Polar Star Antarctic Cruise Ship Runs Aground

Another cruise ship accident has occurred this season, although it sounds like this one is rather minor. On February 1, 2011, the Polar Star Antarctic cruise ship hit a rock in the Detaille area while anchoring causing a hull breach. The ship was on its way back to Argentina from Antarctica. The ship was not evacuated as some news reports have said, but rather the ship continued to sail on the Antarctic Peninsula before stopping at Arctowski Station to have it inspected before returning to Ushuaia.

The Polar Star is the ship I went to Antarctica on (photo in this post is one I took). On my 2004 expedition we were on the other side of an incident in that we ended up going to rescue the Vavilov from pack ice since the Polar Star is an icebreaker and we were in the area. There was some damage to the Polar Star when the tow line broke and the ships collided, but totally part of the adventure of the Antarctic and a cool experience despite losing a day of potential landings. Of course, it is not as fun when the Antarctic harshness turns more serious as does regularly still happens.

Read more about this here.