The story of Arctic exploration is one of the most interesting and shocking pieces of history I have ever read. The Arctic was mapped with stories of tragedy and triumph. Thousands of men laid down their lives in search of the frozen unknown. An impenetrable ice fortress, the Arctic has always posed a formidable challenge to all explorers who have sought to discover its secrets.
The Arctic took over 300 long years to map. The above video helps to illustrate this long process of discovery in an artistic manner but behind each of those voyages are harrowing stories that deserve careful examination.
In reading about the discovery of the Arctic two trips in particular are of interest to our expedition and those are of Parry in 1819-1820, where his ship made it across most of the Arctic from East to West but was stopped by heavy ice before accomplishing the feat and McClure’s voyage of 1850-1854 which attempted a West to East route but was halted by the same ice that blocked Parry from success some 30 years earlier.
This passage which blocked these explorers from accomplishing a Northern passage through the Arctic in the 1800’s and still to this day remains clogged with ice, is one part of the new Northern route we endeavour to sail this summer. While not battling with ice to achieve this route we hope to visit some of the bays where famous Arctic explorers like Franklin, Parry, Mc Clure, Svendrup and Amundsen wintered to understand what these men experienced hundreds of years ago and how these areas have changed since then.
If you are interested in learning more I suggest reading TO THE ARCTIC! by Jeannette Mirsky first published in 1934 this remains one of the most well written and entertaining accounts of Arctic exploration.
I have installed the NAPS panels and I am very happy with the result. When I was planning to install the solar panels I thought the best way would be to fit one big 130W panel to the radar arch but since we have both a radar and wind generator there I realized that the panel would be shaded in the morning and evening. With even a small amount of shade on the panel the effect of the panel drops. So I came to the conclusion that two 51W panels would do a better job. When one panel is shaded the other one keeps generating power.
NOA solar panel mounts fit perfectly and all I had to do was to drill 4 holes in each panel. After reading the instructions on the NAPS solar panel website I decided to connect the panels in parallel into the Maxpower regulator. At first I thought I would have to fit waterproof connectors to the connector boxes to be able to quickly dismount the panels if the wind increased to much for the arch but after opening the connector boxes I found that NAPS had fitted quicklock connectors and that it would be fast enough to loosen cable fasteners and simply pull out the cables. After fitting the panels I realized that the radar arch could take a lot of wind given that the panels are in a horizontal position.
I chose 11 AWG cable which results in a voltage drop of 0,3 v which I think is acceptable. It is tricky to calculate voltage drop if you are used to a 12v system since the voltage of the panels are around 20v resulting in around 5 A before the regulator. Running the cable was as I described in a previous post a nightmare but once the cables where out connecting them to the regulator was easy.
What is the result? On the day I installed the panels the meter showed 0,5 amps but it was cloudy and late. Saturday around 1500 the sun was shining and the meter rose to 4,3 amps. It will be exciting to see how the panels will behave in the midnight sun!
Today I received a big parcel from our newest partner NOA who is helping us with two smart adjustable solar panel mounts. They are also providing a wide range of the famous NOA fittings which will be extremely helpful to us when we are mounting ice poles, danbouys and anchors onto the pushpit and stanchions.
The panels went up in no time but the cables were not as easy a job. Running 2x 11 AWG cables inside a radar arch with 90 degree turns and filled with cable hoses takes a lot of patience. Fortunately my friend Kalle was there to help me and within a few hours and half can of Vaseline the cables found their way out. To be continued…
