I received this email tip from reader Thomas Bakewell (HT, HT) who wrote:
Pen Hadow, of the 2009 Caitlin Arctic Expedition is on the loose again!
Here’s the link to the BBC story which is mostly a short video.
Here is a quote:
British explorer Pen Hadow and his crew have set sail from Alaska, in an attempt to become the first people ever to sail to the North Pole.
With Arctic ice melting at an unprecedented rate, previously inaccessible waters are opening up, creating the potential for their planned 5,500 km (3,500 mile) journey for the first time in human history.
AND HERE IS A BUNCH OF STORIES WUWT RAN THE LAST TIME THESE ZEALOTS WERE PRANCHING AROUND.
Another shocked polar explorer
Admiration For The Catlin Explorers
Global Warming At The Pole Since 1913
Catlin Crew Officially Has Hypothermia (and Frostbite)
Catlin Arctic Survey website recycles biotelemetry data?
Can the Catlin Arctic Survey Team Cover 683 km in the Next 21 Days?
Catlin Arctic Ice Survey: paid advertising of results before they are even off the ice!
The Guardian Relocates The North Pole By 500km
Catlin Artic Ice Survey: An Annie Hall Moment
The Top Ten Reasons why I think Catlin Arctic Ice Survey data can’t be trusted
If the wind moves ice around enough to block reaching the true North Pole, not the school globe North Pole, it will be blamed on the rotten wind due to anthropogenic global windbags like Go…it will be due to rotten winds because of AGW. If the group reaches the school globe North Pole I will be convinced that these people are dumbasses and that public education truly does suck.
I would imagine a bloke with a handle like “Rupert Nigel Pendrill Haddow” had a private education…
Harrow indeed.
“If the wind moves ice around enough” his boat will be crushed as an empty seafaring tortoise’s egg shell.
“in an attempt to become the first people ever to sail to the North Pole.”
The owner of a company I once worked for was a big time sailor and 20 years ago showed us photos of a cruise he took to North Pole. When we asked him where the ice was he told us that every so often the exact pole location is ice free and quite a few craft had sailed there before. Could anyone confirm?
sometimes there are open gaps – polynas – of a few thousand meters. Nobody has ever sailed there without icebreaking: there has never been open water from any coast all the way to the pole (in recorded history).
The Us subs like the Skate found gaps with thin ice using sonar and broke through… but that’s a differnet thing to finding open water all the way from a coast to the pole, using no icebraker.
something that is definitely, sadly, coming. Maybe, just, this year. I’d give him a 5% chance, given this:
Thanks for the info. I guess he went on one of those icebreaker tours. The photos he showed us however had very little ice IIRC.
Why “sadly”? Not that it is likely to happen in either my or your lifetime.
One must remember that “recorded history” in this case is only 30 years.
Less ice in the arctic means more economic activity in the arctic. That’s a good thing.
Griff
“something that is definitely, sadly, coming.” WHEN? put up or shut up!
Well Bob, expert opinion is you nearly saw it this year. And still might at the last moment.
Why do you think we won’t see open water to the pole in the next 2 to 5 years?
Why do you think the current thin ice/low volume/little thick multi year ice situation is going to turn around?
You tell me when it will recover to pre 2007 levels (it hasn’t in a decade)
Does nobody think the above extent chart is at least a little concerning?
Yes, it is rather concerning that the satellite composite images show the Arctic Sea covered with ice. Very concerning, indeed.
Griff if you think he has a 5% chance how about a bet and I will give you 20 : 1 odds …. would you be up for a $1,000 US dollars?
When will the Arctic be ice free?
Well according to the prophets and models it already has been ice free, since 2014 or so.
So Griff is right on track.
/not
We were nowhere any closer to an ice free north pole now than in the early 1960s or so when American subs went there…..
But wait that was in the midst of the ice season!
The climate trolls are so full of it….
Griff: I don’t find it concerning at all. For once thing, it’s LOCAL. So it doesn’t count. What happens in the Arctic is not global.
Sheri -the whole point is that it is NOT local…
changes in the arctic affect world climate and weather systems over a wide area.
