Gosh, this is becoming a theme. Intrepid sailors/hikers/tourists/scientists/ecologists head for the Arctic with intent to show the world how the Arctic is melting, get stuck in/on the ice, or hopelessly battered, and end up needing rescue by those evil fossil fuel belching rescue ships, helicopters, and planes.
Our latest episode: Yatch Fiona
Last night, 16 Aug, we got hopelessly trapped by the ice. Despite a favorable ice report we encountered 8/10ths ice, with many old, i.e. large, bergs. We spent the night tied to one of them but had to leave this morning when another ‘berg collided with us and tipped Fiona over. We got away but the space around us is shrinking. I called the Canadian Coast Guard at noon and they are sending an icebreaker, due here tomorrow. We are NOT in immediate danger.
I hate it when that happens.
Reading this guy’s website http://www.yachtfiona.com/
I’m not really sure what his mission is, except perhaps publicity, boat funding, and selling DVD’s.
His current shtick does seem to be connected to the Green Ocean Race. They write:
The purpose of the GOR is to publicize two things:
1. Within a generation or two the world will have to learn how to get by without fossil fuels.
2. The result need not be the social and political chaos predicted by some thinkers and writers, technical solutions are in sight.
The means to achieve the publicity will be a transoceanic race for sailboats, possibly power boats, in which all energy consumed on board will be generated on board. The publicity surrounding the race will emphasize that the boats are alone in the vastness of the ocean, rather like the earth sailing through space in a few decades. The crew will enjoy all the comforts of home by utilizing the energy available from the ocean and the sun. The preparation for the race will require ingenuity to harvest the energy most efficiently and design the most energy-miserly ways to cook, communicate and operate the boat. These preparatory stages will also be a rich area for pre-race publicity.
GOR, heh.
Check out Al Gore’s houseboat. Ben-Hur couldn’t row this thing:
Well, I think publicizing that the Arctic has beaten one of the GOR participants is probably unintentional.
h/t to WUWT reader Mike Odin
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OK.
I’m having a serious attack of Schadenfreude.
Bwaahahahahhhhahahahaaahhhhhhaahaha!
Thank you.
Feeling so much better.
“The crew will enjoy all the comforts of home by utilizing the energy available from the ocean and the sun. The preparation for the race will require ingenuity to harvest the energy most efficiently and design the most energy-miserly ways to cook, communicate and operate the boat. ”
Hmmmn. “living with all the comforts of hiome, but then he predicts that they will need to be energy-misers as well.
Well, there goes “all the comfrts of home”
Perhaps they should try the well-=proven designs of the Wasa, HMS Victory, Cutty Sark, USS Constituion ….
And a few other scurvy-ridden, 8-10 knot sailboats manned by diseased sailors living in un-air conditioned, unheated bilgewater-coated vessels with no showers and no sanitation. Will the crews prefer to sit on the poopdeck? Or the forward scuttles where at least the waves wioll wash the seats “clean”?
Sorry, but “the yacht fiasco” is not Canadian registered. It’s crew is not Canadian.
I. however, am Canadian and I pay taxes – lots and lots of taxes.
The last thing I want is Canadian taxes being expended to save these losers from their appropriate and Darwinian fate.
NMFP
There is a more detailed blog with more information (and a great picture of their current predicament) being maintained by the sister of one of the crew, billed as “A journal of the trip aboard S/V Fiona by Russ Roberts:
http://www.fiona2009northwestpassage.blogspot.com/
R
I’m not sure of the “Well-proven” designs – the Wasa sank on her maiden voyage pretty much as soon as she left the harbour.
The best wooden ship design for polar exploring would, to me, be a nice chunky hulled whaling ship with round bilges which would pop up out of the ice when squeezed. Hopefully.
Dare we mention whaling ships in a Green context?
I’m just glad I didn’t underwrite the Fiona.
So, did Fiona sink? What kind of ecological damage would that cause? And that “houseboat”? Must take a ton of carbon credits just to run the lights.
DAISANAID big time.
http://www.yachtfiona.com/FionaBustPoster.jpg
California or Bust via the Northwest Passage!!
Looks like a Bust to me.
LOL Meanwhile Canadian taxpayers come to the rescue… Send them the bill -pun intended!…
I assume, by “favorable”, he means less ice. He must be conflicted.
Despite a favorable ice report we encountered 8/10ths ice
Har! That’ll teach them to believe the UK Met Office’s “BBQ summer” forecast
I think the boat owners should sue the IPCC, NSIDC, Al Gore and all the other false advertisers of the arctic as a balmy place to frolick. The Canadian Coast Guard should send a brigantine with an army of axe wielding rescuers to publicize they are doing their part to reduce their climate footprint. Or maybe the fuel barrels left behind by the eco-friendly Catlin Expedition could be made into a raft to escape the soon to be crushed sailboat. In the image linked, look at the serpentine band of green ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago south of the main mass of “purple” ice.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
This is the NW passage and the sailboat has been waiting at the entrance of the passage- apparently oblivious to the fact that the ice pack moves around and can do so fairly quickly. “We are not in immediate danger” is the kind of statement one makes when one has done something stupid and is in immediate danger – you’d rather die rather than be rescued dramatically. The Coast Guard of course knows this and will be speeding to the rescue.
