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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Thanks a lot for your research that I liked very much.
But be aware that your results are unwanted and disliked in certain circles. I tried several times to put a link to the “getting stuck” thing to one of the blogs(Spiegel Online or SPON) of Germanys largest newsmagazine “Der Spiegel”. Either I am already on the list of ‘deniers’ or orders were given to brush that story under the carpet…They just don’t want to know about it.
They don’t burn books any more, they censor public opinion.
…I would like to know exactly what “scientific equipment” they had….
It sounds as if ‘ice-cream making equipment’ was in there somewhere…
“Speed says:
January 3, 2014 at 3:53 am
I would like to know exactly what “scientific equipment” they had.”
None. But they had set-up a “media hub”…what else would one do with a week on ice, so what more would a “climate scientist” need?
@DG, It seems they missed milkshakes while too imbibed on AS. As such, they were rewarded with ice cream on AA. Appropriately medicated now on AA, they’re no longer allowed to imbibe.
From the pen of the Guardian journalist who was onboard, the cause of the ship getting stuck was:
Why not pop over there and thank him for his diligent journalism.
My suggestion that, as an embedded journalist, he may have gone native is stuck in pre-moderation.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-shokalskiy-free
“steverichards1984 says:
January 3, 2014 at 2:59 am”
1984? The ice (B09B – according to Turney that happened in 2010) in which this fiasco manifest itself “calved” in 1986.
@Patrick, That “media hub” spent an inordinate amount of time rearranging the chairs.
Ray Boorman says: @ur momisugly January 2, 2014 at 8:14 pm
…. The insurer’s should go after them to recover the costs of the rescue, but are not likely to.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Don’t bet on that. Insurers are like sharks when it comes to money. I had someone pull a manufactured accident at my home and the investigator was one sharp dude!
More likely the tax payers are going to get stuck with the bill. This needs to get out so there is a big ruckus over paying for someones stupidity.
These idiots are not scientists. They are not “tourists”. They are children. Spoiled rotten children. And as such they should be spanked. A swatting of their rears will do no good. The adult spanking is heavy fines. Personal fines. Not fines for their “employers” (although they deserve spankings just as badly).
They not only risked their own lives with their irresponsible behavior, they risked the lives of the captain and crew of the ship. I would not be surprised at all if future excursions were severely curtailed or eliminated. The captain may like the money, but his livelihood is his boat and risking that to indulge children is not on his manifest.
From reading the idiot blogs, it does seem that the AS captain understood the situation and had a rough idea of when he wanted to leave. It is unclear if the time criticality was communicated to the tour/junket leader, but lets suppose it was. I did not seem to see anything to indicate dawdling. It could be that no one bother to calculate how long it takes to disembark and re-embark 50+ in-experience personnel via 2 or 3 of the Argo ATVs. From what can see of the Argo ATV website, the 8×8 seats 4, so that’s 1 driver and 3 passengers. Given that they had 3 initially, with 1 becoming out of service later. My point is that there may not be sufficient evidence to charge the Turney group of dawdling at the tour site, just operational incompetence, which is a different failing.
At the sinking of one of the three ARGOs and with uncertain chances of recovery ist must have become obivious that the return time for all tourists to the Akademik Shkalskiy will be at least one-third longer than originally estimated. So the return call ought to have come much earlier.
Wealthy adventurers posing as science workers, led by a hustler posing as a scientist. Turney has put himself, his gullible followers and the ship’s crew at risk by his folly.
Blaming normal ice shifts on AGW is such typical fanatic dishonesty.
The site they were visiting is famous for trapping ships from over 100 years ago.
Turney is acting a lot more like a cynical con-artist than a devout AGW fanatic.
A bit off topic, but I received a reply from DMI today regarding the lack of 80N Arctic temp data over the past 3 weeks:
==START==
Thank you for your mail – we appreciate your engagement.
