Post by neilhamp on Aug 3, 2014 2:29:52 GMT
Oops! Sorry posted this in the wrong place.
There seems to be something of a comedian on board Captain Tim's boat
blog.mailasail.com/suilven/215
Looks like they had a go and only just escaped
"And then there was this tom fool adventure into the ice. When you decide to go to a place called Arctic Bay, I think you should expect to find Arctic conditions. I could have given them a spot of advice, given my previous high latitude experience, but no, they just set off and Pig and I had to watch mutely as the inevitable consequences unfolded. ‘It’s just across Lancaster Sound,’ they said. ‘It’s got two shops, a school and they sell diesel. Plus it will give us something to do rather than just sitting around here waiting.’ All went well for the first 6 hours and then they spotted the wall of ice. Undaunted, they plunged in, weaving here and there along the leads like the ice pros they thought they were. That is until they reached a dead end. Round we turned, heading off east to find a gap in the ice and then plunging southward again. At last the skipper saw sense, realized we’d never make it through and turned the boat round to follow our track out. Only the track wasn’t there any more, everything had closed up. They faffed around with the long poley things they call ‘tuks’ and made a bit of progress but then ground to a complete halt. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait till things change,’ said the skipper, so there we sat for the next six hours, drifting with the ice, making what progress we could as gaps opened up and then closed again. Young Max came up with an excellent wheeze with the dinghy kedge anchor, whirling it round his head like a lasso and hurling it forwards over huge sheets of ice and just pulling. To everyone’s amazement, blocks of ice the size of tennis courts just started moving, and bit by bit they managed to manoeuver the boat to more open water. The question then was which direction was the way out? The skipper wanted to go East, but compasses don’t work in these waters, and they weren’t moving fast enough for the GPS system to give them a direction, added to which the fog closed in, so they were working completely blind. Luckily, the heat of the sun eventually burned the fog off and a bit of a breeze picked up. They could tell by the sun roughly which direction was East, and made a determined effort to push through the rest of the ice, trying to ignore the crunching sounds as they left behind them a tell-tale trail of blue antifouling. Now they could see the open sea and found themselves surrounded by sheets of ice that were bouncing up and down alarmingly in the swell. No matter, nothing was going to stop them now, they were getting out come what may. A few more nasty bangs and we were away, flying along at 7 plus knots.
I am pleased to say that they made the decision to go straight back to Dundas Harbour, a very safe anchorage which is beginning to feel like home. The dinghy has been launched and inspection of the hull has revealed no damage. Pig and I can breathe easy."
Looks like the other boat also tried to make the trip.
Here is their report
"We had a foretaste of being encumbered by ice a few days ago when we
attempted to reach Arctic Bay, an Inuit settlement about 100 miles south
of here. Soon after we had entered Admiralty Inlet that leads to Arctic
Bay, we were quickly surrounded by ice. We gave up and turned around,
but progress was occasionally impossible and it took us several hours to
reach open water. The photo above should give you an idea of what we had
to go through. We are happy to be in this protected bay … and wait.
Patience is the password in these high latitudes."
There seems to be something of a comedian on board Captain Tim's boat
blog.mailasail.com/suilven/215
Looks like they had a go and only just escaped
"And then there was this tom fool adventure into the ice. When you decide to go to a place called Arctic Bay, I think you should expect to find Arctic conditions. I could have given them a spot of advice, given my previous high latitude experience, but no, they just set off and Pig and I had to watch mutely as the inevitable consequences unfolded. ‘It’s just across Lancaster Sound,’ they said. ‘It’s got two shops, a school and they sell diesel. Plus it will give us something to do rather than just sitting around here waiting.’ All went well for the first 6 hours and then they spotted the wall of ice. Undaunted, they plunged in, weaving here and there along the leads like the ice pros they thought they were. That is until they reached a dead end. Round we turned, heading off east to find a gap in the ice and then plunging southward again. At last the skipper saw sense, realized we’d never make it through and turned the boat round to follow our track out. Only the track wasn’t there any more, everything had closed up. They faffed around with the long poley things they call ‘tuks’ and made a bit of progress but then ground to a complete halt. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait till things change,’ said the skipper, so there we sat for the next six hours, drifting with the ice, making what progress we could as gaps opened up and then closed again. Young Max came up with an excellent wheeze with the dinghy kedge anchor, whirling it round his head like a lasso and hurling it forwards over huge sheets of ice and just pulling. To everyone’s amazement, blocks of ice the size of tennis courts just started moving, and bit by bit they managed to manoeuver the boat to more open water. The question then was which direction was the way out? The skipper wanted to go East, but compasses don’t work in these waters, and they weren’t moving fast enough for the GPS system to give them a direction, added to which the fog closed in, so they were working completely blind. Luckily, the heat of the sun eventually burned the fog off and a bit of a breeze picked up. They could tell by the sun roughly which direction was East, and made a determined effort to push through the rest of the ice, trying to ignore the crunching sounds as they left behind them a tell-tale trail of blue antifouling. Now they could see the open sea and found themselves surrounded by sheets of ice that were bouncing up and down alarmingly in the swell. No matter, nothing was going to stop them now, they were getting out come what may. A few more nasty bangs and we were away, flying along at 7 plus knots.
I am pleased to say that they made the decision to go straight back to Dundas Harbour, a very safe anchorage which is beginning to feel like home. The dinghy has been launched and inspection of the hull has revealed no damage. Pig and I can breathe easy."
Looks like the other boat also tried to make the trip.
Here is their report
"We had a foretaste of being encumbered by ice a few days ago when we
attempted to reach Arctic Bay, an Inuit settlement about 100 miles south
of here. Soon after we had entered Admiralty Inlet that leads to Arctic
Bay, we were quickly surrounded by ice. We gave up and turned around,
but progress was occasionally impossible and it took us several hours to
reach open water. The photo above should give you an idea of what we had
to go through. We are happy to be in this protected bay … and wait.
Patience is the password in these high latitudes."