After a badly written piece for a French news wire service, a false story has started circulating through the Internet.
Amazing how rapidly inaccurate information can spread.
The first corrections are starting to appear and we liked the postings by Dan Xavier. One is reproduced in full on BSD - The Detector
A typical false story can be found at tinyurl.com/3992TQ
That "typical false story" link leads right back to my NB blog chronicling the misadventures of Wrong Way Flanagan yesterday. I'm not sure what false information Wrong Way is referring to but let us now check that Don Xavier BSD - The Detector post that he referred to titled, Spot the Real Moron:
So now we know that P.J. Gladnick is a covert member of the Church of Global Warming - he displays their determination never to let facts and accuracy get in the way of a good sneer, or an unfounded shock horror story.
Huh? I'm somehow a covert member of the Church of Global Warming? That's news to me. However, let us permit Don Xavier to continue to have his say:
But how much of a Moron is P.J. Gladnick?
Well the mitigation is that it all started with a sloppy piece of journalism by the Moscow bureau of a French news wire service, mis-reporting on the Alpha Global Expedition. Then an Australian publication, that should have known better, copied the news wire without any checking on the storyline.
Don must be referring to the Moscow News Weekly article, Global Warming is Here, that I quoted in my blog:
A British yachtsman, Adrian Flanagan, is due shortly to head off from Chukotka to attempt the first solo sail through the Northern Sea Route.
While one Chukotka port official described this as "kamikaze," Flanagan too is optimistic. Contacted by AFP he said that the ice looked set to recede at least as far as in 2005, which was a record year. But while some see opportunities, others are already counting the costs of climate change.
So, Don, are you saying that Wrong Way did NOT state that "the ice looked set to recede at least as far as in 2005?" Well, take a look at the date of the Moscow News Weekly article quoting AFP. It says August 16, 2007. If there was a big error in the article, why wait until NOW to complain? This story came out 3 weeks ago. However let us continue to allow Don to vent:
P.J. Gladnick then joined the bunch of folk who followed the Australians, adding their own ignorant spin to the false story line. Most of these folk are cousins of the rubberneckers who cause disaster on the freeway staring at an auto crash on the other lane as they drift past.
First the French, then the Russians, and finally the Australians. It's a conspiracy I tell you to drag down the good name of Wrong Way Flanagan. Again, Don, if the original AFP report was false, why didn't Mr. Flanagan or you correct them? We return now to Don:
The moronic part was that none of these folk needed to take the French story without checking and there is a heap of accurate information out on the Internet covering the Alpha Global Expedition - but hey! If you only want to swim in mud why bother?
The moronic part was that none of the expedition folks corrected AFP. So tell us, Don. Was Flanagan counting on the ice to recede at least as far as 2005? And if not, then why the heck did Wrong Way allow himself to be stuck in the arctic? Continue Don:
The Alpha Global Expedition has never had anything to do with a belief in Global Warming. Adrian Flanagan is not trapped in ice and has not pleaded for rescue by an ice breaker.
May I be so bold, Don, as to quote the September 3 blog of one Adrian Flanagan:
Plan A is to wait for a break in the ice.
Plan B is to meet a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker which will lift Barrabas aboard and carry her through the heavy ice and relaunch her on the other side.
I'm not sure if they speak English in Britain but here in the Colonies when you are waiting for a break in the ice to make an exit, it does tend to mean you are TRAPPED by ice. Also Plan B does sound suspiciously like a plea for the services of a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker. I don't think that in the arctic you will just "meet" without planning for it in advance. Let us now allow Don to review all the plans available to the boat that is "not" trapped in ice nor asked for the services of a nuclear powered ice breaker:
The real story is that Alpha Global Expedition have been checking Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, Plan E.
Plan A is to sail through the shallow intercoastal, or the deep water NSR passage, if favourable conditions exist after the forecast change in wind and temperature - due to start from September 9 and last maybe eight days.
Plan B is to be picked up at sea by one of two nuclear-powered icebreakers at sea and be carried through the short section of 7/10 thick ice, relaunching in clear water to the West of PVK Strait. That plan is now unlikely because the weight of Barrabas is beyond the capacity of the lifting equipment on the icebreakers, even if all stores and moveable equipment are first removed from the yacht -lifting a yacht at sea in rough conditions is not for the faint hearted.
Plan C is to sail back East to the Port of Tiksi and be lifted onto a large ice hardened merchant ship that is preparing to go through the PVK Strait in convoy with icebreakers. Once through the Strait the cargo ship would put into the Port of Dickson offload the yacht, which would continue to sail to Murmansk on its own.
Plan D is to sail back to Tiksi and join a collection of vessels, some now there for their third year, waiting to see if the ice will be kind next year.
Plan E is to take a very big risk and enter the intercoastal as soon as the ice thins in a few days time, hoping to make it to the other side before new ice forms. If the yacht becomes trapped it will be crushed and Adrian may have to take to his survival dinghy which is designed to sail, or be rowed, also to become a sledge across ice, or a shelter on the ice.
Don, I wouldn't really count on Plan E working since, although weather forecasting is notoriously inaccurate especially when predicting lack of ice in the arctic, it is a good bet that every day that goes by it gets colder, much colder, up there as the sun rises lower on the horizon until it disappears in a few weeks. This will ultimately lead to Plan F which stands for Freeze in the arctic. My advice is to skip Plan A, B, C, D, E and for Flanagan to make a beeline by foot for the nearest warm hut to sit out the winter. And now Don finishes off with a climatological history lesson:
Notes for the global warmingly challenged:
Some believe the first passage of the NSR was more than a thousand years back by a Viking longship - probably employing portage around any thick ice as the Vikings moved their ships across land when they used the Russian rivers to go from the Baltic to the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean.
Great. So all Flanagan has to do is wait another thousand years for the arctic ice to melt enough for him to resume his expedition. And now for Don's grand finale:
In forgotten history the temperatures were very much higher than they are today and higher than the most hysterical doom forecasts from Global Warmers. It is not known whether this was due to the excessive use of 4×4 and SUV vehicles by an ancient lost civilization, pollution caused by flatulent dinosaurs, or just the continuing process of climate change as the Earth passes through cycles of increasing, or decreasing, temperature.
So if you (and I assume Adrian) understand that the Global Warmers give us hysterical forecasts, just WHAT is Wrong Way doing stuck in the arctic ice (note that I said "stuck" not "trapped")? Since Mr. Flanagan seems to be occupying his free time reading my incredible NewsBusters blog, please allow me to serenade him up in the frozen arctic with The Ballad of Flanagan's Ice written by that unfrozen Lutheran pastor, Charles Henrickson (sung to the tune of The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle):
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a stupid schmuck
Who thought he'd sail through Arctic seas
Without his getting stuckHis name is Wrong Way Flanagan
A name that Nature dealt
He bought the global warming crap
And bet the ice would melt
And bet the ice would meltThe weather started getting cold
The ice began to form
And soon Wrong Way began to see
The globe is not that warm
The globe is not that warmIt's been an Inconvenient Tour
And Wrong Way's paid the price
His yacht is stuck in dire straits
Conditions, not so nice
The polar bears are hungry too
Here on Flanagan's Ice!
