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Friday, Sep 08, 2006

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Indian Navy team to ski to South Pole

Team expects extreme conditions

ALL SET: In New Delhi, members of the ski expedition try out a tent that they will use, on Thursday. -- PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN

New Delhi: Come December, a team of 10 adventurers of the Indian Navy will set out on an expedition. They hope to become the first naval team to travel to the South Pole on skis.

Announcing this here, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Arun Prakash said the team would ski about 200 km. Each member will manually pull sleds weighing over 140 kg each.

Commander Satyabrata Dam, who led the Navy's successful expedition to Mount Everest two years ago, will head the team to the Antacrtic. "We are all very excited to be heading for the remotest spot on earth," he said. "The Navy is daring enough to dream impossible dreams and it provides the means to achieve those dreams."

Among the challenges the team will have to face are temperatures ranging between minus 10 and minus 35 degrees Celsius, wind speeds averaging 100 to 150 km an hour, and `katabatic' winds or dense air with snow blowing down inclines at speeds of 60 km an hour. "While the ascension in height is 3,200 metres at the South Pole, the effective altitude is around 3,800 m due to the thinner atmospheric layer," Commander Dam said.

The team, which includes members from Ladakh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and West Bengal, represents "a microcosm of India," said the naval chief.

The expedition would involve "very little rest, reserves of determination, stamina, skill and team spirit," he said, adding that the team hoped to reach the South Pole by end-December.

Comparing the degree of difficulty of Antarctic expeditions to climbing the Everest, Commander Dam said only 268 people had gone to the South Pole since 1912 while over 1,600 had scaled the highest peak.

The team will take about 15 to 20 days, walking 10 to 12 hours a day, said deputy leader K.S. Balaji. "We will get very few rest periods of four to five hours each day, the better part of which will be spent cooking frozen food. Boiling water freezes in seconds there." The team will carry "raw fish, smoked lamb, butter, biscuits, cornflakes, lots of chocolates." It will also carry two weeks' extra rations.

PTI

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