The Ice Breaking Saga
Posted: Monday, March 05, 2007
by Ieuan Dolby
The Mariners Articles
I have been looking forward to seeing ice ever since I first heard that I would be sailing on these new ice-breakers! I've been jumping in anticipation for over a year and now after less than two hours of breaking the stuff I wish that I never see anything more than an ice-cube clinking in my glass! Even that will be hard to swallow!
Shadows cast On the Ice
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007
The first ice pack was breached at around 3 am when I was curled up and fast asleep in my bunk! Despite having been warned as to the noise that the vessel makes when ice-breaking I was totally un-prepared for it and so, as the bow rode onto the ice to crush it asunder, I was abruptly removed form the deep sleep that I was having! For some reason my brain, still lagging behind in the shift from home to ship, decided that this was an earthquake and that the building I was in was about to collapse! Before leaping out of bed and running out into the street my brain kicked in and made me sink further under the duvet until a sensible answer came to light!
Eventually, having realized that I was after all on the vessel, I came to the conclusion that the bow thrusters had started and as I had been told that the breaking of ice is similar to the sound of the bow thrusters it was not long after that it sunk in that at long last I was in the midst of an ice field! Quite elated at the thought, I jumped into a pair of jeans, threw on a t-shirt and opened the door on deck to see; I didn't see much as it was night and common sense told me that I needed more than a t-shirt in the -28 degrees outside!
Broken Feild Ice and the Moliqpak
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007
The ice out here is not as exciting as an ice-berg; it is to put it simply a mishmash of meandering slabs floating around. These white pancakes are anything from 1 to 150cm thick, they can be tiny, recently formed albino lotus leaves or if it is cold enough they will be hundreds of miles across! They can be newly formed, a mixture of disjointed pieces that have frozen together in crazy -paving style and as these slabs meet and are pressurized against each other ridges are formed! These ridges can build up; they can then crack and fall down or rise up enough to actually disturb the horizon. Blow holes are frequently sighted, little holes in the slabs that spout seawater out and sometimes seals. Seals use these blow holes to get some fresh air, they pop out with a gush of seawater or clamber out if the notion takes them. Mother seals watch their seal cubs run and play and then when the big, bad noisy ship comes along she shepherds them down the blow hole and after throwing an angry glance our way follows them under the ice and to safety.
The ice is continually on the move! Currents and wind cause constant shifting; a vessel in the ice without power would drift with the ice! The ice is formed north of Sakhalin Island in what is known as the soup Kitchen. This ice is then picked up by the currents and drifts downwards to the South. As it gets further south and encounters the warmer waters and the warmer days the ice melts so that by the time the port of Kholmsk is reached there is no ice left! For the most part though the ice circles around the northern and middle part of the Island where it builds up and secures itself to the land. Where the ice has melted large patches of open water exists but these will be filled as more ice and the colder weather pushes more down from the soup kitchen above, compressing it and making harder and larger ridges as the winter gets colder and the nights shorter.
The job of the Pacific Endeavour and her sister vessels is varied; but as here and now our task is to take some cargo from the port of Kholmsk to the production platform called the Luna A. This is a two day journey from the port, nine hours of it in open waters and the rest in ice of varying thicknesses and battering requirements. If the ice is of a relatively typical thickness of say 30cm our speed will not be reduced by too much and with the addition of some more power a good 12 knots can be maintained.
Steaming through Light Ice
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007
To break ice the vessel simply batters her way through at speed and in a straight line. The bow may rise up slightly as it encounters a solid piece and then through shear weight and brute force will crumble the slab into smaller pieces which will then be washed away down the sides of the vessel, past and out at the stern. A relatively simple task and one that the vessel is more than capable of achieving without pause for contemplation. The noise though during this exercise is disturbing, even three decks above in my cabin it sounds like an amplified version of somebody thrashing their legs wildly in the swimming pool. It is a constant banging and thrashing of a thousand broken lumps of ice bumbling their way along the steel hull to be ejected at the other end.
As the ice gets thicker the harder the vessel has to work and the noisier the operation becomes. As the thickness broaches 50cm the speed is reduced slightly and more power is applied, the vessel rises higher as she has to slide the bow further up the slabs before they cave in under the pressure, the bits that are broken are larger and make louder bangs as they are forcefully pushed astern by the bow wake formed.
Pancake Ice with the Coastline as a backdrop
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007
And then the larger thicknesses are reached, no weak points, no slabs that have already been broken up or have not yet joined themselves to another and so with all four engines on and with all available power at the finger tips the vessel is purposefully charged at the mass. As she hits she shudders along the whole length of the vessel; those in their bunks will be thrown from side to side, a glass left on a table will jump to the edge and the harmonics will set in. It is not just one shudder it is a series of shudders that reduce in strength until the next slab of ice is attacked. At this point the noise is deafening. There is nothing nice about this operation, the ship shudders as 20,000 horses and three thousand tones encounters a large and immovable object that has no intention of doing anything else except sitting there! The ship wins in the end, the simple equation of brute force against laziness wins over and the ship will move forwards, it may not do so at the 12 knots it would prefer, but at four knots it is still showing all whose boss!
Even now, after experiencing reality I find it hard to imagine that ice can require such immense power to control it. I can only refer to my fridge back home and the times when I have angrily banged away at a bag of ice cubes that refuses to break off into smaller lumps. I have often thrown the bag on the floor, rapidly swung it at the corner of the counter (thus chipping the Formica surface to my wife's chagrin) or attacked it with a meat cleaver, but more often than not I usually end up having to run hot water over it to break some pieces off. If I look at ice-breaking in this way then yes, a solid slab of ice that is miles long, that is actually moving towards us at say 2 knots and that is thicker than my whole fridge back home then yes, it requires more than a slight tap from the bow to make it succumb!
Me, Getting a bit nippy!
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2007
I am sure that over time I will get used to the incessant banging and grumbling, the creaking and the shuddering and that a pair of ear muffs and some good padding will allow me to sleep better but wow, it's not as adventurous or exciting as I originally imagined. Nothing to get up and run outside to see in the middle of the night for anyway but then the opportunity to sail on this all singing all dancing mean machine, to experience a different setting and way of seafaring and to enjoy getting my fingers frozen off as I seek the perfect photograph will outweigh the negative side that at this moment in times wants to make me say "I don't like the ice anymore"!
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