Well that’s the end of that story…until investigations begin.
Press release: 12:30pm AEDT, Wednesday 8 January 2014
Antarctic rescue operations complete
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority can confirm that the Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long have broken free from the ice in Antarctica and are no longer in need of assistance.
The United States Coast Guard ice breaker Polar Star has been released from search and rescue tasking by AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) and will now continue on its original mission to McMurdo Sound.
At about 730pm AEDT on Tuesday RCC Australia received a message from the Captain of the Akademik Shokalskiy stating that about three hours earlier cracks had started to open in the ice around the trapped vessel.
A short time later the Akademik Shokalskiy began to make slow movements in an attempt to break free from surrounding ice. The Captain reported that at approximately 8pm AEDT they had managed to successfully clear the area containing the heaviest ice and had begun making slow progress north through lighter ice conditions. At approximately 830am AEDT the Akademik Shokalskiy informed RCC Australia that it had cleared the ice field and was no longer in need of assistance. The Captain of the Akademik Shokalskiy passed on his thanks to all those who assisted the vessel and informed the RCC that they will now proceed to Bluff in New Zealand.
Shortly after midnight RCC Australia was advised by the Captain of the Xue Long that, at about 9pm AEDT, it too had managed to break free of the heavy ice and is now making slow progress through lighter ice conditions. The Xue Long advised RCC Australia this morning that it is not in need of assistance and will continue its research mission in Antarctica.
AMSA again offers our thanks to all of the participants in the effort to assure a safe resolution to the situations that emerged following a distress incident experienced by MV Akademik Shokalskiy in Commonwealth Bay on Christmas Day.
In total five ships were involved in the multi-lateral cooperative effort – Akademik Shokalskiy (Russia), L’Astrolabe (France), Xue Long (China), Aurora Australis (Australia) and USCGC Polar Star (United States of America). The national Antarctic programs and other agencies of France, China, Australia, Germany and the United States of America have been engaged in actual operational responses, contingency planning or the provision of specialist data.
“This was a great example of the multi-lateral cooperative nature of Antarctic operations” said AMSA Acting CEO Mick Kinley.
Media Enquiries: 1300 624 633
Source: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media
==============================================================
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bladeshearer –
i haven’t watched the NY video u mention, but there’s a pic of Whetton here, & others online, if u want to compare:
http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/Marine–Atmospheric-Research/PennyWhetton.aspx
interesting bits from the UNSW FAQ which, at the bottom, shows it is compiled by
The AAE Team
On board the AAD icebreaker, Aurora australis
6 January 2014
(ALSO NOTE: THERE IS NO MENTION OF THE MEDIA BEING AMONG THE SELECT GROUP TO VISIT MAWSON’S HUTS)
“Importantly, many of our projects had numerous international partners.”…
Who are the national and international partners of the AAE?
The science team members are all world experts in their fields. Details of the institutions can also be found on our website and include UNSW, Australia, and the universities of Victoria (Wellington, New Zealand), Exeter (UK), and Wisconsin (USA) as well as numerous other international research organizations, such as Landcare Research (New Zealand), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (USA), Sydney Institute of Marine Sciences (Australia) and Scripps Institute of Marine Sciences (USA)…
Our final day’s work on the continent lay to the east in the Mertz Polynya. Here the sea ice cover is considerably less of B09B and open water is present where the tongue of the glacier had once been…
We are now working up the samples and data and INTEND to publish our findings over the next 12 months…
Now this is really funny! Turney’s Turkeys are confined to the ship!!!
“The AAE is only making a short stop at Casey before heading for Hobart.
And the 52 scientists and tourists from the expedition will not even be going ashore.
They will remain on board the Aurora until the vessel is ready to depart for the Tasmanian capital.
The Australian Antarctica Division said that unscheduled extra visits to the base would only interfere with the tightly time-tabled plan of operations at Casey.
These operations will be largely focussed on off-loading food, scientific equipment and fuel supplies to power everything for the coming winter in this part of East Antarctica.
In other words, the Aurora crew will be resuming the work they had to drop when they were called by the Australian maritime authorities to assist in the rescue of the Academik Shokalskiy and the AEE in Cumberland Bay, about three days’ voyage away.”
