The 35 passengers have paid to the travel agency Expeditions Online to navigate on the root of the British explorer Sir Douglas Mawson, who was in the area on 1911 – 1914.
The master of the vessel asked help via satellite because they are beset by the ice and can’t move, at about 1,500 nautical miles from Hobart, Tasmania. However, this will be a complex and lengthy search and rescue operation because the normal rescue vessels can’t be in place due to the distance to the land. The only plan to do a rescue intervention is based on three ships with ice-breaking capabilities which are in the region but those vessels are at least two days away.
It is supposed that passengers have enough provisions. One of them even tweeted about their “spirits high”, saying Happy Christmas to his friends. “We’re in the ice like the explorers of old”, he said.