The recent path of the jet stream is directly related to conditions in the arctic…
Yes! And the changes in the arctic are IT IS STILL COVERED WITH ICE, [snip]. Reality, you really don’t like it, do you?
[No need to get personal. -mod]
Griff
Dodged it again have you, at least Tony was willing to put up, you are a fraud, I told you pick any date you want and I’ll take the other side.
He’s going in that thing?
He’s braver than I thought!
With apologies to Carrie Fisher’s memory.
Caleb at Suunrise’s Swansong has an interesting post on naval expeditions to the North Polar regions. Perhaps Pen is unaware of how little ice there has been in the per-satellite past.
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/arctic-sea-ice-summer-crack-ups/
The letter to John Daly by a USS Skate is something every school student should be made to read.
And who’s going to pay to rescue these fools when they get stuck?
James Bull
Yeah the unfortunate part is there is some international agreement that says you have to rescue them. I think we should invoke Darwinian theory and perhaps fail to hear the distress call.
Looking at those Ice charts, I think he’s got a decent chance of making it as far as the Franklin did back in the 1850’s.
Yes, about as far, but from the opposite direction. If he follows Amundsens track he will probably get through. Not ceratain though.
As a matter of fact in the first year 1845, Franklin sailed all the way around Cornwallis Island and reached 77 degrees north, something that has rarely been done since and would definitely not be possible this year, then in 1846 he sailed straight down Peel Sound, which is rarely open (not yet this year for example). Unfortunately he took the wrong turn when reaching King William Island and got stuck in one of the worst areas for ice in the whole western Arctic. This and two bad ice years (1847-48) was fatal. If he had gone east of King William Island like Amundsen he might well have gone through the NW passage in 1846, and almost certainly in 1847.
A 1931 North Pole attempt by submarine.
http://www.explorenorth.com/explorers/1931nautilus-crew.html
Click the link for more information about the voyage. It certainly was a challenge.
Too bad Arctic temps have already fallen to -1C, about 3 weeks earlier than 30-yr average:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Once Arctic temps hit -4C (269.15K) sea ice starts to increase rapidly, which could be in just a couple of weeks.
Pen Hadow will soooooooo have to be rescued by the Coast Guard in three weeks and his beautiful sailboat will likely be crushed by ice if he doesn’t abandon the foolish quest in time…
There is such a thing guts and glory, and then there is sheer stupidity….
This insane trip clearly falls under the ironically ideological stupid category.
north pole: snow expected in the next two days
Here is a pic of a lot of TPW moving into the western arctic. This stream started around 8 days ago, …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-103.96,74.94,497/loc=-122.867,70.601
Samurai
this is a well financed effort! BUT missing 2 things, The expert help of GRIFF on deck and his well known advice on all things technical.
So,,, bound to fail.
lol! Griff is the expert.
Just ask him and he will modestly admit it.
avast there landlubbers! aaar!
Griff
Put up or shut up
Yes. At this point it appears the whole attempt will be in freezing weather as far as they can go north. Fingers and toes could be in trouble soon.
Forsooth, and pens.
Goldminor-san:
OUCH!!! He’ll have to sail though some VERY rough seas and face Northern wind speeds as high as 40km/hr is some areas…. with perhaps freezing rain/snow…
It’s not a pretty sight when a small sailboat starts taking on ice in heavy winds…..
This poor guy is sooooo screwed…
I sure hope he abandons this insane quest….
And yet the extent is still going down…
And yet you keep lying.
Griff
Put up or shut up
Did they mean the geographic North Pole or as they did in the past mean the Magnetic North Pole? By the way, where is that sucka now a days? Vuk?
Hi Tom
This might be a bit confusing, but no fear, there are two magnetic north poles, neither coincides with the geographic pole.
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/images/polesfig1.jpg
Positions of the north dip pole (red) and the geomagnetic pole (blue) 1900-2020 estimated from the IGRF magnetic data. (credit: British geological survey)
Interesting article in the (London) Times today. Apparently tourism to the UK is set to boom because our summers are getting hotter. (Yesterday my wife had to go to the waiting room of a railway station as it was too cold outside. But that was near Glasgow. Global warming hasn’t reached us in the far north.) But beaches are disappearing because of coastal erosion caused by – climate change. But the rain is getting heavier so that might put the foreigners off, etc, etc. Extreme weather, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah but the British Peso will keep the tourists coming 🙂
Poor old Lizzies head isn’t worth as much as she used to be.