Antarctic Continent, so close and yet so far away…
@richardscourtney & others,
Not making excuses for anyone and I never said the captain stayed in the pack ice “merely as a convenience”, but rather that it might have been the lesser of two evils with a ruptured hull.
All this is speculation of course. I don’t know how the captain reasoned, nor do I know at what time the hull was damaged, any more than you do. Fortunately we are still allowed to speculate on the course of events. It is quite possible the hull was ruptured as the ship worked to break its way through ice floes of varying thickness. An ice strengthened research ship might not be especially strong two meters above the waterline and a protruding ice edge might hit the ship’s side hard in a squeeze. At Jo Nova’s site a passenger is quoted describing the ship as making “very slow progress… oscillat[ing] between hardly moving to suddenly being jolted sideways with a crunch”.
Also have not seen anything indicating that the ship was listing enough to cause hull damage while frozen in, but perhaps you’ll help me out here?
Anyway, we’ll know the cause of damage and event timeline soon enough and I’m happy to be corrected if proven wrong.
Regarding culpability, it most definitely is the captain of a ship who is responsible. If the charterer wants to go someplace dangerous – then he must say NO. If his passengers fool around ashore and causes the departure to be delayed – then he has left his margin of safety too thin. Conversely, the leader of a polar expedition today is not an authority on the ship, but a passenger. He has no responsibility for the ship’s safe handling. The era of Nansen and Amundsen in command at sea and ashore is long gone.
As a practical or a moral issue, I agree with most posters in this thread. Still, unless there was an agreement beforehand between shipowner and charterer regarding emergency costs, I can’t see the expedition being charged for the rescue operation anytime soon.
DanJ:
Thankyou for your post at January 8, 2014 at 1:26 pm which is addressed to me and others in reply to my post at January 8, 2014 at 7:12 am and their supporting comments on it.
Your reply says
It is reassuring to know you are “not making excuses” but it seems you have made an oversight.
I remind that my post
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/07/akademik-shokalskiy-and-the-xue-long-have-broken-free-from-the-ice-in-antarctica-and-are-no-longer-in-need-of-assistance/#comment-1529324
said to you
Unfortunately your reply has made no attempt to answer the request for clarification Indeed, your reply does not mention the distress call.
Clearly, you addressing other matters and not the request is an oversight and not an obfuscation because you are “not making excuses”. So, I hope you will now answer the request which was the only point made in my post.
Richard
@richard,
The Akademik Shokalskiy made a distress call because they were getting stuck in pack ice – in the Antarctic – in a blizzard – with a passenger ship – with a ruptured hull. It was the only thing to do. Is this not self-evident?
I did not answer your question because it seemed to be based on your misreading of my post. Regretfully, I do not see your point even now.
Regards,
Daniel
DanJ:
Thankyou for your reply to me at January 8, 2014 at 2:49 pm which answers my question.
It says
OK. I will spell out my point.
There is a dichotomy between your original suggestion; i.e.
and your present suggestion that
As Gary Pearse says in his post at January 8, 2014 at 7:25 am
As you now say, the distress call was because “they were getting stuck in pack ice”. This does require a distress call because – as Gary Pearse says – this “for any ship has a high risk of being lost”.
But you originally suggested “the captain allowed the ship to get stuck”. He would not deliberately endanger his ship to a degree which required a distress call.
And please note that there is no suggestion the hull was ruptured, only that the hull’s shell plating was ruptured 1.8m above the waterline. If there were a ‘balance of risks’ then getting stuck in pack ice was clearly a greater risk than taking to open water with damaged plating on the hull.
Simply, getting trapped in the pack ice clearly requires a distress call, but sailing away from the ice with damaged hull plating doesn’t require a distress call.
I responded to your original suggestion by asking why you thought a distress call was needed.
You now say you think the ship had “a ruptured hull” and “they were getting stuck in pack ice”. Perhaps you did originally think the hull was ruptured and that would require a distress call, but it would not explain why – as you originally suggested – the captain would choose to get stuck in the ice.
Richard
Richard,
As I originally said the damage was 1,8 m above the waterline, so mentioning a ruptured hull was careless wording on my part.
There is no contradiction between the captain hurrying to get out of the ice first, and then staying put after suffering damages. Going out into stormy seas with damaged hull plating in a blizzard with the wind driving ice floes at you is not a safe place to be either. The balance of risk involved is complex and cannot be settled from your armchair or mine. Time will tell how events transpired. Until then we are allowed to freely speculate, even on a blog post.
