site.btaRSV 421 Conducts Abandon Ship Drill before Entering Drake Passage
An abandon ship drill took place after the Bulgarian naval research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii sailed off from the St. Kliment Ohridski Bulgarian Antarctic Base on Livingston Island, part of the South Shetland Islands, before entering the Drake Passage, the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy of Varna said.
The ship has a crew of 33, including four cadets from the Naval Academy, whose head, Flotilla Admiral Boyan Mednikarov, is also on board. Lieutenant-Commander Lucas Acosta of the Argentine Navy has been helping the Bulgarian vessel navigate the Antarctic Ocean.
There are 29 passengers aboard RSV 421: a group from the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition headed by its leader, Prof Christo Pimpirev, 11 scientists from Spain's Royal Geographical Society led by writer, scientist and disseminator Javier Cacho, and one British scientist.
The ship is expected to enter the Drake Passage before midnight and to cross it in about two and a half to three days, depending on the weather.
This will be the ship's fourth crossing of the Drake Passage, after sailing in both directions during its first expedition to Antarctica in 2022-2023 and crossing from north to south during the current expedition when on New Year's Eve it helped a yacht in distress with 13 people on board.
The Drake Passage is known for its frequent storms, some of the strongest on Earth, with westerly winds of over 120 km/h, coupled with a west to east current of up to 15 km/h, waves up to 15 metres high and many icebergs.
The ship will stop next in the city of Comodoro Ravadavia in the Argentine province of Chubut, which has a large community of descendants of Bulgarians who emigrated in the 1920s.
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