Russia’s ship to take Argentina’s polar scientists to Antarctic

On Tuesday Vasily Golovnin icebreaking ship of the Far Eastern Shipping Company left Buenos Aires for the Antarctic coast to deliver equipment, fuel and food to Argentina’s polar scientists. This year aside from fuel, food and cargoes the ship will take a new team of polar scientists to Argentina’s Antarctic bases of Esperanza, San Martin, Marambio, Orcadas, and Petrel, a spokeswoman for the Far Eastern Shipping Company, Tatyana Dolgova, told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. The ship carries 4,000 tonnes of different cargoes that will be delivered with assistance of a Ka-32 helicopter to an unequipped coast. The first base, where the Vasily Golovnin will call at, will be Orcadas. This is already the ship’s fifth voyage to the Antarctic coast. In the beginning of last year the ship spent 76 days at sea delivering 4,693 tonnes of cargoes and 899 tonnes of fuel to Argentina’s polar stations. The ship is expected to end its polar mission in the middle or the end of May.