A Decade of Navigation in the Antarctic

Extract

It has been the Government's policy to maintain an occasional British naval presence in the Antarctic, deploying the Royal Navy's Ice Patrol Ship south each year during the southern summer, when the ice and weather are slightly more clement. Ten years ago one of the authors was navigating officer in the Ice Patrol Ship H.M.S. Protector, the last remaining wartime netlayer, and extensively modified for her new role. A flight deck and hangar had been built over the net deck, special deck level tanks were added for the aviation fuel and eventually a new bow added, similar to the bow of the Blackwood class frigate. It was most effective and made the bridge area much less prone to spray, improving her performance in rough seas. Her original construction was flat bottomed with twin screws in tunnels separated by a skeg; the hangar made her act like a weather vane and when altering course it was usually necessary to apply opposite wheel 300 before the new course in order to steady her. She would roll on a wet sponge in dry dock but I became very attached to her, after all we celebrated our thirtieth birthdays within a fortnight of each other one glorious Antarctic day, and that is long service for a warship by modern standards. John Draper was navigating the present Ice Patrol Ship H.M.S. Endurance ten years later and it is interesting to compare navigational techniques and equipment then and now.