Some infrastructural changes at DMI had unforeseen effects – that unfortunately caused the +80N mean-temperature-index to crash. It is now up and running again.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Cheers,
gorm
==END==
I just hope their “infrastructure changes” doesn’t mean the implementation of some new algorithm to get “improved” (aka contrived) data.
If anyone happens to know more on this issue, it would be appreciated.
If you go to the WUWT’s SEA ICE PAGE, you’ll see the DMI 80N temp data is now up to date.
Alec Rawls says: @ur momisugly January 2, 2014 at 11:31 pm
….” “jolted sideways with a crunch as the ship bashes and barges its way through.”
In a ship with a light steel hull? They should have been terrified to a man and been determined to get as quickly as possible to safety, not go back in for more. And they continued partying? Pure luck they aren’t all at the bottom of the ocean….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I posted this in an older thread but it really belongs here (Mods remove older post)
This group has a completely different mindset and view of reality as is becoming more and more apparent. It explains why Prof Chris(tmas) Turkey did not thank or even mention the Russian captain or crew and why the MSM ignores their plight.
@Joe Kirklin Chang, dawdling is a primary chore for moonbeams.
It doesn’t matter how nice the weather is when you’re dealing with ice, what matters is what way the wind is blowing. Back in the 80s when we chased near-shore coho salmon on Lake Superior in the early springtime, the ice was always hanging around half a mile or so offshore, and if the wind just became a slight puff from the north we’d have to hustle back to the landing because we only had an hour or so before all the ice floating around was packed on shore, blocking our return.
One heck of an anomoly,,, and water will be blamed.
From The Australian Newspaper today:
$400,000 hit for ice rescue revealed
Maybe the tip of the iceberg, I would say.
John Of Cloverdale WA, Australia says:
January 3, 2014 at 6:31 am
From The Australian Newspaper today:
$400,000 hit for ice rescue revealed
—–
And mounting …
This video from the Guardian by Alok Jha and Topham are video evidence for everything Aphan is highlighting from the various blogs. You have to scroll half way down the page to the three videos after the Mawson interview extract.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/2014/jan/02/antarctic-rescue-akademik-shokalskiy-live-coverage
The first video shows the ship encountering thick pack ice from a long way out (Jha gives the date at times- this could be related to the marinetraffic.com positions for the Sholkalskiy.)
The other two videos below also show some pack shots.
All these videos are in danger of being wiped by the Guardian when they realise their significance to any enquiry and especially if they read this article on WUWT. Can someone here copy and archive?
They were only posted yesterday despite showing activities (and sea ice) as far back as 16th December 2013 and at 65 deg south. This is why I think this is new evidence and will soon be disappeared.
Sorry if someone has already done this. No time to scroll thru.
They were TOWING a six-wheel-drive amphibious ATV Argo with a Zodiac rubber boat? They went too fast and filled the Argo up with water? Who was in charge of this brilliantly-conceived operation? Goodness, Darwin Awards for all, or just barely not apparently…
This is allfine, but, local media needs to be informed about these points. Specifacally those covered by the relevant university and the relevant Green MP (This is a quick comment – at work at moment )
Gail Combs says:
January 3, 2014 at 5:17 am
“There is a lot of truth in the saying “A conservative is a liberal that got mugged” Unfortunately academics and politicians are pretty much immune to the bite of reality.”
—-
Fully agreed, except that I don’t consider those to be “real” conservatives. Their memories tend to be short. A real conservative avoids being mugged 🙂
Anthony, get your snipping mouse warmed up. I am bursting with mirth and venom for the passengers on “The Ship of Fools” but I refuse to break out in laughter or scorn until the crew of the Russian ship and the Chinese Icebreaker are safe. I am saving my WUWT popcorn until that time. I’ve been a good boy for awhile and have not gotten snipped (spanked) in a while. When I finally bust loose about these unmitigated fools that will change.
steverishards suggsts: “What was lost here? Only time as I see it.”
The ship is not yet out of the ice as we write here, though, and may yet be holed and sunk by it.