At this time of the year, feeling the first few splendidly warm rays of sunshine, I would guess spring is around the corner. So the announcement that the Ice Season is now open took me a little by surprise. I went skating in november and december and made a fool of myself at the Ice rink in Seven Sisters in north London, so this news must be coming from down under, although Australia is not exactly renowned for skating, what is it then?
My momentary confusion is soon cleared, this is issued by the U.S. Department of of Homeland Security and more specifically by the International ICE Patrol. This is serious stuff, nothing humorous there, they have the American Eagle on the Logo, and when the Americans use the Eagle they mean business, or danger. In this case both. The International Ice Patrol has the mission statement of minimising the danger that icebergs pose to commercial and civilian shipping:
While icebergs are a constant navigational hazard in the Arctic, the cold Labrador Current carries some of them south to the vicinity of the Grand Banks and into the great circle shipping lanes between Europe and the major ports of the United States and Canada. Vessels transversing this area try to make their voyage as short and as economical as possible. Therefore, ships in the vicinity of the "limit of all known ice" normally will pass just to the south of this boundary. Vessels passing through Ice Patrol's published ice limit, run the risk of a collision with an iceberg and insurance concerns. In this area the Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream and the temperature differences between the two water masses of up to 20 degrees Celsius, produces dense fog. The combination of icebergs, fog, severe storms, fishing vessels and busy trans-Atlantic shipping lanes makes this area one of the most dangerous. This fact was grimly brought to light with the sinking of the R.M.S. TITANIC in 1912, after it struck an iceberg and approximately 1517 souls perished.
Titanic. Rings a bell. Kate Winslet didn't get the Oscar then.
The 2008 Ice season was pretty active, in fact at the start of the Transat the organisers took the decision of introducing an Ice gate at 40 degrees north forcing the fleet about 150 miles south of the limit of known ice and adding almost 300 miles to the shortest route. The danger to the lives of the skippers was going to be increased unnecessarily in a race where, most likely, the majority of the competitors would have been ready to put their own safety in second order of importance to try to honour the promise of delivering a result to their sponsors. This was the first time an Ice gate was used in a East to West North Atlantic race.
So what about 2009? Well, there seems to be a lot of ice, more than 2008 which could suggest a very exceptional year. The current picture, compared to last year, indicates the presence of ice 100 miles further South and some 200 miles further East and it's the worst start of the ice season I can find on record over the past 10 years. But it's a little early to forecast how it'll develop over the next two months. A lot of the ice goes under the "title" of sea-ice. That's frozen sea, not icebergs. The frozen sea will melt well before the start of the race but that's exactly what will make things exciting. The bergs that over the last 2, 3 years have travelled from the south cost of Greenland in an anti clockwise semi circle to the cost of Canada, across the Labrador sea, and slowly south to the Grand Banks carried by the omonimous Labrador current are now trapped in this layer of frozen sea, ready to make their final jurney to the sweltering heat of the Gulf Stream where they will melt in a matter of days.
The later the sea-ice breaks up the later these bergs will start their final leg of the journey and, unfortunately, the more chances there are that there will be lots of white mountains floating about when we'll have to negotiate that area.
The shortest route cuts right through the ice limit (see the home page of blogSTAR, the shaded area is the ice limit on May 25th a year ago).
There is no ice-gate to stop the more competitive skippers going right through the ice, taking a risk that might not make all that sense after all... but that's for each skipper to decide. In a past where there were no trackers the skippers plotted their course independently, we looked in a previous article how Tablarly won in 1964 avoiding the Ice, Phil Weld won on Moxie on a similar course. Now, it is all there and for all to sea, online, on a plotter.
If you are chasing victory and your direct competitor heads for the ice field, what do you do? You chicken out or follow?
Or imagine finishing second, having avoided the ice, just to see the smiling winner who cut right through and finished just ahead of you.
I overheard a few of the skippers talking about Mary Falk's 1996 35ft class record of 19d 22h 57' on QII which still stands unbeaten after 13 years: I'm sorry to disappoint you if you think this is an easy record to break, Mary is an exceptionally good sailor, fiercely competitive and who achieved the record at her third OSTAR. I'll let you in the fact that she cut right through the ice field and passed just miles south of Virgin Rocks, pretty much following the yellow line on the blogSTAR home page.
An ice gate would remove all these issues but traditionally there has never been one in OSTAR and there won't be one this time round either, after all the O in OSTAR stands for Original, hence no ice-gate. The judgement and seamanship of the skippers will be doubly tested. We'll see the tension grow as the skippers approach the Flemish cap, hold your breath, and see who goes south and who will brave the ice field. Brrrrrr brrrr brave. I feel cold already.
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