[GCARC] Fwd: [FRC] 3Y0Z Throws in the towel
Chuck Colabrese
colabrese at comcast.net
Sun Apr 29 18:05:50 EDT 2018
To all,
Here's an email about the recent, ill fated, 3Y0Z Bouvet DXpedition.
Go to the DX World link for the complete story and pictures.
73, Chuck, WA2TML
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: "Zev Darack zevdarack at gmail.com [gofrc]" <gofrc-noreply at yahoogroups.com>
> To: FRC <gofrc at yahoogroups.com>
> Date: April 28, 2018 at 11:54 PM
> Subject: [FRC] 3Y0Z Throws in the towel
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> Latest news....no 2019 return...planning to return any leftover funds....details at this link
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> https://dx-world.net/3y0z-bouvet-2018/
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> Below is from K0IR and explains some of the issues they had.
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> 73, Zev N2WKS
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> Punta Arenas
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> What will follow, in a series of posts and photos, is an abbreviated story of my 7th voyage into the Southern Ocean and its sub-Antarctic islands. It begins on January 10th when our international team of 20 started assembling in Punta Arenas, Chile. We planned to begin our voyage to Bouvet Island three days later.
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> We did not achieve our goal of landing on Bouvet. Nature (wind, rough seas, clouds, and fog); mechanical issues with our ship; and human factors collided to make completing this expedition impossible. But we all arrived home safely – somewhat discouraged and disappointed – but home and safe.
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> I’ll divide these posts into four topics: Punta Arenas, The Voyage, Bouvet Island, and The Retreat to Cape Town, South Africa.
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> This was my fifth visit to the southern tip of Chile and the city of Punta Arenas. The attached photos depict a bit of that city and its contrasts. It’s a maritime city with many European descendants. The city is uniquely positioned on the Straits of Magellan to allow access to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and Antarctica. The climate of Punta Arenas is maritime and moderated by its proximity to the sea. It is a windy place.
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> The city began as a penal colony and place where military people “with issues” we sent to reconsider their past. In succession; a gold rush, immigrants from Europe, lucrative sheep farming, the city’s key position on the Straits of Magellan, and staging for Antarctic expeditions and tourism brought the city to its current level of importance in the Chilean economy.
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> Upon arrival in Punta Arenas we were met with delays.. Our ship was being converted from a factory fishing vessel to a passenger and expedition ship and the reconfiguration was not complete. We spent 8 days waiting in two hotels, The last 6 of these days were in a hotel called The Yellow Submarine. Is there an omen in this name? The photos below are from walkabouts during that waiting period. At 3 AM on January 17th, three of us were allowed to inspect the vessel. After 2 more days of anxious waiting, our entire team was welcomed aboard our ship, The Betanzos, to begin our voyage to Bouvet.
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> Ralph – K0IR
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> 3Y0Z Story from Ralph Fedor K0IR
> The Voyage:
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> On January 19th vans picked us up at the Yellow Submarine Hotel and took the team and our luggage to our ship. We were processed through Customs and Immigration and taken to the pier where the Betanzos was moored.
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> The vessel lay there listing to starboard by about 5 degrees. Helicopters had been landed on the vessel, had their blades removed, and were covered in protective black canvas.. Barrels of gasoline for our generators and over 3,000 gallons of JP-1 fuel for the helicopters took up most of the space on the main deck. A few ceremonious toasts celebrated the maiden voyage of the newly refurbished vessel, tugs moved the Bentanzos away from the pier, and we were underway.
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> We sailed eastward in the Magellan Straits, watched Punta Areans fade into the horizon, and then entered the open ocean. We passed to the south of the Falkland Island and then on January 24th sailed along the north coast of South Georgia. I have visited both of these islands previously. South Georgia with its rich history, magnificent scenery, and abundant wildlife is truly one of the most unique places on our planet.
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> Once past South Georgia, things began to change. Temperatures dropped, the wind increased, the seas became rougher, northerly drifting icebergs appeared, and points of failure began revealing themselves. Although it was relatively quiet on one afternoon, a great commotion and ruckus erupted in cabin one. It seems that during the ship’s refurbishing, two ends of a fresh water line had not been connected and when the crew began swabbing the deck water gushed out of the ceiling of cabin one. Two very wet and very surprised occupants emerged and water surged over the door lip and down the hallway. On a particularly rough night, brackets securing furniture to the floor failed. Couches, chairs, and tables broke loose and flew about the room breaking off various parts. And a little later, a new leak appeared.
