Preparations for the Field

The arrival briefing at Scott Base is a very important part of the initial preparation to establish a good working relationship for the progression of a successful field season. This season I was dissapointed that the briefing could not be carried out within a few hours of our arrival at Scott Base consequently it was difficult to plan our work programme until much later the following day after the briefing. Some of the points raised at the briefing seemed to be unnecessary and poorly communicated, especially for an event containing several people with previous antarctic experience including a surveyor and a permanent member of Antarctic Division Staff. I also found if difficult to discuss in detail our survival training requirements without the presence of the survival school instructor at the briefing. This later led to a misunderstanding regarding the purpose of our sea ice part of the training. I am very keen to pass on my sea ice experience to the survival school and would like to do so in the future, but would be concerned if this is taken for granted and occurs at the expense of the science event.

All the field equipment was in excellent condition and much of it already allocated to our event thanks to the Scott Base stores staff and system.

The glacier travel part of the survival training was enjoyable and appreciated by those who participated (Goodwin, Rodgers and Möller). The second part of the course we had hoped to do was a shakedown exercise using the Hagglund and winch. Unfortunately this was cancelled due to bad weather and was modified to a sea ice course primarily for the survival school instructors later in the week. This was at the insistence of the Operations Managers even though it was clear that our science programme would then be delayed because of forecasted bad weather.

We were delayed at Scott base two days due to bad weather after completing the sea ice course requirements. In total we spent 7 full days at Scott Base before leaving for the field which is an unusually long period of time considering that a lot of the vehicle and field equipment preparations had been done prior to our arrival by Scott Base Staff.

The NZARP Survival School provides an excellent service but it still seems to be locked into regular two day courses. I would like to see more flexibility both in the scheduling of courses so that field groups can be accommodated quickly after arrival at Scott Base and in the content and duration of courses to better accommodate many NZARP field personnel who have previous Antarctic experience.

The position of Operations Manager at Scott Base is a crucial one for the field science programme. I think the position would be best filled by personnel with previous NZARP Antarctic experience. This is particularly important so that the field season can start quickly and local knowledge would help in seasons like the past one when the weather was unsettled especially in November. Personnel with previous experience also have first hand experience of the NZARP field programmes and would know many of the science people returning in successive seasons.