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Victoria University Antarctic Research Expedition Science and Logistics Reports 1992-93: VUWAE 37

Management of Science in the Ross Dependency

Management of Science in the Ross Dependency

Planning the original ship based coring programme did not proceed easily. The difficulties appeared to occur because NSF would only programme a very short time window for NZAP use of the ice-breaker even though previous years experience indicated that the ice-breaker could be available in the Mcmurdo area for several weeks during normal tanker and cargo ship support. Our technical enquiries via NZAP regarding ice-breaker coring and 3.5 Khz equipment also were not passed on to the Coast Guard. This made planning very difficult and ultimately caused us to cancel the ship request. We hope with improved communications between NZAP and NSF-OPP in the future that these difficulties can be overcome.

Our experience with the ice-breaker in February has shown us that we would need to build some special deployment equipment for the vibracorer if we used the ice-breaker in the future. The ice-breaker's inability to stay precisely on station in open water remains a major problem in utilising this ship for open water coring but it is a very suitable platform in pack and fast ice.