This pretty much nails the cause of the situation, and blows expedition leader Chris Turney’s claim about being “surprised” about the situation literally out of the water.
In my post Now that the ‘Ship of Fools’ is safe in Antarctica, tough questions need to be asked one of the questions I asked was:
9. Did the sightseeing excursion to Mawson’s Huts on December 19th and again on Dec 23rd (apparently to Mertz Glacier, though their blog and “tracker” are unclear on this point) cause delays that caused the ship to be trapped in rapidly changing weather which closed the sea ice around them?
In the Spirit of Mawson Blog, we have this entry:
Posted by Graeme Clark, December 24, 2013
It’s often said that Antarctica is a dynamic environment that can rapidly transform at a moments notice. Today we experienced that first-hand, as we came down from a high of exceptionally good weather to find ourselves surrounded by thick, impassable pack ice. Too dense to travel through, the sea-ice has stopped the mighty Shokalskiy in its tracks despite aggressive charges by Captain Igor. The ship is now resigned to wait for a change in wind conditions to loosen or dissipate the sea ice before we can escape to open water. These are the challenging conditions for which Antarctica is so well known.
The real answer to that event lies in the blog of the Australian green politician on-board, Janet Rice. WUWT commenter Aphan gave us the scoop from her log on how the stage was set for getting stuck, because the passengers weren’t heeding the captain’s warning quickly enough. Clearly the captain knew what was coming, but the passengers were just too slow. He couldn’t abandon them, so he had to wait, and this delay put the ship in jeopardy.
=================================================================
Aphan says:
January 1, 2014 at 5:13 pm
My apologies if someone above has mentioned this. It’s getting to be a chore to scroll through all the activity here! (grins)
From Janet Rice- http://www.janetrice.com.au/?e=98
*******************************************************
(After 1 am on December 24)
“The ship is making very slow progress through pack ice. There is a narrow channel that we are inching our way along – it of course is pretty frozen in itself. There are icebergs on either side of us, some kilometres away – hard to tell exactly how far. We oscillate between hardly moving to suddenly being jolted sideways with a crunch as the ship bashes and barges its way through.”
***
“We were out in similar conditions this afternoon. Somewhat brighter – in fact there was blue sky and sunshine for some periods. The weather has been better than the forecast blizzard, so that was good.”
***
The first drama of the day was the sinking – or almost! – of one of the Argos. The Argos are designed to be amphibious – just. They were launched today off the ship – and two of the three made it safely being towed by a zodiac the 50 metres or so to shore. The third was towed too fast it seems – and water came over the bonnet / bow, flooding both the engine and the vehicle itself. Ben tried in vain to bail out with a spade and luckily they made it to shore before the vehicle sunk entirely. Ben ended up rather wet too, but similarly to Mary, not submerged enough for the lifejacket to come into play. Sadly Argo engines don’t take too kindly to being submerged… the ships engineers are still working on it and not very optimistic about its prospects.
“The third drama of the day is the one which is still unfolding. Because of the Argo mishap we got off late, and had one less vehicle to ferry people to and fro. I’m told the Captain was becoming rather definite late in the afternoon that we needed to get everyone back on board ASAP because of the coming weather and the ice closing in. As I write we are continuing to make extremely slow progress through what looks like a winter alpine snow field – it’s yet another surreal part of this journey that we are in a ship trying to barge our way through here! I’m sure the Captain would have been much happier if we had got away a few hours earlier. Maybe we would have made it through the worst before it consolidated as much as it has with the very cold south- easterly winds blowing the ice away from the coast, around and behind us as well as ahead.
We’ll see where we are in the morning – it may be a very white Christmas Eve!
PS. 9.30am 24/12. We have moved less than a kilometre over night, and are now stationary in a sea of ice. The word is that we are not stuck, merely waiting for a weather change. It seems to me that we are having the quintessential Antarctic experience. J Stay tuned.”
*******************************************************
THE CAPTAIN and PASSENGERS knew that bad weather and ice were coming on Dec 23-that a “blizzard had been forecast”. The Captain made it clear to them more than once, because he “became rather definite” later that they needed to get OUT of that area ASAP.
As of 1 am on December 24th, they were already progressing through “ice pack” that caused the ship to “bash and barge” it’s way through the ice! Need more evidence of how stupid these people are?