‘Peso.’ Love it. Barely worth a fart-hinge.
He’d better wear his ear plugs. I hear the Arctic is “screaming”. Probably gets louder the closer to the NP you get.
Sea-ice in motion can be fairly noisy, but it hardly screams. When the motion is slow it makes strange, almost musical sounds, fast motion gives grinding noises. And melting glacier ice gives off little popping sounds all the time as the gas bubbles in the ice burst.
Otherwise the Arctic is pretty quiet away from seabird colonies.
Haddie the Pen and Christopher Robin’s expotition to the North Pole:
“Good morning, Christopher Robin,” called out Haddie the Pen.
“Hallo, Pen Bear. I can’t get this boot on.”
“That’s bad,” said Pen.
“Do you think you could very kindly lean against me, ‘cos I keep pulling so hard that I fall over backwards.”
Pen sat down, dug his feet into the ground, and pushed hard against Christopher Robin’s back, and Christopher Robin pushed hard against his, and pulled and pulled at his boot until he had got it on.
“And that’s that,” said Pen. “What do we do next?”
“We are all going on an Expedition,” said Christopher Robin, as he got up and brushed himself. “Thank you, Pen.”
“Going on an Expotition?” said Pen eagerly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on one of those. Where are we going to on this Expotition?”
“Expedition, silly old Bear. It’s got an ‘x’ in it.”
“Oh!” said Pen. “I know.” But he didn’t really.
“We’re going to discover the North Pole.”
“Oh!” said Pen again. “What is the North Pole?” he asked.
“It’s just a thing you discover,” said Christopher Robin carelessly, not being quite sure himself.
“Oh! I see,” said Pen. “Are bears any good at discovering it?”
“Of course they are. And Rabbit and Kanga and all of you. It’s an Expedition. That’s what an Expedition means. A long line of everybody. You’d better tell the others to get ready, while I see if my gun’s all right. And we must all bring Provisions.”
“Bring what?”
“Things to eat.”
“Oh!” said Pen happily. “I thought you said Provisions. I’ll go and tell them.” And he stumped off.
The first person he met was Rabbit.
“Hallo, Rabbit,” he said, “is that you?”
“Let’s pretend it isn’t,” said Rabbit, “and see what happens.”
“I’ve got a message for you.”
“I’ll give it to him.”
“We’re all going on an. Expotition with Christopher Robin!”
“What is it when we’re on it?”
“A sort of boat, I think,” said Pen.
“Oh! that sort.”
“Yes. And we’re going to discover a Pole or something. Or was it a Mole? Anyhow we’re going to discover it.”
“We are, are we?” said Rabbit.
“Yes. And we’ve got to bring Pro-things to eat with us. In case we want to eat them. Now I’m going down to Piglet’s. Tell Kanga, will you?”
He left Rabbit and hurried down to Piglet’s house.
The Piglet was sitting on the ground at the door of his house blowing happily at a dandelion, and wondering whether it would be this year, next year, some time or never. He had just discovered that it would be never, and was trying to remember what “it” was, and hoping it wasn’t anything nice, when Pen came up.
“Oh! Piglet,” said Haddie the Pen excitedly, we’re going on an Expotition, all of us, with things to eat. To discover something.”
“To discover what?” said Piglet anxiously.
“Oh! just something.”
“Nothing fierce?”
“Christopher Robin didn’t say anything about fierce. He just said it had an ‘x’.”
continued…
I went on one of those “expotitions” myself, when I was 4. Saw a mountain (Mt. Monadnock) off in the distance from my bedroom window, and decided to climb it. Made my lunch (PB&J, of course) too. Even then, I was planning ahead. Trouble was, it was mid-winter, with snowdrifts over my head. Didn’t get very far. So, I sat on the front porch and ate my lunch. True story.
Bruce-san
I went on one of those “expeditions” during my college days….
