Days, Not Hours: Crew Survival in the Southern Ocean
When the nearest help is a week away
In the Southern Ocean, the realistic wait for rescue after an abandonment is measured in days, not hours. Yet most immersion suits aboard toothfish and krill vessels were certified against a six-hour test.
Consider the geography. The Heard Island and McDonald Islands fishery lies about 4,100 km south-west of Perth. The Ross Sea, South Georgia, Kerguelen and the Antarctic Peninsula krill grounds are similarly remote. A vessel fishing there is often days from the nearest port, the nearest coast guard asset and, in many cases, the nearest other ship.
The industry has already seen what this distance means. In December 2010, the toothfish longliner No. 1 Insung sank in the Southern Ocean about 2,700 km south of New Zealand. Twenty-two of the 42 crew were lost. Rescue authorities reported that the vessel went down quickly and that many could not reach their immersion suits before entering water of about 2°C.
That loss carries two lessons. Crew must be able to get into their suits fast, even after they are already wet. And once in the water or a liferaft, those suits must keep them alive for as long as rescue actually takes.
Where rescue actually comes from
Ice-capable rescue vessels are few, and in the Southern Ocean they may be a week's sailing away. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
In the Southern Ocean, rescue usually comes from another fishing vessel, not from a helicopter. The fishing grounds lie far beyond the range of shore-based rescue aircraft, and long-range patrol aircraft can locate survivors but cannot lift them from the water.
That leaves three practical sources of rescue:
Another vessel in the fishery. This is the fastest option when one is nearby, as the No. 1 Insung survivors found. But licensed fleets are small and spread across vast areas, so the nearest ship may be a day or more away.
A vessel diverted from passage. Merchant traffic is sparse south of the major shipping routes. Diversion can take several days.
A national asset sent from port. A patrol vessel or icebreaker sailing from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile or Argentina may need a week or more to arrive.
Weather lengthens every one of these estimates. Southern Ocean crews routinely work in heavy swell, high winds and air temperatures well below freezing. Those conditions slow transit, make recovery dangerous and can force a rescue vessel to stand by until the sea moderates.
The honest planning assumption for an abandonment in these waters is therefore a wait measured in days.
The six-hour benchmark
A standard immersion suit is certified to show that it can keep a wearer's core temperature from falling more than 2°C over six hours in calm water at 0–2°C. That is the thermal test in IMO's life-saving appliance testing standard, MSC.81(70), and it is a sound baseline for ships within a few hours of rescue.
It was never intended for the Southern Ocean. Standard LSA suits were never designed nor tested in polar conditions:
The test is run in calm water, not in breaking seas.
It does not account for sub-zero air temperatures or wind chill once the wearer is in a liferaft or on deck.
It assumes the wearer is dry when donning the suit, not soaked by spray or immersion.
It ends at six hours, a fraction of the wait set out above.
A suit that passes this test has proven that it works for six hours under laboratory conditions. It has not proven that it can keep a crew member alive through a multi-day wait in Southern Ocean weather.
What the rules require, and where they stop
The IMO Polar Code already sets the right standard: survival equipment must protect people for the maximum expected time of rescue, which may never be taken as less than five days. Chapter 8 is goal-based. It does not name a product; it requires equipment that actually achieves that outcome in the conditions the ship will meet.
For most Southern Ocean fishing vessels, however, that requirement does not apply directly:
Since 1 January 2026, fishing vessels of 24 m and above operating in polar waters fall under parts of the Polar Code. Existing vessels must meet the new navigation and voyage-planning chapters by 1 January 2027.
The Code's Antarctic area begins at 60°S. Heard Island, Kerguelen, South Georgia and Macquarie Island all lie north of that line.
In other words, the regulation stops short of most toothfish grounds, but the cold and the distance do not. Where the rule does not reach, the operator's duty of care does.
Regulators and classification societies are also taking the gap seriously:
Chile. In February 2026, Chile's maritime authority, DIRECTEMAR, committed to verifying during port state control inspections at Punta Arenas that survival equipment aboard polar vessels meets the functional requirements of Chapter 8. Punta Arenas is a gateway port for Antarctic krill and toothfish operations.
Lloyd's Register. In its review of the issue (Case #00845510), Lloyd's Register acknowledged that standard suits may not consistently ensure five-day survivability under realistic polar conditions.
US Coast Guard. The Coast Guard Research and Development Center's 2023 Arctic SAR simulation study set out to verify the Polar Code's survival-time requirement against realistic rescue scenarios.
IMO guidance. MSC.1/Circ.1614/Rev.1 provides the methodology for estimating the maximum expected time of rescue, and it makes clear that equipment must be chosen against that estimate.
What Southern Ocean operators can do
Operators do not need to wait for regulation to close this gap. Four steps bring survival equipment into line with the realistic rescue time:
Estimate the real wait. Use the MSC.1/Circ.1614/Rev.1 methodology for each fishing area, counting the nearest vessels, transit times and seasonal weather.
Compare the suits aboard with that estimate. If they are certified only to the six-hour MSC.81(70) test, they have not been shown to cover a multi-day wait.
Specify equipment designed for the wait. Treat Chapter 8's functional requirements as a voluntary fleet standard, even where the Code does not formally apply.
Train for the real abandonment. Drill crews to don suits quickly, including after they are already wet, and to use them in a liferaft over an extended period.
White Glacier designed the Arctic 10+ for exactly this situation: an abandon-ship survival suit built for extended time in cold water.
Thermal protection. In independent testing by Ergopro (Trondheim, 2022), the Arctic 10+ limited a test subject's core temperature drop to 0.9°C after six hours in 2°C water. Its static manikin insulation value is 4.87 clo.
Multi-day survival protocol. Used with a survival protocol of hand warmers, water and food, extreme cold-water testing at Ergopro indicates the suit can support survival for five days or more. Further validation is under way in Canada and Norway.
Wet donning. The suit can be put on even when the wearer is already wet.
Usable hands and shelter. An interior zipper pull lets the wearer open the suit from inside and free the hands. An integrated splash tent shields the face and hands from wind, rain and spray while eating, drinking or giving first aid.
Approvals. The Arctic 10+ holds current USCG, Transport Canada, EU/UK MED and Chilean DIRECTEMAR approvals. It provides 97 lb of buoyancy and is worn without a lifejacket.
Life aboard. It weighs 15 lb (about 6.8 kg) packed, is inspected every three years in port or aboard, and has an expected service life of more than ten years.
Southern Ocean crews already accept that rescue may take days. Their survival equipment should be chosen on the same assumption.
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To discuss your fleet, or to arrange a technical briefing for your crews or association, contact Diego Jacobson at djacobson@whiteglacier.com.
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