On the 21st, Turney blogged about their trip to the Mawson camp on the 19/20th. Trying to find the LEAST hazardous way to access the Commonwealth Bay area, they decided to move the ship up the coast-farther away, but with access to better ice to drive across. He says this-
“A timely reminder was during the evening we relocated. The Shokalskiy suddenly found it was in a mass breakout of ice. In just half an hour, an extensive area of ice (some of which we had been using for the Hangout on Air earlier that day) had broken up and was moving away from Commonwealth Bay with haste. Large pieces of ice, in the shape of shattered glass fragments – albeit large pieces – surrounded our vessel. There was no danger to the ship but it was a timely reminder how quickly things can change in this environment. You can never take anything for granted in the Antarctic!”
After experiencing the ship being surrounded by breakout ice on the 18th or 18th of December in just HALF AN HOUR, they stayed in that area, moved slightly up the coast and with an incoming blizzard and MORE ice on the way, they went onshore and forced the boat to wait for their return. THEN they got stuck.
For Chris Turney to then go on TELEVISION and act shocked that all this ice just mysteriously appeared and hemmed them in without any warning, is stunning. If the Captain gets sued for damages, I hope he takes every penny Chris Turney and the University of New South Wales will ever have in the future.
==============================================================
[ Anthony: I’ve saved the Rice log entry as a PDF here: Rice-log-Monday-23-December-2013 ]
==============================================================
UPDATE: A chronological summary by Aphan
*Didn’t mean for this to be so long. Just think the info here is important to the truth.*
Just got back from screen capping and copying URLs (instead of just cutting and pasting out key points) from http://www.spiritofmawson.com/blog/. We just never know these days when website pages will disappear. Right?
Not only does it detail all the sea ice they had to “grind through” (interactive map of the trips progress –https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z8QYRx-LCqEw.kFHpO8ktLaqI) in order to get anywhere CLOSE to the continent in the first place, but in the days BEFORE they got stuck in the ice for good, REPEATED posts on the blog by passengers demonstrate that the ice-fast ice-shore ice-was breaking up over and over again!!
Again, for Chris Turney to PRETEND after the ship got fatally stuck, to be shocked or surprised about all this ice suddenly showing up where it had not been before is ludicrous! It was there when they sailed in, it was breaking up and moving the whole time they were there, and Chris Turney admits on Dec 19th that he knew they were “between two low pressure system circulating the continent, promising fine, stable weather for at least the following two days. Unfortunately this is something of a double edged sword. We have been having extraordinary warm weather; so much so the fast ice – purportedly meaning the sea ice is locked ‘fast’ to the land – can spectacularly break out along the edge at any time.”
Not only that, but the ship ITSELF was breaking up fast ice on on shore!
*Dec 17th-Sean Borkovic-
“We reached a point when the ship veered suddenly to port aiming directly at the ice sheet. Just like that we ploughed into the fast ice in an effort to ‘park’ the ship so we could disembark. As we were rattled and shook by the manoeuvre it seemed crazy and bizarre yet it was not enough. We did not penetrate too far and instead of wedging in tight it instead cracked off several floes of ice. It took 12 goes before we had a suitable ‘berth’. ”
*Dec 18th- Robbie Turney-
“Later in the afternoon we took the Argos along the fast ice. We got half way before we realised it was too late and that we should head back. Although when we got back there was a large crack in the ice, 3 metres wide. It was too big for the Argos and Quad Bikes so we had to wait until the ship could barge its way to us. We were there for about an hour waiting in the five degree heat. Luckily there was no wind chill.”
*Dec 18th- Steve Lambert-
“Early evening as everyone on the ice was heading back to the ship, the cracks in the ice widened, separating them from the ship. Our obliging captain, Igor, manoeuvered the ship to a new spot, so that they could safely board.
Christmas Trees, decorations and lights are now up in the bar and dining room, We are festive. The Aussies have loved reminding our Pommie friends on board of that we have reclaimed the Ashes.
…9pm. Just at the end of dinner – the ice sheet that we were on all day has had a massive fracture and disintegrated into numerous sheets with large areas of water in between! Good thing that we are all on board, as well as all of the scientific equipment and vehicles.”
*Dec 19th-Ian McRae-
“The fast ice, the frozen ocean attached to the distant land, is rapidly breaking up and as we walk, cracks appear and occasionally we sink down to our knees to the ice below or, sometimes, to water. The surface we were walking on yesterday is now floating out to sea as pack ice and there is a danger that we could float out with it.”
