BUENOS AIRES -- The first cruise ship built to ply the frigid waters off Antarctica became the first to sink there Friday. The red-hulled Explorer struck ice, taking on water as 154 passengers and crew members scrambled to safety aboard lifeboats and rafts. The ship later went to the bottom. The 38-year-old vessel was in the middle of a 19-day voyage when it sent a distress call early Friday after its hull was punctured. A Norwegian cruise ship rescued the passengers and crew nearly two hours after they abandoned ship in freezing weather.
"It was submerged ice, and the result was a hole about the size of a fist in the side of the hull, so it began taking on water . . . but quite slowly," Susan Hayes, a spokeswoman for the ship's owner, GAP Adventures, told the Associated Press. "The passengers are absolutely fine. They're all accounted for, no injuries whatsoever."Smallish and with a hull designed to withstand ice, the Explorer pioneered a trade that opened up Antarctica's wonders to people other than scientists and explorers. Today about 37,000 people a year visit the frozen continent on tour ships.
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