UPDATE: So much for that…
Sea ice conditions are now likely to delay today’s planned rescue of passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. http://t.co/snGYZnqmNM
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) January 2, 2014
And now it is apparently on again
AMSA is awaiting confirmation that the Antarctica rescue operation has begun.
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) January 2, 2014
See video below.
Aurora Australis has advised AMSA that the 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy are now on board.
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) January 2, 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_13rQBXKa0A
7.30am AEDT: 2nd January 2014
Rescue operations likely to commence shortly in Antarctica
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s (AMSA) Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) was advised this morning by the MV Akademik Shokalskiy that weather conditions have improved in the area and rescue operations are likely to commence shortly by helicopter.
Wind in the area is now down to 10 knots and visibility has improved. Weather conditions are expected to remain favourable over the next 36 hours.
The helicopter on board the Chinese flagged vessel Xue Long will be used to rescue the passengers from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.
This rescue will be a complex operation involving a number of steps and subject to factors such as weather.
RCC Australia has been advised that all 52 passengers will leave the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. All 22 crew members are expected to remain with the vessel.
The passengers will be rescued by helicopter in groups of 12 and will be initially transported to the Xue Long. The rescue is expected to be undertaken in a total of seven flights. The first five flights will rescue passengers and the remaining two flights will transfer luggage and equipment.
Each return flight is expected to take about 45 minutes. The journey will cover a distance of about 12 nautical miles between the MV Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long. The helicopter component of the rescue operation is expected to take at least five hours dependent on weather conditions.
The Aurora Australis will then use its barge to transfer all 52 passengers on board their vessel. The barge can take up to 22 people at a time. The journey between the Xue Long and the Aurora Australis is a distance of about two nautical miles.
RCC Australia continues to coordinate the incident and is in regular contact with all vessels involved and continues to monitor the situation. The vessels involved are also in close contact with each other via VHF radio.
The search and rescue operation commenced on Christmas morning AEDT after the Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in the United Kingdom received a distress message via satellite from the MV Akademik Shokalskiy. The distress message and subsequent coordination of the incident was passed to RCC Australia, who is the responsible search and rescue authority for this area.
Media Note: Media are advised to keep an eye on AMSA’s Twitter feed @AMSA_News for the latest information relating to this rescue. Details for facilitating audio grabs and vision will be issued in due course.
Click to access 02012014AkademikShokalskiyUpdate9_Media_Release.pdf
When this is over it’s time to lay in on these irresponsible people. Then we need to look at the financial costs, co2 output, paying eco-tourists on board whose lives may have been put at unnecessary risk. Here is a starter pack from Pierre, one of his best posts.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/31/expedition-on-the-cheap-did-organizers-recklessly-negligently-put-lives-and-property-at-risk/
“British journalist Alok Jha, who is aboard the Academik Shokalskiy, said the passengers were waiting for the weather to clear so they could be rescued.”
Have the passengers approved the weather, and given the go ahead to be rescued?
hope it all goes well.
children plus fee-paying passengers first, i hope.
then the AAE women.
then the AAE men
then, finally, the MSM, who have controlled the narrative on board.
best of luck to the crew.
“The first five flights will rescue passengers and the remaining two flights will transfer luggage and equipment.”
If the helicopter crew is smart, they’ll declare the weather too dangerous to go back for ANY of the luggage or equipment. The idiots can pick it up when the iced-in ship makes it back to port.
After all, it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere and the area is supposed to be ice-free (or so the warmists and their “models” say), so their luggage should be arriving shortly.
A few things about ice breaker classifications:
The American Bureau of Shipping has a series of classifications from A (highest) to D (lowest) and from 5 (highest) to 0 (lowest). A5 is the highest class while D0 is the lowest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_class
There are also classifications for ice strengthened vessels. They do not break ice but can operate in areas with ice depending on their class. UL is for light (summer) ice conditions, for example.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/icebreakers-class.htm
Akademik Shokalskiy: UL
Xue Long: B1
Aurora Australis: A1
Thanks Steve from Rockwood,
UL for light (summer) ice conditions does not sound reassuring to me.
@GeologyJim: I’ll just hold my breath for the moment, be careful.that could be life threatening to you.
How will the MSM decide to report this story? Who calls the shots?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIevazPIPzU
I’ve been watching these threads the last several days. I hope everyone gets out of this unhurt. These appear to be hard core idiots so I doubt there will be any lessons learned.
Xue Long no longer visible from Aurora’s webcams.
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/aurora
Could be off to starboard or over horizon.
Why so distant if rescue is imminent?
just wonder when and using which instruments the partying ‘experts’ could perform this:
The Shokalskiy was trapped on Christmas Eve by thick sheets of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart – the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.
Despite being trapped, the scientists have continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.Antarctic air rescue for ice-bound ship due to start, bbc.co.uk 1 January 2014 Last updated at 22:25 GMT
and still have needed help to have weatherforecasts…..
Some never learn that if you can’t present a correct forecast for the next day or two, you aren’t likely to be able to present it for the next generation to come 🙂
The only science these “scientists” have been doing is falsifying the adage “the stupid, it burns”. If it did, they would have melted the entire Antarctic ice cap by now.
norah4you says:
January 1, 2014 at 4:21 pm
I think that is what is referred to as “whistling past the cemetery”.
