Stuck in the Ice = No Vacation
I was scheduled to go on another trip aboard the Kapitan Khlebnikov, this time circumnavigating Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Yesterday afternoon I received a call from the tour operator that the trip was being canceled because the Khlebnikov (a 123-meter Russian icebreaker) was stuck in the ice near Barrow, Alaska during it’s Nortwest Passage tour and wouldn’t be able to get to Resolute, Nunavut, Canada (the embarkation point for our voyage) in time for our trip. Damn. My first thought was “That sucks,” my second thought was “I’m glad I’m not on the Northwest Passage trip.”
Doing a little reasearch on the web, I learned from a CBC news story that there were actually three icebreakers stuck in the ice off Barrow. In addition to the Khlebnikov, the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier and US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy were also stuck. Here’s the story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/northwest-passage/logbook.html.
The USCGC Healy has extensive information available on the web, including mission information, tracking map and pictures from it’s webcam.
The Healy and is back on the move, but I grabbed a some of the data and images from the past week so you can see what they’ve been up against, after the cut…
Here’s the tracking map for the period of July 15 – 29, 2006. Notice the relative lack of progress from July 18 – 25.
Here are a couple pictures taken from the bowcam. As you can see from the timestamps on the images, the first was taken on July 21st at 3AM and the second was taken on July 23rd at 6AM. It must have been an exciting 51 hours.
The Khlebnikov doesn’t seem to make their tracking information public, but I suspect it’s also back on the move since I was also able to get a tracking map for the CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier from July 14 – 29, 2006, which shows that it’s making progress along the coast of Alaska.
I’d even started to prepare the map for my photo album website. Oh well. So my efforts don’t feel like a complete waste, here it is:
If you’re interested in icebreaker trips, you should read about azipod propulsion (swiveling props).
There are lots of variations. New ice breaking vessels are being built that are designed to reverse and travel stern first. The pull/turbulent action at the effective bow helps break ice much more efficently.
Comment by David in VA — July 1, 2007 @ 11:19 am