Turney wraps up the 19th-20th on his entry on Dec 21st- (Note he acknowledges that he knew on or around Dec 19th that they are between low pressure systems and that stable weather might only last a couple of days)
“The weather forecast was excellent. We were between two low pressure system circulating the continent, promising fine, stable weather for at least the following two days. Unfortunately this is something of a double edged sword. We have been having extraordinary warm weather; so much so the fast ice – purportedly meaning the sea ice is locked ‘fast’ to the land – can spectacularly break out along the edge at any time. A timely reminder was during the evening we relocated. The Shokalskiy suddenly found it was in a mass breakout of ice. In just half an hour, an extensive area of ice (some of which we had been using for the Hangout on Air earlier that day) had broken up and was moving away from Commonwealth Bay with haste. Large pieces of ice, in the shape of shattered glass fragments – albeit large pieces – surrounded our vessel. There was no danger to the ship but it was a timely reminder how quickly things can change in this environment. You can never take anything for granted in the Antarctic! ”
By the 23rd, according to the Janet Rice site-they were surrounded by ice –http://www.janetrice.com.au/?e=98
“The ship is making very slow progress through pack ice. There is a narrow channel that we are inching our way along – it of course is pretty frozen in itself. There are icebergs on either side of us, some kilometres away – hard to tell exactly how far. We oscillate between hardly moving to suddenly being jolted sideways with a crunch as the ship bashes and barges its way through.”
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Warren in New Zealand says:
January 2, 2014 at 11:03 pm
“Radio NZ reports that the Xue Long has now become trapped or stuck in a polyna, Aurora Australis has been asked to stay in the area in case assistance is needed”
————————————————————————————–
To every cloud a sliver lining…
I was disappointed when the rescue plan was changed and the Chinese leg of Turney’s Tour of Shame was cancelled. Now there is a least a chance for the Chinese to line the railings and communicate their appreciation to Prof. Turney through hand gestures or synchronised mooning.
Of course there are still days aboard the Aurora Australis with a crew that wants to keelhaul him.
Then on to Casey, to meet and greet all the real scientists whose summer research window was wasted with his failed climate propaganda jaunt.
Prof. Turney will be finally doing some real science. An empirical experiment to see if it is actually possible to die of shame…
Yes, good work Aphan.
“Janice Moore says:
January 2, 2014 at 9:12 pm”
Thanks, it does get tiring sometimes. BTW, I am not Australian (There is a joke about that), yet! I am what Aussies call a POME, “Prisoner Of Mother England”, although the airfare and immigration costs were considerably more expensive, but less risky, than stealing a loaf of bread in London. I’m a New Zealander too.
This whole event is being over shadowed by “hottest day, week, month, year” since records began (1910) being sprayed accross the MSM. The MSM also forget to tell readers/viewers that the way the BoM calculates a national average (HA HA HA HA!) is by using a new method introduced in…TA DAH…in 2013!!!! Funny that!
I am sure records began earlier than that but I am unable to find a credible source. No mention of the behaviour of the “passengers”, just the usual shots of penguins, snow being compressed by said passengers in the vain attempt to create a landing pad (LOL) and their rescue.
Chris Turney and Alok Jha of the Guardian need to give us some more details. Now read the sections of the post about the captain’s warnings and dithering with Argos.
Chook littles coming home to roost.
Keith Minto says:
“There is a video link here, to our great Antarctic and Everest mountaineer Greg Mortimer who was one of the team leaders, and he looks truly shocked about the event. He is an experienced, no nonsense guy and it is obvious that he is less than impressed with all of this.”
Yes, I’ve seen a couple of clips of Greg Mortimer speaking. I don’t know his usual style of speech but he seems to be choosing his words very carefully and biting his tongue at times.
Maybe he has things that he’d rather say once everyone and the A.S is out of danger.
“It was very sad. I’ve known that ship for a very long time.
“In a sense we’ve left [the crew] behind and to their own devices.”
I can understand how that would seriously go against the grain for an experienced explorer, though I’m sure there is nothing other than relief on the part of the crew to have that bunch of wallies out of from under their feet. They would have been nothing but a liability if things get more difficult.
Good luck to all those who remain aboard the A.S.