Hearsay is heresy, but the following is fun:
I heard a report that the reason they got stuck was that certain scientists were slow to obey the captain. It was a bright and sunny day, and they were off the the ship wandering over the ice and counting penguins. The captain told them to come back immediately because sea-ice conditions were swiftly changing, but they dawdled, to complete their counting and to gather a bit more “data.”
The value of this data is dubious. They apparently live in a world of spin, and are made dizzy to a degree where they think the local decrease in penguins can be attributed to Global Warming. Actually it is due to one of those gigantic Antarctic Icebergs disturbing the local ecosystem.
The size of these icebergs is difficult to imagine. Even the one-tenth above water can loom like a small sky scraper, and their area can be the size of several “Manhattans.”
Apparently one of these giant bergs has been in the area over a decade, even ramming the tongue of a giant glacier and breaking off a second huge berg which has since departed, but the first still lingers. It is so huge it changes the microcosm of the local weather, causing sea-ice in the immediate vicinity to be thicker, (sort of the opposite of an “urban heat-island.” Call it an “antarctic cold-island.”) Locally it becomes so cold that penguins apparently move elsewhere or die. So there is a decrease in the local penguin populations as long as these huge icebergs hang around, and an increase when the Manhattan-sized bergs finally drift out to sea.
All in all, such fluctuation in penguin population seem fairly normal and natural to me. However rumor has it that some scientist (or pseudo-scientist) thought the data was so important, in terms of proving that Global Warming was occurring, that he disobeyed the captain, and put the lives and limbs of many in jeopardy.
If this gossip is true, I think we should honor this particular scientist’s values. The data should come first. His baggage contains the data about penguins. That baggage should come out first, with the other humans deemed worthy of saving, while he himself should remain behind with the other baggage, and be removed last.
If he goes down with the ship, he will have the glorious sense he has died supplying data for the “Cause.” We will know otherwise, but I don’t want to hurt the poor fellow’s feelings by pointing out the real reason for fluctuation in penguin population has nothing to do with the “Cause.”
As of 2 (3?) hours ago, Aurora was still trying to break through to the Chinese ice-breaker – heading south-southeast. Now at the 8:00 am timestamp they have turned back and are heading north and/or west/north-west with a lot of very thick ice in front of them and no ice-edge in sight.
http://images.aad.gov.au/webcams/aurora/14/A140012200A.jpg
http://images.aad.gov.au/webcams/aurora/14/A140012300A.jpg
http://images.aad.gov.au/webcams/aurora/14/A140020000A.jpg
Something wrong with this report.
Professor Chris Turney on the expedition as an attempt to deliver empirical science in a debate that has been distract by opinion and (unfounded) belief : http://youtu.be/MFcYQfcU7vY . (h/t Andrew Bolt)
This is the best evidence I have found of the great irony of this story: Turney has achieved his goal in this expedition, but not in a way that was sympathetic to his belief about what the evidence is saying. Even before the disaster, to draw attention to the well-neglected evidence of Antarctic cooling — while all the attention has been drawn to the evidence of warming at the other pole — this seems strategically foolish in the first place. This is all the more reason why this video suggest genuine delusion, a victim of the madness of crowds. Moreover, it is precisely this delusion that has facilitate a successful career (‘professor’ status at his age is rare in Oz) as a state-sponsor academic. This (ironic) story has great potential to penetrate to the perversion of state-sponsored science in the global warming scare. It only remains to be seen to what extent this potential can be realized and the scales fall from our collective eyes…to reveal Turney, like Flannery, the fool…to reflect our own folly in celebrating their quixotic adventures as heroic defences of science.
Polar Star appears to be turning south and by passing Sidney.
I have no sympathy for the activists who arranged this journey.They asked 8,000 dollars for people to join them.They have abused people’s trust and put people’s lives in danger.Let this be a lesson to the public.Do not put your trust in political activists masquerading as scientists.A lot of questions will need to be answered by these guys.
I hope none of the fake scientists trip over their yarn of lies and lose their faces while boarding the rescue helicopter.
None of them would be in any danger (if ever they were) had they not embarked on this farce exercise in the first place.
Bill Illis, it appears those three webcam snapshots are all at the same location (within meters and slight direction), it has moved little. Look at the triangular chuck of ice and the shape of the edges.
None of the rescue costs will affect me, as an American. However, I believe ALL of the fuel and labor costs associated with their rescue (including the three rescue ships involved) should be divided equally between the 52 passengers. That would set an example for this kind of Tom-foolery.
‘Rescuing’ baggage kind’a puts the lie to rescue and urgency.
Bill Illis
Those webcam pics show the Aurora Australis is static – so they’re dawdling about keeping station sort of – waiting for the Snow Eagle to do it’s thing, the weather though – looks a lot better in the last one – flyable. As to the boat transfer – they’ll have to get out beyond the packed ice – you would want to try going far by small boat in that – even if you could…
[“would not want to try going far” ? Mod]
I believe someone should have known the weather/ice conditions before leaving port.
They knew the location had been loaded with drifting thick old ice for 3 years.
Someone is responsible.
Most likely the Master unless he has proof Dr Turkey is at fault. He’s the Captain.
cn
Polar Star is still six days or so away even at max speed(@ur momisugly 18 kn). Only going 9.4 kn right now.