Expedition to the Antarctic in 1914-16.

The three-masted steam ship was trapped then crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea. Shackleton led his men across the ice to Elephant Island, then set off in one of the ship's small boats with a few men to summon help for the remaining crew.

This boat is called the James Caird and is on display at Shackleton's old school, Dulwich College. Three of the modern Endurance's boats are named after the originals carried by her famous ancestor: James Caird, Stancomb Wills and Dudley Docker.

The second Endurance came into the limelight during the Falklands Conflict. Formerly a Danish vessel called Anita Dan, Endurance had been patrolling the waters around the Falklands and the Antarctic since 1968 and the announcement of her withdrawal was one of the triggers of the Argentinean invasion.

During the conflict, the Royal Marine detachment on board played a pivotal role in reclaiming the island of South Georgia from the Argentines. For her part in the war, Endurance was awarded the Wilkinson Sword of Peace for 1982 and won for the ship her first Battle Honour.


Battle Honours
South Atlantic 1982

View the HMS Endurance image gallery, The Royal Navy's deep south perspective. Click here

Facts and Figures
Class:	Ice Patrol Ship - DNV 1A1+ Ice-Breaker; capable of breaking 1.5 metres of first year ice
Pennant number:	A171
Launched:	1990 as mv Polar Circle
Commissioned:	October 1992 as HMS Endurance
Displacement:	6,500 tons (registerd)
Length:	91 metres
Beam:	21 metres
Draught:	8.5 metres
Speed:	16 knots
Complement:	120 including four aircrew and six-man detachment of Royal Marines, specialist LA(PHOT) photographer and specialist LS(D) Diver
Aircraft:	Two Lynx Mk3 ICE
Boats:	Seven: two Survey Motor Boats; one Workboat; two RIBs; two MIBs; one Gemini
Main machinery:	Two Bergen diesel engines with shaft generators, 950 kW bow thruster and 650 kW stern thruster

(Ship of the Month February 2003)

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