‘ROUTINE’ STORMY SVALBARD SEA RESCUE: 16 passengers lifted to helicopter after expedition ship gets stuck in ice

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A Swedish expedition vessel that got stuck in ice Tuesday in Hinlopenstretet, giving the 16 passengers a dramatic sea story to share after being removed from the vessel by rescue helicopter, is now loose and attempting to leave the area, according to published reports Wednesday.

The M/S Malmö, built in 1943, is seeking to replicate the 1931 mapping voyage of the Quest at Nordaustlandet, with the aim this year of arriving at Kvitøya, Norway’s easternmost point. But at about 3 p.m. Tuesday The Joint Rescue Coordination Centres (JRCC) received a call for assistance when the ship became stuck in the ice.

“We were on our way up Hinlopenstretet,” Tore Topp, the expedition’s leader, told NRK. “We had wind charts and ice charts, but midway through the strait the wind turned and the strait was filled with ice.”

There was snow, but little wind in the area, making the subsequent rescue using one of The Governor of Svalbard’s two helicopter a routine operation, said Tomas Ringen, a JRCC rescue leader.

The passengers were flown to Longyearbyen. The seven crew members remained behind to free the vessel from the ice.

“The goal is to continue the cruise when the boat returns to Longyearbyen” Topp said.

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Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

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