More Lessons learned from a summer in ice
Posted in Boat, Posts by Nick, Uncategorized on Oct 27th, 2011
Lesson 4: Supplies
In many ways the first half of our trip was a shake down voyage. We were getting to know the boat, breaking in a new engine and getting an overall feel for how accurate our calculations were for how long our water, food and fuel reserves would last throughout our trans-Atlantic.
We were surprised how close our estimates were to what we would actually use, but we learnt some valuable lessons that will certainly assist us in our provisioning for the Arctic. The Arctic environment both provides and restricts. We realized that diesel fuel prices are cheap and there is plenty of kerosene around at subsidized rates. We also
noticed an abundance of fresh water around that we could tap into. However, we realized how difficult it is to find any descent food up north. It is so bad that we site it as a public health hazard, rotten fruits and vegetables, few dairy products but plenty of cookies, crisps and junk food. We realized how much chocolate, butter, bread and cheese we ate and will need to plan accordingly for this. The north is home to many surprises where ports get clogged with ice and boats get trapped in ice. We need to be self sufficient for months.
- We realized that water wise we were going to be fine we never able to empty the tank between ports, and since fresh water rivers are pretty common along Greenland’s and Northern Canada’s coast we will just bring along water bags to transport the fresh water from land to the boat.
- Fuel wise the engine was slightly more thirsty than we had anticipated and ice conditions requires significant motoring. Our 120 liter tank and four 25 liter Jerry cans on board are not sufficient. We will try to add another 100 liter diesel bladder to the bilge of the boat, along with extra kerosene, oil and gasoline tanks for the stove and dinghy engine.
- Most of the provisions on board consist of basic foodstuffs. We carry few canned goods on board for weight reasons but will consider more due too the lack of fesh vegetables in the north. We will certainly bring enough food to keep us going for at least half a year to a year in case we become trapped in ice. Would love to have an oven but a stove will have to do, we must make chapati, pan bread and maybe even bread in a pressure cooker.
We thought we were well prepared to get all the information we required at sea regarding ice, but quickly we found that this was not so. We had three ways of getting ice information, through sailmail, by weather fax and finally the Iridium Satellite phone.
ualize. Edvin texted a friend in Sweden to try and shrink some satellite photos small enough so that we could receive it by email but this didn’t work out either. Finally we hooked up the satellite phone and decided to take on the cost and tried to download some charts. We did not enjoy finding ourselves on the coast of Greenland depending on other yachties to give us their visual ice conditions and the descriptions we received by radioing local weather stations. While we felt very comfortable in the ice and tested the boat taking into 7-8 tenths for the fun of it we learned some valuable lessons for next year.
