Chapter 706: A Rare Icebreaking Exploration Ship
The sound of a ship's whistle can be heard five kilometers away, and on the vast and silent ice field, this distance can be further increased. Therefore, before the Tethis officially arrived at the coast, Bi Fang had already driven the three idiots towards the shore on a sled.
The ship approached the ice field and headed towards the coast.
This is a two-way race.
A quarter of an hour later, Bifang finally saw the huge cruise ship cruising on the ocean on the long coastline. The indicator lights on the cruise ship were on and the hull was emitting a soft orange light, which made the tense atmosphere a little more relaxed.
However, since Bifang only provided an approximate direction and did not provide the precise longitude and latitude, the people on the boat had not yet found the suitable route that Bifang mentioned.
Bifang quickly threw the fuel he brought on the ground and used the sparks stored in advance to quickly ignite it, creating a light.
If it were daytime, Bifang could make flags out of musk ox skin. The brown musk ox skin would definitely be very eye-catching on the white ice field, but this trick was obviously useless in the eternal night of the Arctic, so he could only switch to a bonfire.
The small bonfire burned under the starry sky. Although it was not big, it was very conspicuous.
The crew member holding a telescope on the side noticed a beam of light in the dark night. He looked over there and easily found Bifang and his three sled dogs standing on the shore. He immediately looked up and shouted to the captain's room: "Captain, we found it, at ten o'clock!"
Harves walked over quickly, raised his telescope , and quickly locked onto the target on the shore. He was overjoyed and immediately gave the order: "Left rudder ten!"
The crew member at the helm did not hesitate at all, and turned the rudder reflexively, repeating at the same time: "Left rudder ten!"
After a moment, the command was completed and the sailor reported the effect of the execution: "Ten degrees left!"
Harvis nodded quietly, changed the course of the Tethis and headed straight towards Bifang.
Seeing the distance between the two sides gradually shortened, Harvest gave another order: "Full speed, don't stop, let's just crash into them! Start breaking the ice!"
"Yes! Get ready to break the ice!"
The crew member operating the signal light nearby quickly gave a signal according to the instructions, and Bifang near the coast saw the flashing lights.
Bifang, who had some understanding of signals, instantly understood Captain Harvis's idea, which meant to pay attention and avoid. He quickly pulled the reins, turned the sled around, and ran inland.
After leaving nearly a hundred meters, Bifang stopped the sled and looked at the Taisis gradually approaching with anticipation in his eyes.
The audience's eyes widened. Many of them had never seen an icebreaker, let alone watched an icebreaker breaking ice. It was very novel.
The three idiots sat in front of Bifang. Seeing the huge Thesis getting closer and closer, they couldn't help getting a little anxious. They stood up and barked at the cruise ship. Finally, Bifang pinched the back of the three idiots' necks to make them calm down. But looking at Goudan's trembling thighs, one could tell that this guy was still very scared inside.
It seems that he has never seen a boat, Bifang thought.
【The big one is coming, the big one is coming! 】
【Go, go, go! 】
[Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, it’s about to hit]
Amid the excited comments from netizens, the Tethis did not stop for a moment, but instead increased its speed and crashed into the ice field. Finally, in front of millions of people, the collision between steel and ice took place.
"Kuachacha."
Perhaps it was because of the polar night, or perhaps the Thesis encountered a blizzard, and the hull was thick. The audience discovered that the Thesis was covered with white frost, and the steel hull made a unique structural collision sound of a giant. The steel sound continued to echo in the empty cavity and finally reached the ice field.
There was no shock as imagined, no exaggerated scenes, it was like entering... a land without ice.
Without any hesitation, the Tethis crashed straight into the ice field, breaking up pieces of ice like a hot knife cutting into butter.
The earth was shaking slightly, and the ice field that was originally connected as one piece once again turned into floating ice and drifted overseas.
For safety reasons, no tourists came out to watch on the deck to avoid a sudden vibration in the event of a collision, which might cause the ship to fall into the ocean. Therefore, only a few sailors were on patrol.
"Goudan, let's go!"
Bifang pulled the reins and sat on the sled away from the coast again.
The Thesis's icebreaking ability was better than he had imagined. A distance of one hundred meters was not safe, so it was necessary to retreat further.
Goudan, who had been feeling the urge to urinate, ran away and retreated directly to a place three hundred meters away.
The world's professional icebreakers can be divided into seven levels of icebreaking capabilities. Level one has the strongest icebreaking capability, and the level three icebreaking standard is that it can continuously break 1.5-meter-thick 2-year sea ice.
Xuelong 2 is a level 3 icebreaker, while the earlier Xuelong is basically between level 5 and level 6, so Xuelong can only stay away from older and thicker ice.
Strictly speaking, there are only two or three strongest icebreakers today that can continuously break three meters of ice, such as the White Bear and the "Fifty Years of Victory" of the Red Era.
The Thesis naturally cannot be compared with these monster ships. Even if it has been transformed thoroughly enough to be like a newborn, it is just an expedition-class cruise ship, but it is also an icebreaker!
Icebreaking tourist ship, this is extremely rare!
Many travelers heading to Antarctica or the Arctic are very concerned about the ship's icebreaking ability and often ask whether the ship they are on is an icebreaker.
This actually confuses the Antarctic and Arctic scientific expedition voyages with Antarctic tourism voyages. Scientific expedition voyages require visiting many areas that have not yet been explored by humans, so icebreaking capabilities are extremely important.
Tourism usually only visits a small area, and many times there is no need for an icebreaker; a ship with a reinforced bow and ice resistance will do.
The so-called ice-resistant ship has a special manufacturing structure that greatly enhances the hull's ability to resist ice.
Ships need to meet certain requirements, comply with certain technical parameters and performance in order to obtain relevant ice class certification, which is divided into A, B and C grades.
In short, the higher the ice resistance level, the deeper a ship can penetrate into ice-covered waterways, travel between ice floes, and reach places that other ships cannot reach.
The lower the ice resistance level, the smaller the range of reach and activities.
Therefore, there are no icebreaker tourist ships in Antarctica, only a few in the Arctic. Fortunately, Tethis is one of them!
When Captain Harvis first made the renovation, he invested a huge amount of money and suffered losses for a long time, which made him doubt whether it was worth it.
No one expected that the moment when would be today.
It has to be said that this is a lucky ship for the gray whales.
As the ice continued to crack, the Thesis smashed into the ice field like a pointed hammer, tearing a large crack.