Regards,
Daniel
out-of-date because the writer still thinks the Polar Star is off to rescue the Shokalskiy & Xue Long. seems he wrote it earlier than the date published. however, very interesting detail:
9 Jan: Australian: Anthony Bergin: Saga of Shokalskiy breaks ice on much-needed polar conversation
(Anthony Bergin is deputy director, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and honorary fellow, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre)
It’s interesting that the voyage isn’t part of the official Australian Antarctic Science Program, and was taking paying passengers. The cruise is badged by its operators as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, appropriating the name of the Australasian scientific team that explored part of the cold continent between 1911 and 1914, led by Douglas Mawson. It’s a bit like stealing the term Anzac for a tourist visit to Gallipoli…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/saga-of-shokalskiy-breaks-ice-on-muchneeded-polar-conversation/story-e6frgd0x-1226797645337#
DanJ:
re your post at January 8, 2014 at 4:20 pm.
It is the second time you have implied that I was objecting to speculation.
I was not. I was objecting to your unfounded implications that the fiasco was all the fault of the experienced ship’s captain when it was certainly the fault of the incompetent tour guide; i.e. Turney.
Richard
DanJ says:
January 8, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Dan, I have not seen anything in the reports of the departure indicating that the captain ”stayed” in the ice. Did you?
All the reports I read so far are consistent with the assumption that Captain Kiselev tried to get his ship out but it was too late. The wind driven ice had already closed in on them.
Dan, you did not respond directly to me but since my post had the only reference to listing I assume that “you” in the question above means me (included in @richardscourtney & others). Am I right?
If so, you seem to continue this muddled argument about cause and effect. You say that you have not seen any suggestions that the listing caused the hull damage. I have certainly not made any such suggestion.
I wrote:
Are you asserting that the starboard hull damage 1.8 meters above waterline happened before the hull was firmly gripped by the ice causing the ship listing to starboard?
I presume that the slight listing—visible in the pictures and reported by the Xue Long helicopter pilot—was the result of lateral forces on the hull strong enough to lift the hull on side and push the ship over to the other. Forces of moving ice so thick that they are impenetrable to lighter icebreakers. Forces that can completely crush a ship’s hull, let alone cause a plating rupture so minor that it can be repaired by the crew at sea (as it were).
I said the ice pressure caused the listing. I did not say the listing caused the rupture. I consider it quite possible the ice pressure on the hull of the stuck ship caused the rapture. The listing is a symptom, not a cause.
That is the entirety of my current thinking. Based on the information I’ve seen to date—and I searched original Russian sources as well—I don’t know what and when caused the plating rupture.
It was you who originally suggested that the “hull damage” happened before the ship got stuck in ice and ”this is probably the reason the captain allowed the ship to get stuck”.
I questioned your enterprising guesswork. That’s all. Feel free to speculate all you want but be ready to defend your statements.
Colorado Wellington:
re your post at January 9, 2014 at 12:03 am.
Game, Set, and Match.
Richard
I am betting that they they sailed in a normal ship rather than an ice breaker so they could garner more headlines about the loss of ice if they had had a successful voyage.
When the Russians are building the biggest nuclear ice breaker ever, for the Arctic, you know that ice is going to be a problem for a long while yet.
@richardscourtney
I think so, Richard, but I’m afraid it will end up being one of those encounters where one competitor leaves the court while the ball is still in play, muttering “I won, I won” while his opponent and the spectators watch in disbelief.
The ironic part of this exchange is that I believe Dan was correct in his initial post that the ship’s master has the primary responsibility, even though—as Dan seems to agree—from “a practical or a moral” standpoint it is the loudmouth Turney and his gaggle who got the ship in a dangerous situation by their incompetent and undisciplined behavior. It will be educational to follow the legal wranglings but I’m afraid that Captain Kiselev and the ship’s owner will end up suffering the consequences of Turney’s self-serving actions.
Dan would have done better if he didn’t muddy his opening post with his wild speculations that the hull damage happened before the ice gripped the ship and was the reason why the captain purposely allowed the ship to get stuck in ice. There is nothing supporting it in the records I’ve seen. It doesn’t make sense from the departure time sequence point of view. It wouldn’t make sense as the master’s decision. So why the speculation?
