Other Arctic route: Northwest passage

bwilson4web · Sep 16, 2013

An excellent source:
Northwest Passage 2013

It looks like at least three yachts made it through this year. The Northwest passage is not practical but still fun for those who like a challenge.

This Canadian map gives a better picture showing 'ice free' is really loose ice:
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/MODISCOM-T/20130909000000_MODISCOM-T_0007257176.pdf

It includes the Northeast passage which rightfully requires ships designed to deal with the ice. This is technical but solvable problem versus an ice sheet. As always at sea, weather remains chaotic.

Bob Wilson

bwilson4web · Sep 26, 2013

In spite of the global warming deniers claims about ice increases blocking Arctic shipping:

Sometime between Sunday and Monday evenings, Greenwich Mean Time, the bulk carrier Nordic Orion passed through the Northwest Passage and into Baffin Bay, sailing into history as it went.

The ship – a 225-metre, ice-strengthened carrier loaded with B.C. coal bound for Finland – became the first bulk carrier to make the voyage, which has lured explorers for more than a century and has long been eyed as a commercial route.
. . .
This is the first time the company has sent one of its vessels through the Northwest Passage. It left Vancouver on Sept. 6, loaded with metallurgical coal. Port Metro Vancouver says the Nordic Orion loaded at Neptune Terminals, which is partly owned by Vancouver-based Teck Corp., one of the world’s biggest producers of metallurgical coal.
. . .
Click to expand...

Source: Ship crosses Northwest Passage, sails into history - The Globe and Mail

The Nordic Orion is off the Southwest coast of Greenland. Having used the NorthWest passage, the global warming deniers are still 'lost at sea.'

Bob Wilson

mojo · Sep 27, 2013

Reality TV stars crossing Northwest Passage on jet skis forced to cancel Arctic trek after costly rescue | National Post
"Ironically, one of the main goals of the expedition had been to demonstrate how ice-free the arctic had become."

bwilson4web · Sep 27, 2013

mojo said: ↑

Reality TV stars crossing Northwest Passage on jet skis forced to cancel Arctic trek after costly rescue | National Post
"Ironically, one of the main goals of the expedition had been to demonstrate how ice-free the arctic had become."
Click to expand...

The full text including the use of elipsis:

. . .
The cost of their rescue easily approached six figures, but the crew have as yet made no overtures to repay the sum, although they did vow to return.

Six days previously, the Last First expedition, a group of four Vancouver men trying to cross the Arctic in a rowboat, were forced to cancel their trip 1,128 km short of their goal after similarly encountering rough weather and passages choked with ice.

Ironically, one of the main goals of the expedition had been to demonstrate how ice-free the arctic had become.

“Some critics have suggested that our truncated journey speaks to the contrary but nothing could be further from the truth,” wrote expedition member Kevin Vallely in a Sept. 7 article for the Vancouver Sun.

“Our slow progress due to high winds and erratic weather demonstrates the difficulties of rowing in an Arctic environment, not the existence or non-existence of climate change.”
Click to expand...

Source: ibid

Perhaps next year they'll do it on water skis and use the NorthEast passage which as of September 28 remains ice free:

NSR - Ice Concentration | Northern Sea Route Information Office

Thank you for playing but you do realize quoting out of context is one of the 'tells' of climate deniers, right?

Bob Wilson

bwilson4web · Sep 27, 2013

The Arctic is not a playground but it isn't universally fatal either:

It cost Canada’s military $2,748,046 to rescue wealthy tourists and a hunting party from a drifting Arctic ice floe this summer after planes and helicopters from five provinces were scrambled to the north — while the tourists were being served dinner in a heated dining tent.
. . .
Immediately after the rescue, the tour director told the Post that the situation “was never an emergency” and his clients “were having dinner served to them and listening to presentations” while the military was mobilizing.

The tour was advertised as costing $10,900, plus $4,524 for return flights from Ottawa to Arctic Bay, based on double occupancy.

Master Warrant Officer Smit said the relative luxury of those being rescued is not part of the military’s calculus.

“Although lives may not have been hanging by a thread at that particular point, in the North or off the coast, things can change quickly,” he said.
“What the people were doing is a detail that doesn’t change the responsibility of the folks at the pointy end of it, those doing the rescue.”

Despite that, the flight crews seemed to be under the impression the victims were “a 20-man research / film crew” rather than tourists and their guides, according to a report written by a Search and Rescue team leader.
. . .
Click to expand...

Source: Canadian military spent $2.7 million to rescue wealthy tourists off of breakaway ice floe | National Post

What isn't clear is who called out for "help."

Bob Wilson

Other Arctic route: Northwest passage

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Other Arctic route: Northwest passage

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