Backup Systems

Having spent two days travelling at high speed behind the Henry Larsen, hopes were high that we’d be able to spend some time ashore today. The weather, and particularly the winds, thought otherwise. A couple of hoped (rather than planned) for landings at Beechey Island last night and on Victoria Island today had to be skipped. High winds and drifting sea ice had the potential to make Zodiac trips both unpleasant and dangerous. The prospect of being stranded ashore roughly where Franklin met his end wasn’t particularly engaging.

A tour of the Academik Ioffe let us get some sight of the scientific tools on-board, the ship still spends several months each year doing research work for the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow. We also got to compare the high tech navigation and control systems on the bridge with the more traditional back-up systems down at the back of the boat. Once all the high tech systems go out, the ship can be steered using a very traditional wooden ships wheel, with instructions coming via a ships phone from an earlier era.

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