Heeding the counsel of William of Ockham would have served Dan’s credibility well.
Instead of standing on the reasonable and defensible part of his initial contribution, he chose to become known for making wild, unsupported and unreasonable speculations, his unwillingness to address and reconsider them, and, last but not least, a silly assertion of his right to speculate that nobody questioned.
His choice—he had plenty of opportunity. In fact, he still does, even as most spectators have already left the court.
@richardscourtney
I wrote the above in a hurry—as my grammar errors and typos suggest—and I failed to include a thing important to me:
Thank you for your 2 hat tips, as well as the perseverance and effort you put into this thread. I’d like you to know it was your original response to Dan and his failure to respond fully to your well-reasoned points that made me want to join in and continue the debate.
pat says:
January 7, 2014 at 8:02 pm
6 Jan: Conversation: Stephan Lewandowsky: An icebreaker gets stuck in the ice, photos are used to mislead
One can’t make this up!
Lewandowsky: Akademik-Shokalskiy ship is an ice-breaker!
Then to a story in the Antarctica posts sea ice extend of the Arctic!
Lewandowsky:
“An ice breaker gets stuck in ice – we’ve all seen the pictures – and somehow this is an embarrassment to “global warming scientists”.”
This is such a blatant example of how this person understands reality.
Next paper is about conspiracy theorists not calling Akademik-Shokalskiy an ice-breaker! Lol
@Colorado Wellington, richardscourtney
Thank you CW for your thoughtful and measured reply. Sorry to have misrepresented your claim regarding the listing ship. Do provide updates in these pages if indeed you read Russian and find events better explained there.
So we have three issues:
1) Did the ship suffer a rupture in the hull while moving through the pack ice, or when she was stuck and squeezed by the ice? I think it is more likely it happened underway, and have some support in the passenger’s account as quoted previously.
2) Did the captain choose to stay put after suffering a rupture to the hull, rather than going out into the open sea? This is the speculative part, and I have seen no description of events to support it. We do not know the alternatives before the captain, or his reasoning. Time will tell.
3) Is the expediton or the captain to blame for the emergency? The master of a ship is responsible always. If the expedition fooling around ashore and returning late is enough to endanger the ship, then the captain has kept his margin of safety too thin. The expedition members are amateurs in polar work, and delays and mishaps are likely. The captain is the professional and must take that fact into account.
This is not to belittle the captain. The weather apparently deteriorated faster than had been expected. With his ship in an emergency, he did everything right. No loss of life, limb or ship. Everyone healthy and well-fed. You don’t get to be master of a Russian polar research ship by mistake, and he’ll no doubt put this experience to good use later.
As a moral and practical matter we’d like to have the expedition’s lack of discipline reflected in the appropriation of rescue costs. It is still unlikely we’ll see 500 years of maritime law stood on its head for a trivial case like this. Unless there was an agreement beforehand between the shipowner and the charterer assigning responsibility, risk or cost, the shipowner and insurance companies will bear most of the cost.
Regards,
Daniel
Dan,
Thank you for your reply. With the 3 issues organized as above I think that:
1. You could be right that the plating damage happened as the ship was still moving through ice. Not knowing the shape, location and nature of the plating rupture makes it impossible to deduce much. I think it’s slightly more likely the rupture happened after the hull was firmly gripped by ice but I would not be surprised if you guessed right (as you likely would not be in the reverse case).
2. I have not seen evidence of intentionally getting stuck in the ice, either. I agree that any musing about the captain’s decisions is purely speculative.
However, I think it’s unlikely the captain chose to get stuck for the reasons Richard and Gary brought up. There are just too many instances of hulls compromised and ships sunk after being stuck in pack ice. The Russians have very broad experience with shipping through ice along their Arctic Ocean shore but I find it hard to believe the captain would have risked it given any reasonable chance of escaping the pack ice—even if he knew about some plating damage.
And since we are speculating: Did you consider when the captain actually could have learned about the rupture? I don’t remember reading anything about it until after the ship was already immobilized. I also found no plating “repair” photos except a heavily recycled picture of a sailor inspecting what could have been an older patch high on the port side near the bow, but nothing involving the starboard side. Unless the plating rupture was somehow detectable from within the ship during its escape attempt—in blizzard conditions—how would the captain even know there was a minor damage on the outside of the hull?