My buddy and I thought it would be a great idea to hike up Blood Mountain in Georgia (Appalachian Trail) in late November in the late 70’s… We had a VERY rare early snowstorm event which dumped over 1 foot of snow overnight and we had to hike through 15 miles of wet snow down the mountain…
We both wore gators,”waterproof” boots and excellent cold-weather clothing, but our boots eventually got waterlogged and our feet froze…. Once your feet get wet, you’re SERIOUSLY screwed.
I suffered from 1st degree frostbite on all my toes, which were tingling until Christmas….
You play with Mother Nature, you lose big time, every time….
Expotition = exploitation
He is doing well, entered Chukotsko more ( Chukchi Sea) earlier this afternoon (UTC).
Well he does have Rabbit, Kanga an Piglet helping him.
This article could also be titled ‘How to travel the world and get someone else to pay for it.”
Looks like they’re about to sail into a double llow pressure system. It’s gonna get real cold and real wet soon. Should get interesting real quick.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-158.97,70.93,1348/loc=-168.565,66.130
and that will further disperse the thin ice… opening a path??
Griff
Put up or shut up
Scoresby senior reached 81 degrees north in 1806 and found himself only some 600 miles from the Pole and reported open water ahead. Unfortunately he was not stocked with supplies and could go no further.
I wrote about the great melting of ice which was noted by British whalers in the late 1790’s here
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
Unfortunately there was some trouble with some pesky colonials and the royal navy did not mount an expedition until 1817 . There was known to be considerable variability in ice for over 30 years prior to this. It is a mistake to believe the north was always in a rigid deep freeze.
Tonyb
I think the northern record for a non-icebreaker was set by Sadko in 1935 with 82 deg 42 min North, in waters east of Franz Josephs land, i. e. almost exactly 500 miles from the North Pole, the previous record was 82 deg 30 min by Roosevelt north of Ellesmere land in 1908.
Tonyb,
I have always been thankful for that research you did in 2009. It was a gold-mine, and also a springboard for further research.
One of the most fascinating things was the amazing amount of sea-ice that was flushed south into the Atlantic around 1817. There was ice down to 40 degrees, and bergs grounding on the coast of Ireland. That ice had to come from somewhere, and to the north of 80 degrees on the Atlantic side there apparently was hardly any ice at all. I think the Whalers could have gone further north, but whales tended to congregate at the edge of the ice, and the edge of the ice was closer to the west and even the east, so that was where they went to earn their bread. (Some say that all that ice further south in the Atlantic caused the SST to be so much colder that it caused the “Year Without A Summer” in Western Europe.)
If a similar event occurred today you can bet Global Warming would get the blame, but many Alarmists tend to deny that the arctic was so ice-free in 1817. (It might happen again. Their “Quiet Sun” began in 1798, and then there were two gigantic volcanic eruptions in 1810 and 1815 that may have resulted in an extremely meridional flow that flushed all the ice south. We now have the Quiet Sun, but lack the two ginormous eruptions happening 12-17 years after the quiet begins.)
By the way, besides pesky colonials there was that pesky dude Napoleon Britain had to deal with. Once peace came England had a Navy of 600 ships, and…what to do with them? The answer seems to have been, “Explore, (and claim), the arctic.”
Paid vacation + extra cash, not a bad deal.
Plus all those column inches and TV clips to pad out the CV for th lucrative lecture circuit.
With 2,500 miles of Arctic coastline and ever-growing commercial, research and rescue interests in the Arctic, the U.S. should be maintaining a fleet of icebreakers. We have three active ships with one planned for the 2020’s.
Russia, with 15,000 miles of “beachfront” shoreline in the Arctic, has 47 diesel and 4 nuclear icebreakers, and 31 “other” – supply, patrol and research – vessels with substantial icebreaking capabilities. Four more have been commissioned.
Finland has seven ships, and Canada has eight in service, with one proposed. Even Greenpeace has an icebreaker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_icebreakers#Canada
In 2007, Russia staked a symbolic claim to the Arctic by dropping a canister containing the Russian flag on the ocean floor from a submarine at the geographic North Pole. They declared that “The Arctic is ours, and we should demonstrate our presence.”
