Crewmembers have managed to stop a leak in the distressed Russian fishing boat Sparta trapped in dense ice off Antarctica, Andrey Polomar, chief of the company that owns the vessel, said on Thursday.
The Sparta, with a crew of 32, sent out a distress call early Friday after it was punctured 1.5 meters below the water line and started to list near the Antarctic ice shelf. The boat listed 13 degrees and the crew covered the hole with tarred canvass in a bid to stop the leakage.
A New Zealand Air Force plane made a mercy flight to the Antarctic on Saturday to drop a pump, pipes and fuel to the Sparta.
“With the help of the equipment, the crew managed to stop the leakage, water is not seeping into the vessel now,” Polomar said, adding that people on board the vessel are calm.
Among the 32-member crew are 15 Russians, 16 Indonesians and 1 Ukrainian.
A South Korean ice-breaker has headed to the Sparta to rescue the crew on board by December 25 or 26.