3. As I said earlier, I agree with you on this point. On high seas, the captain has complete control and the last word. That’s why I expect that despite his irresponsible actions Christopher Turney will get away with no financial repercussions. If deposed or communicating through counsel he will be happy to assert that there was no difference between him and any little old lady on a Royal Caribbean cruise. He will escape the financial consequences and that’s one more reason for the public to mock him mercilessly because it’s about the only payback he gets—besides the contempt of the icebreaker crews and the real Antarctic scientists whose annual research programs he so royally screwed up. And he won’t be able to charter another research ship under his leadership—without a prohibitive insurance premium at least—because of his amateur performance aboard the Shokalskiy that he so helpfully broadcast to the whole world. I sense that a Spirit of Shackleton expedition sequel is slipping from his grasp.
***
I understand Russian just well enough to read through an article. I did listen to an audio with captain Kiselev—following a transcript—and he seemed like an even-keeled professional with a manner of speaking strikingly different from the manic drama queen that was just “rescued” from his ship. There is plenty of corruption and incompetence in Russia—as the natives themselves would remind us—but I agree that the captain must be a competent mariner. As you pointed out, given the unforgiving Antarctic environment this was a minor kerfuffle that ended extremely well. All the tourist adventurers got their ice cream and I think the Chinese even helicoptered their matched baggage to their “connecting cruise” to Casey. That’s better than an average experience on domestic airlines.
Regards and see you next time,
Colorado Wellington
DanJ says: @ur momisugly January 9, 2014 at 2:10 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The ship ended up stuck because the passengers did not return to the ship in a timely fashion as ordered by the captain.
They managed to swamp an Argo and it had to be towed.
This was discussed in another set of comments in an older update about the Akademik Shokalskiy here at WUWT.
So much ocean and so little to do. No air time to blog how well our important science is going as the ship keeps turning round and round with us still on it. Nothing to do but sit and wait. Can’t even go ashore even if we do get to stop close enough to shore. I think the captain might be cross with us for some reason.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:109.7337/centery:-66.21252/zoom:8/mmsi:503043000
As the real(tm) scientists note
https://secure3.aad.gov.au/proms/public/schedules/display_sitrep.cfm?bvs_id=19324
“We are currently in the classic ‘hurry up and wait’ mode. For those not familiar with this term it means we are ready to commence work but circumstances do not allow it to happen – in this instance, the weather.”
Let us all hope that the weather calms down enough that the interrupted re-supply to Casey gets completed soon.
@ur momisugly Colorado Wellington
Again, you make a good analysis of events. It does seem nothing has backed me up on my idea that the captain chose to stay put. Also looked at all available images but found no rupture to the hull, signs of weldng or other repair. Can not be very large. Hard to tell how and when they noticed the damage but a bump violent enough to cause a rupture might have the captain send someone to check. I assume the dash to get out of the ice caused them to push the ship harder than usual.
On the lighter side, I looked at the history of the 10 ships of the Akademik Shuleykin class. They enjoy a good reputation still and only one of them has been scrapped. They were built in Finland for the Soviet Union. The most important hydrographic research for the Soviets was mapping the northern oceans and the Arctic for the benefit of their nuclear submarines. That included measuring lots of temperatures and currents at varying depths to find the layers where the submarines could move quietly. There must be a great database of ocean temperatures somewhere, but I guess it won’t be available for civilian science any time soon.
The ships were also well-equipped in radio and did signal intelligence work, as well as meticulously recording all movements of NATO ships. Most sought after were American sonobuoys, dropped by airplane into the ocean to listen for subs. Apparently they managed to pick at least three of these out of the water back in the day, and the KGB was happy!
Regards,
Daniel
Re-supply at Casey is again underway now the weather has improved.
@DanJ
Interesting info on the original purpose of the Shuleykin-class ships. I knew it was military—all significant scientific investments in the Soviet Union had a military angle—but I did not know the details. Are there references available online?
I knew these ships were contract-built by the same shipyard in Turku that produced some special ships for the Soviet Union in the early 1950s to satisfy Finnish war reparations—the consequence of WWII conflicts that started with the November 1939 Soviet attack on Finland, resulting in heavy casualties and territorial losses but thanks to the country’s tough resistance and military victories also preventing full occupation and annexation by its totalitarian neighbor.