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 CHAPTER VI 



VESSELS FOR OPERATING IN ICE 



WOODEN SHIPS 



The earliest vessels to be navigated in the ice of polar regions were 

 the ordinary wooden sailing ships of the day. A strengthened ver- 

 sion of this type of construction, with the addition of auxiliary steam 

 engines and a feathering or hoisting screw, was favored until recent 

 years by whalers and sealers, in whose experienced hands it proved 

 highly successful. Compared with contemporary sailing vessels of 

 ordinary type, they had heavier bow framing, usually with sheathing 

 of ironbark or greenheart along the waterline to withstand the scor- 

 ing action of ice, and with iron plating at the stem ; but otherwise they 

 were little modified in design or construction from the general ship- 

 building practice of the period. 



A notable example of this type was the auxiliary barkentine Bear^ 

 a vessel of 728 gross tons measuring 190.4 x 29.9 x 18.8 feet, built at 

 Dundee, Scotland, in 1874 as a whaler and sealer. She was acquired 

 by the United States Navy in 1884 to relieve the Greely Expedition at 

 Cape Sabine, then was transferred to the Revenue Cutter Service 

 (later the Coast Guard) and was operated in Alaskan waters until 

 1926. In 1933 she was acquired for the second Byrd Antarctic Expe- 

 dition; next she served with the U. S. Antarctic Service Expedition 

 in 1939-41 ; and finally she returned to Greenland waters for patrol 

 duty in the early part of World War II. 



The exploration vessel Discovery^ built in 1901, which has also 

 served in both the Arctic and Antarctic, represents perhaps the ulti- 

 mate development of this type of craft. Her plans and description 

 can be found in the article by W. E. Smith. A similar but smaller 

 type of auxiliary wooden vessel has been evolved for the requirements 

 of the Norwegian seal fishery, and these have also been used as expe- 

 dition ships. The Quest of Shackleton's 1921-22 expedition, a vessel 

 of 240 gross tons, 110 x 24.9 x 11.8 feet, is a typical example. Such 

 sealers were employed in Greenland waters by the German Navy in 

 1940-41. More recently, a number of wooden auxiliary sailing vessels 

 have been built as reparations in Finland for service in the Soviet 

 Arctic. 



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