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> As we neared Bouvet, we sorted the equipment in our containers, staging it for landing. Other problems with the ship manifested themselves, like water shooting upward out of the toilets at inopportune times; a particular problem for those dealing with severe seasickness. Through it all, the Flex radios and the coax and antennas from DX Engineering were there for our maritime mobile operation as we passed through the rare maidenhead grid squares of the Southern Ocean.
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> The Island
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> As we neared Bouvet, we practiced erecting our shelters and queued their components for landing. They were stowed in a large open area of the ship’s bow. We were immediately concerned about how heavy the floors of the shelters had been constructed and how this would impact our helicopter loading. We also became very concerned when we discovered an unsealed hatch that could result in flooding of this large area. The crew immediately attended to the hatch after we pointed out the neglect.
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> Early in the morning of January 31st, we saw Bouvet. At first it was a faint shadow obscured by shrouds of fog, but as hours passed visibility began to improve. The winds were peaking at 20 to 22 knots and our inclinometer indicated 12 to 15 degree rolls. As the ship’s starboard listing decreased, our rolling seemed to increase but we put that thought aside and began serious discussions with our helicopter pilots. We stressed the need to capitalize on short weather windows. There was no resultant effort to prep the helicopters or move zodiacs out of the away from the aircraft.
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> The following day we navigated up and down the east coast of Bouvet, doing some soundings and identifying anchorages. Our pilots informed us that rolls of the ship had to be 5 degrees or less for them to fly. About mid-day, we had a weather window, but again there was no effort to prepare the helicopters. When confronted, the chief pilot said he saw a cloud approaching the island from the west and that it would be over us in about two hours and that was reason enough not to fly. Indeed the cloud did come, but we lost a two hour window. The helicopters remained covered and the zodiacs blocking them in place were not moved.
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> Anxious to get a team ashore, I was on the bridge at 4 AM the next morning. The seas were calm but the ship was still rolling at 5 degrees, it always rolled. The winds were about 10 knots, and visibility was 3 to 4 miles. But I and the officer on watch were the only ones around. There were no pilots, no mechanic, and no one uncovering the helicopters or moving the zodiacs. The pilots showed up at about 8 AM as the weather closed in. We had lost another window. “Oh,” they said, “We really should have a 24 hour windnow to fully evaluate the island.” On Bouvet that is very, very unlikely to happen. We had told them that. Another flying window was lost.
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> Also on that day, one of the officers took me aside. He said to me, “How are you going to do this? One of you looks and acts like he is 85.” Then somehow the term, “New Plan” became the buzz word and diversion. But this new plan was really no different than our original plan, to sequence our landing operations so the on-islnd infrastructure would always support the number of people ashore. Nothing changed.
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> Our urging finally did stimulate some action on the helicopter deck. Some of the ship’s crew assembled to move the zodiacs. What ensued was a cluster of errors with a barely functional crane dangerously jerking and swinging so wildly that efforts were abandoned. The weather worsened and we bounced around a fair amount as we went to bed that night. It would be a night we would never forget.
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> At 11:30 PM local time my roommates and I awoke suddenly, almost simultaneously, and with the same terrifying thought, FIRE! The smell of smoke in our cabin was building rapidly.. We bolted from our bunks and opened our door. The hallway way was filled with smoke. The smell and our shouts awakened everyone. We hastily put on whatever clothes we could find, put on life jackets and moved quickly outside to the main deck area and counted ourselves. We were all there. Shock and fear was written on our faces as we contemplated how it would end---- in milliseconds when the 3,000 gallons of jet fuel next to us exploded, in moments of hypothermia in the frigid waters, or after days of dehydration in the lifeboat that contained no food, water, or other provisions. And, with the malfunctioning crane it seemed the only way the lifeboat could be launched would be by floating off the deck as the ship went down. Through all of this, the ship’s fire alarms never when off and the smoke detectors never sounded.
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> In time the source of the smoke was identified. A flexible coupling in the shaft between the starboard engine and the gear box had overheated, most likely due to improper alignment of the two components of the drive shaft. When the smoke cleared we returned to our quarters with the ship down to one engine and 2,700 miles from Punta Arenas.
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> What we awoke to the following morning was surreal. Bouvet was sparkling in the sun with the ceiling and visibility essentially unlimited and the winds light and variable. It was a perfect day for landing on Bouvet. But with only one engine functional, the captain deemed it unsafe to continue our stay at Bouvet. Our mission was aborted.