“John Whitman says:
January 2, 2014 at 11:59 pm”
I’d guess any report will never reach the gaze of the public eye. Given recent events, Putin would likely supress anything that will show the “expedition” as a bad thing in the run up to the winter Olympics.
My take is that the ship’s captain was just trying to do his job. In retrospect, if he had known of the unprecedented emotional immaturity of his charges, he should have hired security guards to shadow the passengers, and to return them to the ship quickly — in handcuffs and at gunpoint if necessary.
Well after the sea ice hit the fan, expedition ‘leader’ Turney feigned surprise, and tried his damnedest to cover his sorry a**. I hope that he and the other slackers are required to pay the FULL costs of the rescue operation — even if it takes them the rest of their lives.
THE FANATIC: A day of quotes from a diary on the ship
[comments in brackets]
Day 19
[3 days after getting caught in ice because of a trip to see penguins the day AFTER the big storm warning]
Climate change is a constant thread in all the scientific discussions.
Everything… is being affected. Adelie Penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula are in decline as West Antarctica has warmed considerably.
[= penguins, which surround the ship and which swim to Chile, somewhere else succumbed to 1C of warming]
…more giant icebergs… in a future warmed climate.
[= warming produces LESS ice but MORE icebergs]
…the decline in invertebrate biodiversity in areas which have had sea ice in recent years where they previously hadn’t.
[= warming produced MORE ice which is VERY BAD for biodiversity].
[we need] … to reduce our carbon pollution to zero ASAP — that means within 20 years.
Forget about half hearted ambitions of 25% by 2020, or 60% by 2050… given the damage already being done by 0.7 degrees
[= mostly before the big emissions]
…we just need… to overcome the vested interests of the resource industries
[= no real need for fossil fuels now]
[while a flotilla of fossil powered ships approach]
Waiting for … the enormous Chinese ice breaker… The Aurora Australis is also on its way… and l’Astrolabe from the French base…
We have been assured there is no danger to us;
it’s just a matter of waiting.
http://www.janetrice.com.au/?e=100
Janet Rice, Green Senator Elect
This’ll come down to a bun fight over who made the call to phaf around loading equipment instead of just grabbing the passengers and getting the heck out of there. Either way, Turney had better never end up employed by our government or uni a the end of this!
They’re all lying through their teeth. That woman didn’t burst into tears when she got on the Aurora if she was being told on the AS that everything was hunky-dorey.
Claude Harvey and Jannie have got it right. Effectively, passengers are not expected to demonstrate intellectual capacity or a sense of responsibility superior to the average sheep. The Master should have anticipated the real possibility of difficulties in efficiently herding all the sheep back onto the vessel if the weather worsened. Unless he can demonstrate that the passengers wilfully disregarded his lawful instructions or the conditions under which they joined the vessel, he will probably have to carry the can for this.
And, for all those who think that the passengers should have been left there: in a genuine emergency the paying passengers for whom the cruise was undertaken rapidly become useless parasites who get in the way. The professional seamen on the vessel are much better off without these encumbrances.
From the ABC News link mentioned previously:
“The Australian Antarctic Division says its resources have been stretched to the limit by its diversion to Commonwealth Bay.
Jason Mundy from the Antarctic Division hopes the Russian ship’s insurers will foot the bill for the rescue.
“It’s difficult to quantify costs in dollar terms because for us the costs are largely going to be in costs and operational terms,” he said.”
Turney’s passenger list and ship should be limited to two other men and a tub.
The German press has seen through the fiasco..and Turney is coming over as a bit of a clown.
After a long article about the ‘Rettungspflicht’ ..Duty to go to rescue and the insurance issues the article quotes the cheeky chappie…..
Expeditionsleiter Turney hatte ursprünglich gehofft, dass Eisbrecher das Schiff losbekommen und das Team die Reise fortsetzen kann. “Ich bin ein bisschen traurig, dass es so endete. Aber wir haben sehr, sehr viel großartige wissenschaftliche Forschung gemacht.”
Loosely translated…I am a bit sad it ended the way it did. But we have done a lot of great science*
Unbelievable.
Rub a dub dub… http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4752773371267046&pid=1.7
Alas, if the stories about delay from the passengers causing this disaster is correct, Claude Harvey and others have it right. It IS the duty of the Captain to ensure that all operations can be carried out safely.