I have sent the following e-mail to the ship’s web address:
Hello Fiona,
Having read that you are calling an icebreaker I am saddened and shocked. Do you realize the tons of carbon emissions such a trip by that fossil-fueled behemoth will emit into the atmosphere? And are you going to pay the Canadian Coast Guard the cost of the icebreaker’s trip?
Doesn’t sound much of a passage this great North West Passage…. Great passage for pack ice is about all. Not much chop for fragile plastic yachts.
Alert, Nunavut Canada (82deg31min) is averaging below 0C in forecast this week, we will be seeing the DMI polar temp (above 80N) slipping into freeze-up for the season at least up to Mid May 2010.
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/71082.html
I think before the hoards of Catlinite-like adventurers hit the arctic from now on, we should have them sign an agreement that they will pay for the rescue services and clean-up of their left-behinds.
“”” We are not in immediate danger “””
Except the danger of terminal stupifity. My apologies to our Canuck friends of the north; whose tax dollars will get wasted unshackling these buffoons.
If you read that BBC/Green peace skullduggery, you will learn the surprising fact that the middle of that Arcitic ice pack those idiots are trapped in is 3 km thick.
Now who’d a thunk that with the NSIDC watching closely.
If I called these guys “GORONS”, would you snip it?
There are several expeditions out there. The AroundtheAmericas team mentions Fiona and a couple of others in the same area:
http://www.aroundtheamericas.org/story/Crew+Log+66+-+At+Sea+60+02N,+105+11W+
“There were, as of early Tuesday evening, three vessels in or near a body of water known as Larsen Sound. One is a Westsail 42 called Fiona, sailed by a vastly experienced American sailor named Eric Forsyth, a two-time circumnavigator and a former winner of the Cruising Club of America’s highly prestigious Blue Water Medal. Another sailboat is a Bavaria 44 called Perithia, reportedly sailed by a German couple of unknown experience. The third is a Nordhavn 57 powerboat called Bagan skippered by another American, filmmaker Sprague Theobold. According to several reports, all three boats left a town called Resolute several days ago and all three are currently in extremely uncomfortable, if not outright dangerous, situations.”
“In a short update on the same site, we’ve learned that Bagan is also in a deep pickle, locked into a pack of 9/10 ice. A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker is supposedly en route to the area, but for the moment that won’t be of much help to Bagan, as even an icebreaker can’t pierce such dense concentrations.
”
“Reportedly, the German boat is also now stuck in impassable ice. Over the course of my career as a sailing writer I’ve written dozens and dozens of boat reviews, and I know the Bavaria brand quite well. They are nice, simple, mass-produced coastal cruisers that are priced to sell and actually sail quite nicely. But frankly, unless the boat has been extensively modified – and perhaps even then – in my opinion (and let me stress, it’s only my opinion) it’s an extremely poor choice for extensive voyaging in ice-strewn waters. I very much hope to be eating those words before the month is out.”
The Canadian rescue services could be rather busy soon.
Do people have to get permission from the Canadian authorities before they set off on these daft stunts? If not, why not?
Thanks RichG for the link. I see they are expressing a little irritation with the ice forecast. Did they think they were still in the big city?
And jlc, no they’re not Canadian…couldn’t be by definition.
http://www.fiona2009northwestpassage.blogspot.com/
I love the last sentance of the fiona blos for “Tuesday, August 11, 2009”
“It’s a beautiful day in Resolute. 65F and clear. This morning a polar bear swam into the bay. Coming ashore and heading to town, a local resident “buzzed” it with a four-wheeler, a “quad,” chasing it back into the water. The bear tested the atmosphere as it swam, deciding, I suppose, Fiona held little appeal. I tend to agree with the bear. At this point in the journey the old ‘gal is getting a little stale. Swimming about 100 yards past both Fiona and the German Perithia, the bear pulled itself onto an ice floe and napped until noon.”
Polar bear on ice floe just napping, not starving to death!!!!!!
Well the more people get trapped, the more the ice will disappear, it’s obvious those icebreakers needed to rescue them break up the ice into more easily meltable chunks O.o
On August 17, 2009, the crew of the Fiona makes the comment:
We are NOT in immediate danger.
I wonder if anyone in the crew regrets making the comment on May 24 at the Bon Voyage Party:
What could possibly go wrong?
I hope they get the TOTAL bill of rescueing these people! It’s amazing! Arctic Ice always waxes and wanes. Some years more than others but Alarmists can’t leave it alone. Has the Arctic EVER been completely clear of ice after the Earth has cooled down to having Life? Well, I’m sure not in Man’s life time here on this Planet. Which is a short time in comparison to it’s beginning.
Well, there’s an idiot, or a “Goron”, born every minute. I think it makes for great comic relief. Darwin theory being demonstrated again….
Got an e-mail from Sprague Theobald this morning. Not going much better for him.
Tue, Aug 18, 2009 02:51 PM
“Easy it hasn’t been. Just spent two days locked in 9/10ths ice slowy
being pushed being to shore. Had to use the boat as a breaker and
while we took some damage were very lucky to get out of it at all.
Finish maybe the end of Sept?
ST”
I truly wish all of them the best of luck. Getting off the couch and doing something like this is a monumental achievement.