EXPERIMENTS ON POSSIBILITY OF SURVIVAL AT SEA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 88, 20 January 1950, Page 6

EXPERIMENTS ON POSSIBILITY OF SURVIVAL AT SEA

The ability of men to sui’vive in conditions of extreme cold at sea is to be the subject of experiments which it is hoped, if satisfactory arrangements can be completed, to carry out in the spring of this year. Considerations of humanity as well as service requirements make the experiments necessary. Certain theories deducted from data available on the Scott and Shackleton expeditions, reports from survivors in the last war and from experiments carried out both in Britain and America, are to be tested, the trials being designed to show what measures are necessary to survive five days in low temperatures. Low Temperatures Six to ten men will be placed in the new types of naval life float in the Arctic at air temperatures of 10 to 15 degrees centigrade in a gale. ' They will wear survivor’s suits and will be exposed twice for periods of three to five days. They will *be given two sets of survival rations —a complete 3000 calories diet, and a minimum ration of 1500 calories. The rations will consist of toffee, dehydrated fruit block, biscuits and condensed sweetened milk. Each man will also. be given approximately one pint of water daily, which may be carried in tins, or produced by a new type of seawater still, now being tested. Records will be kept of the physiological and psychological reacactions of the men.