Royal Navy Ice patrol HMS Protector has arrived in Antarctica for the first time this season after her long sail south from Portsmouth. She will spend this, the first of her four work periods in the ice this Austral Summer, supporting an international team conducting formal Antarctic Treaty inspections of sites across the Peninsula.
The Ice patrol inspection is
undertaken jointly by the UK,
Spain and the Netherlands
Led by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and with the support of the
British Antarctic Survey and observers from HMS Protector, the international
team will inspect a number of scientific stations, historic sites, cruise
vessels and yachts.
HMS Protector’s designated
Antarctic Treaty Observers, who are tasked to provide specialist advice and
support to the inspection team, include the Executive Officer, Medical Officer,
photographer and a small team of engineers.
With a flotilla of small boats,
including: the state-of-the-art survey motor boat, ‘James Caird IV’; an 8.5m
ramped Work Boat, ‘Terra Nova’, and; two Pacific 22 rigid inflatable boats
(‘Aurora and ‘Nimrod’), the 5,000 tons Ice Patrol Ship and her highly trained
crew are well equipped to deploy personnel ashore or afloat in order to conduct
these types of operations.
Undertaken jointly by the United
Kingdom, Spain
and the Netherlands,
the inspection program will be conducted in accordance with the Antarctic
Treaty.
Under the Treaty, parties are
able to conduct on-site, unannounced inspections of all installations and
facilities in the region, in order to ensure observance of all of the Treaty's
provisions.
Commencing the program of
inspections the team deployed from HMS Protector to the Brazilian research
station Comandante Ferraz.
Named after the Brazillian Navy
Commander Luís Antônio de Carvalho Ferraz, a hydrographer and oceanographer,
Ferraz is located in Admiralty Bay,
King George
Island, which is near the tip of the
Antarctic Peninsula in the South Shetland
Islands.
The inspection of Ferraz Base was
particularly poignant for HMS Protector; sailors from the ship helped tackle a
fire which broke out and tragically killed two Brazilians at the research
station in February, during the last season in the ice.
On completion of the inspection
at Ferraz, the team transited to Henryk Arctowski the Polish Antarctic Station
in order to commence the second of many planned base inspections. The program
of inspections will continue until mid-December.
HMS Protector’s Executive
Officer, Commander Don Mackinnon said: “HMS Protector is in the Antarctic
representing both the United Kingdom
and the Royal Navy in order to promote peace and security in region, and to
help the international inspection team determine whether parties to the
Antarctic Treaty are meeting their obligations.
“The unique, signature capability
of the Royal Navy’s Ice Patrol Ship, and the significant and very positive
contribution it makes to regional co-operation and engagement, has never been
more in important. We look forward to a long and productive season in Antarctica.”
HMS Protector will also conduct survey tasks in the South Atlantic over Christmas and New Year before returning to Antarctic waters in January – April 2013.
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