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> We began our return to Punta Arenas, but with one engine running conservatively and against the winds and the sea, we made little forward progress and changed our course and turned toward Cape Town, South Africa, about 1000 miles closer. We were all disheartened. The captain tried to console us by telling us the weather at Bouvet was forecast to be bad for the next ten days. Later we would learn that the men at the Norwegian base were taken off Bouvet by helicopter without incident two days after our departure.
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> So we began our voyage to Cape Town. But before we arrived there more shoes would fall. Stay tuned..
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> This is the fourth of my posts. If you have not read the earlier ones, I suggest you do that first by scrolling down to them. In order they are: Punta Arenas, The Voyage, and The Island.
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> The Voyage to Cape Town:
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> We left Bouvet bound for Punta Arenas. Some of us suggested that going to Cape Town might be safer, but headquarters said, “Punta Arenas.” So it was, the captain set a course for Punta Arenas --- for a time.
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> February 5, 2018: The ship carried a spare flexible coupling and the crew decided to put it in place in the disabled starboard propulsion system. That night the team was involved in another cluster. We again found ourselves on the pitch black, cold, and windy deck in our lifejackets until the heat and smoke of the second failed coupling subsided. Disbelief, disgust, and distrust were written on our faces yet again. What else could go wrong? We changed course for Cape Town.
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> Then came February 7th. About half of the team was in the lounge area. We were moving at about 7 or 8 miles per hour on our single engine and rolling about 10 degrees. Suddenly dirty blackish water emerged from beneath the mopboards or trim boards covering the junction between the walls and floor. With each roll cycle water streamed across the floor to the opposite wall and back again, gaining volume with each cycle. Pent-up foul language ensued form team members. Shorty, crew members arrived with mops and buckets, but they could not keep up with the inflow.
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> The greatest volume of water seemed to be coming from the rear starboard corner of the room. Prybars were fetched and sheets of paneling were ripped off the wall, revealing the problem. Behind the paneling was an open 16-inch pipe that communicated with an open tank on the deck. Rain and sea water had collected in the tank, drained into the pipe, and then flowed into the lounge.. Closing this access had been neglected. It was merely covered over with paneling. Repairs ensued, the paneling was replaced, and things dried out.
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> Some sense of ability, order, and skill came from watching the seabirds following us. These magnificent creatures were with us almost constantly while we were in the colder ocean waters. They seldom flapped a wing. Rather, they soared effortlessly and gracefully on wind currents generated by the ocean swells. They are hatched on sub-Antarctic islands, and depending on the species, their first flight will take them to sea and will last from two to three years before they return to land. During its lifetime an albatross will fly the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe 12 times and parents will fly 600 miles to find the right food for their chicks. We looked at them in awe and envy --- THEY were the ones fit for purpose.
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> Two hundred miles from Cape Town we saw the first evidence of other human beings since leaving the Straits of Magellan. Two Chinese oil tankers crossed behind us from our port side. The seas grew noticeably quieter, but we continued to roll disproportionately. I decided to ask a crew member about this. “Oh,” he replied. “When the heavy fish factory machinery was removed there was no weight added to compensate. Tons of concrete should have been added for ballast.” I cannot verify his assessment, but it certainly sounds logical and explains why we rolled so much, even in the Cape Town harbor.
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> As we neared Cape Town the ship’s officers communicated with South African Customs and Immigration. They relayed to us that we would need to show our passports and documents confirming our flights out of the country. We had not planned on being here and had no internet to go on line and obtain airline reservations and when we called the airlines on our satellite phone, the waiting time was in excess of two hours. That’s very costly waiting time. We sailed on.
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> Shortly after entering the harbor on February 17th, we noticed a 32 foot ketch bearing down on us. As it neared us it began blaring “CQ” on its horn. Aboard was an eclectic collection of hams from southern Africa who sailed out to welcome us. They even facilitated getting our clearance to cross the breakwater.
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> Finally, when the ship was moored, we were able to set up a hot spot, go online, and secure our travel documents. Of course, when we did pass through immigration, no one asked for these documents.
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> Nineteen of us enjoyed the company of the local hams and a banquet they sponsored. Poor Nodir had to remain on the Betanzos because of visa problems and our unexpected arrival. Later he would have a police escort to the airport.
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> The following evening, after 31 days at sea, I began my 20 hour flight home to Minnesota via Amsterdam.
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> Next up: Epilogue
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> Posted by: Zev Darack <zevdarack at gmail.com>
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