If the ship had been carrying experienced Antarctic explorers who needed to get ashore at that particular point – perhaps to take specific scientific measurements – then bringing the ship close in to shore where ice was accreting might have been a justifiable risk to take, with the dangers carefully analysed and the expedition leader accepting some of the responsibility – written orders, perhaps.
If, however, the ship was carrying a load of party-going airheads who wanted to look at penguins, make snowmen and convince themselves that the ice was going to vanish, then the right place to land them is at a port with proper facilities so that they do not fall off gangways, from where they will be hustled into coaches under the control of an experienced driver/courier, and then delivered to a zoo where the zoo keepers and managers have responsibility for ensuring that they don’t stick their fingers in the cages.
Too funny – an excerpt from a Washington Post piece:
“Some people are born disconnected from reality and never learn any better. You could call the affliction the Dead Parrot Syndrome. Monty Python, the British comedy troupe, illustrated this 40 years ago in a sketch about a pet shop owner who tries to persuade a customer that a dead parrot he had just bought was actually alive. Punched or poked, the stiff and lifeless parrot wouldn’t move. The shopkeeper insisted the bird was just “stunned” and “pining for the fjords.” Global-warming fanatics are equally disconnected from reality. After a generation of scare tactics, dire warnings and apocalyptic predictions, the global-warming movement has become a caricature of itself. They’re learning just how difficult it is to sell a dead parrot.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/2/editorial-no-more-dead-parrots/#ixzz2pKbxbMy5
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Insurance companies only pay out to cover an insured loss.
What was lost here?
Only time as I see it.
I would expect that ‘research vessels’ and ice breakers to have loose and flexible timetables due to the nature of the duties assigned to them.
If each vessel had a years worth of bookings, each booking generating many dollars or pounds per day per vessel then a loss could have arisen.
However, these are not regular profit making cargo ships operating in trouble free areas where you would normally expect timetabled operations. Deviations from scheduled can trigger a loss if insured for.
As for the captain, it seems as though he did his job very well. He got his passengers to the ice shelf, they took a few photos of some huts and kept them safe through out.
His ship got trapped in the ice, this is not unexpected in this area, since some of the passengers claimed to be conducting some ‘research’ which necessitated close proximity to the ice.
If this was a ‘pure’ holiday/sight seeing’ cruise (of which there are many) then the captain could be in a spot of bother if his vessel became trapped, as that COULD be considered an unnecessary risk.
Turney and his team/dendrochronologist must quickly rebuild confidence in their climate research. Here’s one technique: http://www.boredpanda.com/hovering-tree-illusion-daniel-siering-mario-schuster/
January 3, 2014 at 2:59 am
Insurance companies only pay out to cover an insured loss.
What was lost here?
Only time as I see it.
—–
Are you sure you have your cost-analysis right? I think people are more interested in real costs, not whether insurance companies pay out – look at the obsession with the global costs of CO2 and the steps being taken to implement taxes for it ( whether these costs are real or imaginary is still being debated :))
I think that, at the very least, anybody can be held to the (high?) moral standards they choose to represent e.g. a beef-eating vegan is not going to be taken very seriously.
The Chinese ice breaker has just said it may be stuck in thick ice.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/relief-at-antarctic-rescue-turns-to-fear-for-chinese-ship-466616
They didn’t go to solve any puzzles. They went to find evidence of ‘climate change’ and oh boy did they find it. Near record sea ice extent, trending cold and very dangerous. There was less sea ice in the area in Mawson’s day so what have they achieved? Bugger all I say except ridicule on ridicule.
Aphan, great finds. I worked through the same route as well. My write-up is posted on Jo Nova: Akademik Shokalskiy: Were those careless risks in dangerous but forseeable conditions? My initial suspicion was whether the Mawson hut trip held them up.
It took a bit of looking around because the Hodgeman islet drama is not available *anywhere*, except buried in the posts of Janet Rice, Kerry-Jayne Wilson and Robbie Turney.
The accounts of Chris Turney, Alok Jha, the Intrepid Wanderers Google+ site are devoid of events that transpired on the 23rd and 24th. Jha reports the flavours of ice-cream he had on the Aurora Australis. Yet he failed to recount what happened for two whole days.
I’m not an attorney but I believe there is one person most responsible for so many people, and ships, now in harm’s way. He cannot be a Captain or Skipper for he is still smiling – while they, I am sure, are not.
Good thing that we are all on board, as well as all of the scientific equipment and vehicles.
I would like to know exactly what “scientific equipment” they had.