“Having only one heavy icebreaker … it is the one aspect I lose sleep over,” said Admiral Zukunft, Commandant of the U.S. Coastguard. Even though he says he is pushing for funding from Congress to build six new icebreakers by 2023, the U.S. is already behind.
“US Coast Guard chief warns of Russian ‘checkmate’ in Arctic”
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/us-coast-guard-chief-warns-of-russian-checkmate-in-arctic-1.466707
The plight of the Shell Oil’s exploration in the Chukchi Sea, and the spectacle of environmentalists stuck in the Antarctic ice, requiring the Polar Star rescue further emphasize the need for more icebreakers.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/29/shell-to-quit-us-arctic-due-to-unpredictable-federal-regulatory-environment/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/04/usa-to-the-rescue-us-coast-guard-ice-breaker-asked-to-assist-antarctic-rescue-vessels-trapped-in-ice-due-to-spiritofmawson-fiasco/
Even the Penn Hadow misadventures should draw the eye of military and maritime leaders concerned over the head start and aggression that Russians have in the area:
Both Canada and U.S. should upgrade their icebreaker fleets.
/ Off soapbox
Yes… and you didn’t even mention the new Russian arctic military bases…
not did you mention that the Russians accept the science that arctic sea ice will continue to decline and that they expect further use of the Northern Sea route WITHOUT icebreaker support… the icebreakers only extend the season.
And yet the satellite composite images STILL show the Arctic Sea to be covered with ice. You need some heavy medication for that lying problem of yours.
Griff
Funny I seem to remember the Russian said we are in for a cooling.
Put up or shut up
‘Live’ marine traffic shows only one vessel in the area, presumably two close sailing boats are reported as one
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-168.6/centery:66.6/zoom:7
Thanks for this link!!!!! Very interesting.
zoom in (zoom 8) and it will show (magenta coloured) identified as a ‘Pleasure Craft’
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/MODISCOM-F/20170814000000_MODISCOM-F_0009586065.jpg
http://www.ec.gc.ca/Glaces-Ice/default.asp?lang=En&n=DFFA2648-1
+10 and thanks for the link.
He will be trying to get to the North Magnetic pole because there is absolutely no chance he could ever get near the actual North pole in a boat like that. The media of course will quite happily fudge the difference.
The mission site referenced by Vukcevic above says
“Follow Arctic Mission on its voyage around the North Pole”
They could fulfill that mission statement simply by going through Panama Canal, across Atlantic and Med, through Suez Canal and down Red Sea, across Indian Ocean and through Indonesia and Philippines with a quick stop at Midway(just to say you been there!) and back to Alaska. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!
Difference successfully fudged.
2hotel9 … there’s someone that sees the big picture.
This Hadow guy just does not plan correctly! No vision. He could turn this Trip Around The Poles thing into a year long reality TV show, make millions off merchandising and syndication.
According to WIkipedia,
Rupert Nigel Pendrill Hadow known as Pen Hadow (British, born 26 February 1962), is an Arctic Ocean explorer, advocate, adventurer and guide. He is the only person to have trekked solo, and without resupply by third parties, from Canada to the North Geographic Pole.
He is also is the first Briton to have trekked, without resupply by third parties, to both the North and South Geographic Poles from the respective continental coastlines of North America and Antarctica respectively
His legend reads like that of a latter-day Captain Scott, and he has mastered the art of PR-speak: “our Arctic Mission voyage of discovery” evokes Christopher Columbus and the opening soundtrack of Star Trek.
What about the dear old SS Manhattan (105000dwt) that cruised through there in 1969?????
Alaska has lots and lots of sled dog kennels that support dog sled racing. He can certainly pick up several used dog sleds, including the non-banned tow-behind trailer variety and have some enterprising outfitter put up a mast and make a custom sail for his trip.
Actually, he’d be smarter to pick up used Iron Dog snowmobiles for the dash to the pole. It would be easier, imho, to make them waterproof for traversing leads. And much, much faster.
Oh, and maybe he can plant a few trees along the way (ref. companion WUWT article) to help with sea level rise.