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.
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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
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(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.”
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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.
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[ Anthony: I’ve saved the Rice log entry as a PDF here: Rice-log-Monday-23-December-2013 ]
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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.”
RED ALERT. RED ALERT !
The Akademik Shokalski is back in Bluff New Zealand, BUT and this is hard to believe, another expedition compagny is boarding the ship for a trip to the Ross Sea region, that is the deep South of Antarctica. They will visit amongst other McMurdo Station and Scott’s hutt. For all I know that is 77 to 78° South. Mc Murdo sounds is even in Summer a frozen Ice sea, with thik sea ice, only an icebreaker can work it’s way through. The Polar Star is on it’s way to McMurdo now to open up a channel for resupply of the Antarctic stations in this region.
The Shokalski is an ice strenghtened vessel, that should never go further south than the Peninsula.
Can anyone stop these fools ? Or can we await another rescue operation in an even more hazardous envirment !